Puppet Design

Saturday, November 03, 2007

Final Sugar Monster Design

Sugar 1

Here is the final Sugar Monster puppet design. The finished puppet is pink with lavender accents, not the the brown pictured here.

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Friday, November 02, 2007

Hershey's Kiss

Sugar 2

For some of the puppet designs I incorporated elements reminiscent of familiar candy and junk food. Notice that this Sugar Monster is shaped like an elongated Hershey's Kiss, with a big curl at the top of the head. I based the color on cotton candy.

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Thursday, November 01, 2007

Female Sugar Monster

Sugar 3

I always imagined the Sugar Monster as a female character. In this puppet design I tried playing up the traditional female design characteristics, giving her full lips and large eyelashes. I also experimented with the horns, making them wavy and dragon-like.

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Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Cute And Cuddly

Sugar 4

In this Sugar Monster puppet design my goal was to create a character that was cute and cuddly, but obviously wired. I thought it would be funny if the Sugar Monster was short and bouncy with a long tail.

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Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Striped Candy Horns

Sugar 5

The client found Sugar Monster No. 1 the most appealing because of the cotton candy-like body and the striped candy horns. Using this illustration as a starting point, I developed a bunch of variations, playing with the shape of the nose, the color, and the scale of the body.

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Monday, October 29, 2007

Sugar Monster Choices

Sugar 6

Here is a group of Sugar Monsters that I assembled for the client. When designing a puppet for someone else, it’s important to present them with a wide range of choices to help focus their vision of the character. These illustrations served as a starting point for the design process of the Sugar Monster.

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Monday, October 22, 2007

Jeff's Monsters

Jeff

Along with the rabbit family, Aventuras Saludables also features three wacky monsters: Captain Candy, Slugzilla and Quickie. Before the monsters had names, they were referred to as The Sugar Monster, The Lazy Monster and The Fast Food Monster. Here is an initial sketch of the monsters done by talented character designer and story artist Jeff Pidgeon. Jeff has had an incredible career in the field of animation, and we were honored that he contributed to the creative development of this puppet show.

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Friday, October 19, 2007

Rabbit Puppets!

rabbit puppets

The rabbit family is complete, with eyes, ears, noses and teeth. The costumes were made by Bethan Land, whose credits include Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, Seabiscuit and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

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Thursday, October 18, 2007

Pablito's Face

building rabbits 3

Pablito’s face nears completion. The fur on the bridge of his nose was carefully trimmed to create a graduated look.

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Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Flowbee

building rabbits 2

Once the foam build was complete, the rabbit puppets were covered in high-quality store-bought fur. The fur would eventually be trimmed down with a Flowbee. The hands were covered in Antron fleece that was dyed to match the color of the body.

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Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Trimming Foam

building rabbits1

Here B.J. trims some foam away from the mother rabbit’s head.

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Monday, October 15, 2007

Toupee Tape

foam Pablito

B.J. pinned and taped Pablito’s facial features in place to see if their size and position looked good before they were permanently attached. In this photo Pablito’s teeth are made out of a dense foam called L-200; they are temporarily pinned in place. The finished teeth were made out of sanded styrene, a hard plastic. Pablito’s nose is held in place with toupee tape.

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Friday, October 12, 2007

Scott Foam

foam rabbits

Anita’s head was made out of a sheet of Scott Foam using a custom-made pattern. Pablito's head and Mom’s head were carved out of a solid block of Scott Foam. Dad’s head combines both techniques, with a patterned head and carved muzzle.

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Thursday, October 11, 2007

Building Rabbits

BJ building mother rabbit

B.J. Guyer - along with puppet builder Dave Fedele, whose credits include Where the Wild Things Are, Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and Disney’s Country Bears - were responsible for constructing the rabbit family. They did an excellent job interpreting the designs to create a group of beautiful puppets.

Here B.J. adjusts the mother rabbit’s mouth palate.

