Busy Day in the Swazzle Workshop

This is a busy time for Swazzle. Right now we are working on a couple of custom puppet builds - One of the puppets is a seven foot walk around. We are also building puppets for Swazzle's summer puppet show tour. Along with that we doing some creative development on some very cool projects... top secret, for now. Here are some photos from the day. Enjoy.

By the way, Swazzle is having auditions on April 30. Click here for more.



Swazzle Creative Director/puppeteer/puppet builder, Sean Johnson sews sea monster tentacles for the new Swazzle puppet show, Water Color.



Swazzle Creative Director/puppeteer/puppet builder, Patrick Johnson sands a nautilus shell for the new Swazzle puppet show, Water Color.



Puppet show creator/director Dan Clark in the Swazzle Workshop.



Puppeteer/puppet builder Russ Walko builds a seven foot walk around puppet for a short film.



Puppeteer/puppet builder Artie Exposito builds a puppet for a short film in The Swazzle Workshop.



Puppeteer/actor/writer Brian Clark develops a couple of new Swazzle projects in the Swazzle Workshop.

Digg my Blog - Mini Update

Hey readers of Puppet 101, I just added some share buttons and a Digg button to my blog. If you like Puppet 101 please help out by digging it or sharing it on your favorite social networking site.

This has been a super busy time for myself and Swazzle. We had another very busy summer of puppet shows, and then Patrick and I rolled right into the crazy stunt puppet production Team Smithereen. A few months back we moved into our brand new workshop in Glendale, and for the last couple of day's we have been rehearsing our brand new holiday puppet show, Live from the Ice Cube. Believe it or not, we are already planning our two new summer puppet shows: The River Otter Circus, and Water Color. Water Color will feature light up "neon" fish puppets - more on that later.

I hope you are all keeping busy with some fun puppet projects. Please keep me updated, and always feel free to email me your puppet questions: sean@swazzle.com

By the way, I will be adding some new behind the scenes puppet building photos once we begin production on the new summer puppet shows.

Swazzle Workshop Episode 8

Episode 8 of The Swazzle Workshop is now online. In this episode Louie the Snake stops by to show Tiger and Mousedeer how to make a snake rod puppet.

Archie McPhee 2

Archie McPhee in Seattle is a great place to find unusual puppet building materials, puppet show props and inspiration. Check out these cases: plastic coins, tiny pigs, miniature rubber chickens, 8 ball beads... and more. If you are not in the Seattle area check out their online store.

Puppet Building Tutorial: Snowman

There are many steps to building a puppet. This tutorial will give you detailed instructions on how I built The Snowman for The 12 Days of Christmas Podcast. Click on the links below to read each step

Part 1: Design

Part 2: Carving the Foam
Step 1, The Body
Step 2, The Head
Step 3, Refining the Shapes
Step 4, Body Hand Hole
Step 5, Head Hand Hole

Part 3: The Mouth

Part 4: Fabrication

Part 5: The Face
Step 1,The Eyes
Step 2, The Nose
Step 3, The Eye Sockets
Step 4, The Face

Part 6: The Neck

Part 7: Arms and Hands

Meet The Snowman