Showing posts with label muppet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label muppet. Show all posts
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Friday, November 28, 2008
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Bork! Bork! Bork!
I drew these demented looking Muppets over a month ago & forgot I had them. At least they're new to you.
(By the way, despite the striking resemblance to one, the one on the top left is NOT a Muppet).
Monday, June 16, 2008
You like puppets too?...
Although I haven't spoken about it at all in the entire history of this blog, I am a HUGE fan of the Muppets & the art of puppet performing.
Along with Disney cartoons & movies, I was raised on the Muppets. Sesame Street, Fraggle Rock & Muppet Babies were some of the first shows I ever watched on television growing up. Emmett Otter's Jugband Christmas has been a must-watch yearly tradition for my older sister & me every holiday season & John Denver with the Muppets has always been near the top of my music library. The Muppets first introduced me to many great artists, comedians, musicians & actors through The Muppet Show & the Muppet movies & they still entertain me to this very day. In many ways, the Muppets have been a bigger inspiration to me than any cartoon character.
To me, Jim Henson is the person I idolize the most. He was a very unique individual, who had an incredible imagination, appealing personality & more creativity & talent in his bare hands than most people have in their entire body. Of course he had numerous equally creative & talented people at his side (Frank Oz, Jerry Nelson, & countless others), but nobody had the spirit & tenacity that Henson did. He left the world far too soon.
Being a puppeteer has been a secret dream of mine for many years, & until now I haven't been able to quench my thirst for it. A few months back, I decided it was finally time to make my dream a reality.
For weeks I scanned the web scanning, researching & inquiring numerous companies & studios who can seamlessly create a puppet based on my own specifications. After looking over numerous sites & asking questions through email with countless dead-ends, I finally came to the right place: Furry Puppet Inc. . I immediately contacted Zack Bouchman from Furry Puppet, getting a gratifying reply back from him. After meeting with him & discussing specific quirks & important factors in the design of the puppet, we struck a deal!
Before I made contact with Zack, I thought hard on who to translate from 2D to the third-dimension. I finally decided that Cannibal Chicken would be the best choice because I thought he'd be the most difficult to transform into 3D & fabricate in puppet form. Get the hardest out of the way first, right?
I sent Zack a bunch of sketches & finished drawings showing him what Cannibal Chicken would look like from all sides as well as his proportions, colors, specific quirks & details in his design (his one green eye, his shirt, etc.). Here's some of the drawings I sent him:
Zack took these reference drawings & started working...
A few weeks later, Zack sent me some work-in-progress pictures of the puppet. At that point, the puppet was only sculpted foam. Although it was hard to visualize how the puppet would finally look, I was shocked & excited at how far the project had progressed & how Cannibal Chicken looked in three dimensions:
After this point, the puppet's pieces were sewn together, had it's fabric & fur dyed the appropriate colors & sewed on, had bendable & flexible wires put into the fingers & tail, had them grafted to the body & had arm rods attatched.
After over a month of work, Cannibal Chicken was finally complete:
I couldn't believe my eyes when I first saw these pictures. I practically fell outta my chair! He came out a million times better than I could possibly imagine!
I'd like to thank Zack Bouchman & Maria Gurevich (chief fabricator) from Furry Puppet for their wonderful work & for letting me have permission to post the work-in-progress pictures. They're both extremely amazing & talented artists! Check out their official site & the Furry Puppet Blog to see their work & (if you desire) order a custom puppet of your very own from them. I highly recommend them!
Now that the first half of my puppeteering goal is complete, it's time for Phase #2! I'll try to post video(s) of Cannibal Chicken in the near future to see if I got what it takes. 'Til then, I'll be warming up & getting used to handling the puppet.
As you can probably tell, I'm very satisfied indeed.
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
'Sad Feelings' & How I Came to be What I Am Today
Have you ever been really sad, but you don't know why you are sad in the first place? I have it all the time. When I was younger, I used to call them 'sad feelings'. I had one almost every day since I was about 5, & like a cold there's no real cure for it. You just gotta wait 'til it goes away on it's own. Every once in a while, I'm at a point where it feels like I'm bombarded with 'em & it lasts for days, even weeks. I'm having one of those as I write this post.