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Wednesday, October 10, 2007

B.J. Guyer

rabbit family

Once the rabbit family designs were approved, it was time to start building. In the past my brother Sean and I have built all the puppets for Swazzle’s shows; because of our tight schedule we enlisted the help of skilled puppet builder B.J. Guyer of Puppetown Productions. B.J.’s credits include The Muppets Wizard of Oz, Crank Yankers and Team America: World Police.

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Tuesday, October 09, 2007

Anita

daughter

Anita is the youngest member of the rabbit family and the star of her soccer team. She’s an athletic girl who can be enticed into playing video games when she should be practicing. I drew Anita with a slanted forehead for an aerodynamic look.

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Monday, October 08, 2007

Pablito

son

Pablito is the main character of Aventuras Saludables. He is an imaginative boy who sees himself as the super hero Super Pablito. To make Pablito look bright-eyed and attentive, I gave him wide oval eyes and a tall forehead.

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Friday, October 05, 2007

Mother Rabbit

mom

I wanted the mother rabbit to contrast visually with the father, so I made her long and tall. In the puppet show she has a lot of schedules to juggle, and she barely has time to make dinner for the family.

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Thursday, October 04, 2007

Father Rabbit

dad

After all the puppet designs were done, it was decided that the Aventuras Saludables family would be rabbits. The father is the biggest and roundest of the characters. In the puppet show he is a very busy guy who is in desperate need of an energy boost.

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Wednesday, October 03, 2007

Animals

Family 3

One idea about the puppet family was to make them animals. Animals are universal - they don’t reflect any specific ethnic group or skin color, so audience members can imagine themselves in the role.

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Tuesday, October 02, 2007

People

Family 6

At one point I experimented with the idea of making the puppet family into realistic-looking people. In order to create a cohesive look, I played with opposite color schemes. Dad and Anita are the same color, and Mom and Pablito are the same color. Dad’s face and Anita’s face are the same color as Mom’s nose and Pablito’s nose, whereas Mom’s face and Pablito’s face are the same color as Dad’s nose and Anita’s nose.

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Monday, October 01, 2007

Color Tests

Family 7

Sometimes it’s helpful to make a bold change in order to come up with a different take on a character. Here are some tests where I duplicated the family and adjusted the colors.

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Friday, September 28, 2007

Monsters

Family 2

While designing the family, I experimented with several different concepts, like drawing them as monsters. This idea was abandoned because we wanted the monsters that visit the family to feel unique.

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Thursday, September 27, 2007

Copy And Tweak

Family 4

Many of these early puppet designs were done very quickly so that I could give the client several different choices. Sometimes, in the interest of time, I’d take a puppet design, copy it, and then tweak it in Photoshop to create a variation. In this drawing I muted the color and removed the characters’ noses.

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Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Muppet Flavor

Family 5

One of the initial ideas was to give the family puppets a “Muppet” look. I did my best to capture the flavor of the Muppets without ripping them off. This proved to be challenging: The minute you draw a red guy with a purple nose, he looks like a Muppet.

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Tuesday, September 25, 2007

The Family

Family 1

Aventuras Saludables, written by Dylan Campbell and based on a story by Anita Coulte, is about a family whose house is invaded by three monsters that represent obstacles to healthy living. One of my responsibilities was to design the puppets. Here is an early design I did for the family: Mom, Dad, Anita and Pablito.

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Monday, September 24, 2007

Aventuras Saludables

aventuras saludables

A few months ago Swazzle was contracted by Ethnic Marketing Group to develop a bilingual puppet show for Blue Cross as part of their Nuestro Bien outreach program. The puppet show Aventuras Saludables, which would be performed at health fairs, festivals and conventions, would use comedy and music to teach family audiences how to make healthy choices.

We had about two months to write, build and rehearse this new show during our busy summer season. Over the next few weeks I’m going discuss the development of Aventuras Saludables with a special emphasis on character design.

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