Missmonster at Instructables details how she made her fabulous, scary and very furry werewolf costume. This photo is pre-fur!
(via Puppetbuilding.com)
DIY Jabba the Hutt
A thread on Star Wars Crafts documents the making of a cool giant Jabba the Hutt parade puppet. This photo is from about midway through the process, before it is skinned. It’s made from all kinds of things that I am very familiar with working with – mattress foam, irrigation pipe, tons of hot glue, spray adhesive, stretchy fabric and so on! And it has a suitably gross tongue, seen in action here. (It reminds me of the Big Heads.)
If you are interested in the making of the original Jabba, follow the links in this post at PuppetVision.
(via Boing Boing)
Pollies masks
The GreensBlog has some politician masks you can download and print. They were intended for halloween, but, you know, they might come in handy in the next few weeks!
Here in Canberra this time around we have a unique opportunity to alter the balance of power in the Senate immediately. The Coalition parties hold 20 of the 40 seats in the Senate, and it only requires the loss of one of their seats to a progressive to bring some accountability back to the Senate. In the ACT we can do that immediately if only 11,000 people change their vote to a progressive one in the Senate. GetUp! is running a campaign and unique multi-party ad to this effect.
Federation Skippet replica
I’ve just finished making a second replica silver seal box, known as a skippet, for the National Archives of Australia. I made the first one (above) earlier this year. They are used as hands-on items in the National Archives Charters of our Nation exhibition. Making the skippet was an interesting and challenging project because it was finely detailed and required the use of some materials that I wasn’t familiar with, such as sculpey, silicone and resin. It also had to be done from photos only, as the original skippet is too precious to be handled by anyone other than archivists.
I visited the archives collection in Mitchell, and was able to look at and photograph the skippet. It’s a rather beautiful 7 inch diameter silver box that holds a Queen Victorian beeswax seal. An ornately tasseled cord attached to the federation documents is embedded into the core of the seal and runs through holes in the side of the skippet. On the hinged and slightly domed lid of the skippet is the Victorian Coat of Arms:
My photoset at Flickr shows the making process in detail, with comments and explanations, but here are a few photos of the main steps:
The sculpey modelling in and early stage:
… and finished, just before baking:
The silicon mold and the final cast of the lid:
Another view of the completed skippet:
More here.
PMS monster
Amy reminded me of this today, my PMS monster, from October 1997, ten years ago. In the past in more ways than one! If I remember right, I did the drawings and Amy animated it. I didn’t know how to, or even how to put things online then.
Shock-headed magnetism
This is what I was imagining when I saw Amy’s post about Al Gore Rhythms, and the accompanying image of iron filings! My pareidolia inclinations are compulsive. I hadn’t made the direct connection between what I was wanting to see, and Woolly Willy, but surely it was just below there in the subconscious from my childhood, ready to be stirred by Amy’s joining of the dots! I guess etch-a-sketch and magnadoodle are more modern versions of the iron filing toys, but neither they nor the online Woolly Willy have quite the same wild and random results that make the real visible filings so satisfying.
It made me think about another toy from my childhood, often just a party favour. It was a small chain anchored in two places on a card. The chain had enough play in it to fall loosely between the two, making shapes that you could imagine were funny face profiles. When I was a kid I would play with the chain that anchored pens to the counter at the bank in the same way. Strange to remember when one darkened the doors of the bank regularly, and all the time we spent queuing there with passbooks! As Amy says, it sounds so ancient because it is!
These would be good things for me to include in my other blog Monkey see monkey do, which I have also just moved over to WordPress, and want to start up again (miss that monkey – she is coming!) It’s charter is How to slice a banana inside its skin and other tricks, games, idle pursuits, and things to make and do.
Handy way of looking at the odds
This guy explains it well.
(via Mary Robinette Kowal)
Leunigology
(Photo credit: Cheryl Lawrie)
I’m kicking myself for missing Born in a Taxi’s The Boat of Faith street theatre act at Floriade. It was created for the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games and is based on Michael Leunig’s whimsical cartoon characters Mr Curly and his direction finding duck, old favourites of mine. Bryony Anderson was the designer maker.
(Photo credit: Cheryl Lawrie)
I have found a few nice photos online, though:
Born in a Taxi: a sweet short video and photos under the entertainment tab
The Boat of Faith at Floriade: 6 photos
Leon~’s photos from Floriade: 9 photos
Tyrannosaurus sex
This is a snippet of the sizzling action in Philip Millar’s Puppetvison show Tyrannosaurous Sex sex which is on at the Northcote Fringe Festival until 13 October, as part of the Melbourne Fringe Festival. I’ve seen this – its terrific! Puppetvision is also presenting Tadpole and Pure Puppet Palava, which means you have a good chance of seeing that blokey beer-swilling koala with attitude, Ken Koala:
(Philip Miller’s Ken Koala MCs the puppet cabaret at the 2006 National Puppetry Summit. Photo credit: Laura Purcell. From Terrapin Puppet Theatre’s Summit gallery.)
There are other puppetry offerings at Northcote, but only a day or two left to catch them.