I've been really down lately. A lot of things have been going on in my life, with college work, registering classes for next year, my jobs & my life at home, & it feels that my drawing has suffered because of all that's been happening. Half the days I'm here, I'm alone in my room drawing &/or listening to music. I'm not quite 'depressed', but close enough.
Still, sadness can be somewhat inspiring. I don't know why I'm gonna tell you guys this, but I feel like I was gonna let you guys know about some time or another. Here's the reason why I draw cartoons:
-From birth to about the age of 10, I lived in the town of Freeport NY, which in some ways wasn't quite the ideal place to live. Although the part of town I lived in wasn't the most dangerous part, it had it's issues.
Like many children, I was teased & ridiculed in school (many artists & cartoonists experience this). Although I had several friends (some I still speak to), I still felt very alone. I have to admit, I was a sensitive child.
Even in my own home I felt isolated. Although my mother was there to cheer me up most of the time while working around the house, my father was always at the auto shop working. He used to come home early each night & stay home on Sundays, but as time went on he started coming home later & later 'til eventually he wouldn't come home at all. Not even on Sundays. He became a devoted workaholic. I'd barely see him 2 or 3 times a week.
I was never abused or neglected as a child, but I did feel left out a majority of the time. My slightly-older sister would completely ignore me, unless she needed somebody to do stuff for her (being the older sister, she felt that she was above me, mentally, socially & literally). Being the 'baby' sibling, I had nobody to look down at, only up. My sisters didn't care & my parents were both busy all the time. I was incredibly lonely, where all I could do was sit by myself & pretend that I wasn't alone. I was even at the point of questioning my existence, thinking that it probably wouldn't even matter if I just disappeared off the face of the Earth.
To help ease my sadness & loneliness, I would sit for hours in front of the TV & watch cartoons. I had a plethora of VHS tapes of movies & classic cartoons (mostly Disney). To me, Donald Duck & Goofy were my friends. If my mom wasn't there, they'd be the only ones who could cheer me up when I was down & make me laugh when all I could do was cry.
Besides coloring & drawing little pictures in my textbooks when I was bored in school, I never really was crazy about it. Still, if I was alone, & all there was was a crayon & a sheet or two of paper, I'd sit down & draw as much as I could as fast as I could. I would draw occasionally, but at that time I wasn't considering it as something I wanted to do when I grew up. That idea came a little while later-
When my grandma used to come visit during the summertime, we used to watch the old Disneyland shows at 8 o'clock on weekends. At 8, she'd give me two After Eight mints & we'd watch & listen to Walt on TV. When something we weren't interested in came on, like Zorro, Davy Crockett or something we've already seen before, we'd pop out a VHS from our movie cabinet & watch that instead.
One night, when nothing good was on, we rustled through the closet looking for something to watch. While scavenging around, I came across an old, dusty purple VHS case with big, gold letters at the top: FANTASIA. Never seeing it before, I asked grandma what it was. Having not seen it in years, she was excited to see it again & popped the tape into the VCR. The child in me was bored with the film, what with all the classical music & no words, but somewhere else in my head, something just clicked. After listening to Walt talk about animation, my grandmother explaining how & what animation really was, & now after watching this film, I finally got it.
"You mean that somebody had to DRAW all those Mickeys?! Whoooaaaa..."
The concept of it completely blew me away. After the film was over, I turned to my grandmother, pointed at the TV & said: "I wanna do THAT when I grow up!"
& since then, it's been history. I've studied countless books/articles about animation, I came up with my own characters & stories, I tried making flipbooks, I took animation classes & now I'm majoring it in college! It's been a long & somewhat successful journey, & it's still early in the game for me.
I still get sad from time to time. But you gotta take the good with the bad. Steve-O, Randy & Cannibal Chicken probably wouldn't be in my life right now if I wasn't alone. I guess in a strange way, they're like my imaginary friends/guardian angels. No matter what I'm feeling or going through, they're always at my side to be there when I need somebody.
-This post is definitely a departure from my semi-humorous banter & cartoony stuff I usually do, but I promise to get back that way as soon as possible. 'Til then, just keep looking up.
