Constable Kenny Koala has been working out over summer and is looking like a new koala! Do you like his spiffy new jacket and cap? Kenny is a much loved community liason officer with the Australian Federal Police, and has been educating children in Canberra on a range of crime prevention and child safety messages for the last 25 years or more.
Chris Sickels at Red Nose Studio makes real figures and scenarios that are then photographed to produce cool 3D illustrations for papers, magazines and books. The 3D illustration above is his cover for Cory Doctorow’s story The Things That Make Me Weak and Strange Get Engineered Away. Before seeing this I had thought of 3D illustration as more a virtual rendering process. In this real form it is closely, and interestingly, allied to my work making puppets and props. I recently had a picture of my 3D fail whale published as an illustration in the Japanese computer magazine WEB+DB PRESS. I suppose that is fairly close – the only difference is in your intention when you start making an object?
(via @LolaLulu)
Here are some first glimpses of the Wild Things from Spike Jonze’s film adaptation of Where The Wild Things Are. They feature on a limited series of skateboards made by the company that Jonze co-founded, Girl Skateboards Company. In a previous post there is a link to an article about the making of the creatures, and their filming on the Mornington Peninsular in Victoria.
(via Puppets in Melbourne, PuppetVision and /film)
Remember the Monster Workshop puppets made by Paul Vincett, a 3D illustrator and puppet maker? Check out the cool new arrivals in the Monster Workshop adoption Store, and Paul’s new blog. Or maybe you will join the monster rug trend? ;)
This woman is a computer generated animation by Image Metrics. Pretty amazing. Though I do wonder if being able to reproduce a real person like this is a good use of time and resources? The Times Online has more details. The makers say 90% of the work is in convincing people that the eyes are real, lending even more weight to what puppet makers and lovers know about the eyes being the window to the soul.
Previously: Uncanny Valley
The Pacific School Games will be held in Canberra this year, from 30 Nov to 6 Dec. About 5000 primary and secondary school students from Australia and Pacific countries will be competing. I made their mascot, a bunyip, which was launched a few weeks ago. Here is a photoset of the making process. I like the way its tail waggles the best:
Photos from my studio yesterday, and the elephant drying by the fire overnight.
(photo: Sidat de Silva)
Looking for a Monster is based on an original puppet play written by a thirteen year old boy, Hanus Hachenburg in the Terezin concentration camp in 1943, shortly before his transportation to the Auschwitz Death Camp. In 1999, puppeteer Gary Friedman discovered the play in a Jerusalem archive. It was performed for the first time in 2001 and has just been filmed in Sydney for inclusion in Gary’s documentary film about the life of Hanus Hachenburg. Gary has a slideshow of photos taken at the shoot in the sidebar of his blog, Puppetry News, and you can also see individual photos in this gallery.
Incidentally, Gary is running another Puppetry for TV course starting in June.
Following on from yesterday’s post about candidate finger puppets made from card, Abbey Hambright has felt finger puppets of Obama for sale.
