puppets

Puppet Heap’s new hand puppets

Puppet Heap have recently released a series of cool hand puppets that are available individually  through Amazon. I really like their stylised caricature design and aesthetic, a breath of fresh air amid the plush and felt. I also like this devil which will be in their next upcoming series:

Some thoughts on 3D printing and the arts

If you want to blow your mind, take a journey into the revolutionary realm of 3D printing. Rapid prototyping has been around for about 20 years, but 3D printing seems now to be quickly becoming a viable manufacturing process for a wide range of materials and objects. There are lots of examples, of which the following are only a small selection:

Like other disruptive technology, 3D printing looks as if it will follow the path of offering the ability to decentralize and customise, and to make unique things cost effectively.

It’s interesting to consider what impact this is already having and going to have on artists and how they make things, as it becomes mainstream. Imagine, we can digitally sculpt or scan something in 3D (or photograph it, send the photos to somewhere like Photofly to get them stitched into a 3D scan), then send the files to a fabricator or perhaps even our own 3D printer , and there it is. There is the obvious debate between new and old, manufactured and handmade, and whether quality will be enhanced or compromised.  Most likely 3D printing will become an additional useful tool for some processes, components and items, and competency in these technologies will become more expected in the arts industry.  And, entirely handmade is likely to become rarer but more valuable.

Folded Feather’s chickens

I love this excerpt from Folded Feather Theatre‘s production Life Still, which has been playing at the Edinburgh Fringe recently.

Being John Malkovich via real-time facial recognition

Anyone involved in puppetry in any way knows that the first question you get asked is ‘So, have you seen that movie Being John Malkovich?” Here’s a system where you can control the face of someone else – even John Malcovich – using facial recognition in realtime via a webcam.

How to Train Your Dragon Live

Melbourne’s Creature Technology Company, which had worldwide success with their live arena show Walking with Dinosaurs Live, have just launched their new venture How to Train Your Dragon Live at a Dreamworks and Global Creatures media event showing off an awesome 4 metre tall fire-breathing animatronic dragon, the Deadly Nadder. Apparently it’s one of 24 dragons!

I’m happy to see that this new production has an emphasis on story and emotional engagement in addition to the sheer spectacle, since my one reservation about Walking with Dinosaurs Live was the lack of emotional content.

This video from The Age has some footage of the making process, as does this one:

Some additional links:

The Creature Technology Company’s videos at their website
Daily Telegraph: gallery of 15 images
The Age: Here be Dragons
The Australian: Monster epic producer’s dragons fly high
774 ABC Melbourne: How to Train your Dragon hits Melbourne: radio interview with Dreamworks’ Tim Johnson, who co-produced the movie and directs the new exhibition.
Sky News: Melbourne to host Dragon arena show

(via Philip Millar, Kari Klein and PuppetVision)

Snuff Puppets – Human Body Parts puppets

Snuff Puppets recently entertained crowds at Federation Square in Melbourne with their amazing Human Body Parts puppets.

Ladybird puppet

This is a ladybird glove puppet I recently made for the Riverstone Family Centre’s early literacy program.  She has a little leather library bag over her shoulder in which she is carrying a little book!

There are some more photos of her in my photoset at Flickr, and a short video o f her.

The bravest man amongst them durst not touch her tail

Four-and-twenty tailors went to kill a snail,
The bravest man amongst them durst not touch her tail;
She put out her horns like a little Kyloe cow;
Run, tailors, run, or she’ll kill you all e’en now.

One of my upcoming projects is to build a remote control snail, so I’ve been gathering some information about snails. I’ve always rather liked snails, an attitude that is easy to keep when our ducks keep our garden virtually snail free. I always assumed that snails only ate plant matter, and had no distinguishable mouth on their faces, so to speak. How wrong I was!

 

 

Now looking at Snuff Puppets fabulous giant puppet snail, Mirabel, I see the mouth and tongue are quite a feature. At one point in this video it swipes just about all of someone’s fairy floss!