I've been really down lately. A lot of things have been going on in my life, with college work, registering classes for next year, my jobs & my life at home, & it feels that my drawing has suffered because of all that's been happening. Half the days I'm here, I'm alone in my room drawing &/or listening to music. I'm not quite 'depressed', but close enough.
Still, sadness can be somewhat inspiring. I don't know why I'm gonna tell you guys this, but I feel like I was gonna let you guys know about some time or another. Here's the reason why I draw cartoons:
-From birth to about the age of 10, I lived in the town of Freeport NY, which in some ways wasn't quite the ideal place to live. Although the part of town I lived in wasn't the most dangerous part, it had it's issues.
Like many children, I was teased & ridiculed in school (many artists & cartoonists experience this). Although I had several friends (some I still speak to), I still felt very alone. I have to admit, I was a sensitive child.
Even in my own home I felt isolated. Although my mother was there to cheer me up most of the time while working around the house, my father was always at the auto shop working. He used to come home early each night & stay home on Sundays, but as time went on he started coming home later & later 'til eventually he wouldn't come home at all. Not even on Sundays. He became a devoted workaholic. I'd barely see him 2 or 3 times a week.
I was never abused or neglected as a child, but I did feel left out a majority of the time. My slightly-older sister would completely ignore me, unless she needed somebody to do stuff for her (being the older sister, she felt that she was above me, mentally, socially & literally). Being the 'baby' sibling, I had nobody to look down at, only up. My sisters didn't care & my parents were both busy all the time. I was incredibly lonely, where all I could do was sit by myself & pretend that I wasn't alone. I was even at the point of questioning my existence, thinking that it probably wouldn't even matter if I just disappeared off the face of the Earth.
To help ease my sadness & loneliness, I would sit for hours in front of the TV & watch cartoons. I had a plethora of VHS tapes of movies & classic cartoons (mostly Disney). To me, Donald Duck & Goofy were my friends. If my mom wasn't there, they'd be the only ones who could cheer me up when I was down & make me laugh when all I could do was cry.
Besides coloring & drawing little pictures in my textbooks when I was bored in school, I never really was crazy about it. Still, if I was alone, & all there was was a crayon & a sheet or two of paper, I'd sit down & draw as much as I could as fast as I could. I would draw occasionally, but at that time I wasn't considering it as something I wanted to do when I grew up. That idea came a little while later-
When my grandma used to come visit during the summertime, we used to watch the old Disneyland shows at 8 o'clock on weekends. At 8, she'd give me two After Eight mints & we'd watch & listen to Walt on TV. When something we weren't interested in came on, like Zorro, Davy Crockett or something we've already seen before, we'd pop out a VHS from our movie cabinet & watch that instead.
One night, when nothing good was on, we rustled through the closet looking for something to watch. While scavenging around, I came across an old, dusty purple VHS case with big, gold letters at the top: FANTASIA. Never seeing it before, I asked grandma what it was. Having not seen it in years, she was excited to see it again & popped the tape into the VCR. The child in me was bored with the film, what with all the classical music & no words, but somewhere else in my head, something just clicked. After listening to Walt talk about animation, my grandmother explaining how & what animation really was, & now after watching this film, I finally got it.
"You mean that somebody had to DRAW all those Mickeys?! Whoooaaaa..."
The concept of it completely blew me away. After the film was over, I turned to my grandmother, pointed at the TV & said: "I wanna do THAT when I grow up!"
& since then, it's been history. I've studied countless books/articles about animation, I came up with my own characters & stories, I tried making flipbooks, I took animation classes & now I'm majoring it in college! It's been a long & somewhat successful journey, & it's still early in the game for me.
I still get sad from time to time. But you gotta take the good with the bad. Steve-O, Randy & Cannibal Chicken probably wouldn't be in my life right now if I wasn't alone. I guess in a strange way, they're like my imaginary friends/guardian angels. No matter what I'm feeling or going through, they're always at my side to be there when I need somebody.
-This post is definitely a departure from my semi-humorous banter & cartoony stuff I usually do, but I promise to get back that way as soon as possible. 'Til then, just keep looking up.
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