The Secret Garden Puppets

Whilst doing some research and looking around at for how other people and real productions had made rabbits or hares I came across a production of the secret garden at the Grosvenor park open theatre in Chester. The puppets were designed by the director Toby Olié. I found it quite useful to see how the puppets were used and how they work especially as there are so many different puppets that were used during the production.

Max Humphries - The lion the Witch and the Wardrobe

Blind Summit - His Dark Materials

I wanted to move away from just working on the bird and look at doing some more design work for the rest of the characters. So i began to do some research in to some other puppets to try and get inspiration for my work. Whilst doing this i came across a puppet company called "Blind Summit" and the puppets that they created for a production of "His Dark Materials".  I really like the puppets that they have created for the production as they are really really simple and haven't tried to make them look to realistic. I think that this is the way to go with my work as i often try to over complicate thing. 

One particular thing that i found interesting about there work is that is doesn't try to hide the puppeteers at all but in the case of the polar bear uses them as part of the puppet itself. I find the polar bear puppet interesting as they have only focused on the head to show that it is a polar bear and then used a simple structure to imply the rest of the animal.

Artificial Trees

As i wanted to make a tree as prop for the play i had a look at how other people had created trees, i came across this video about the process of making artificial trees. I think that it is quite interesting how they are actual created and i could create something similar for a prop but would need to simplify the process as it is to complicated to use for a prop that would be used on stage.

Tree Bark Experiments

As i wanted to move away from just working on the bird i decided to try and do some experiment with trying to get a tree bark texture. I start by trying to create it by using plaster but my first efforts didn't go very well as it doesn't look very much like bark.

As my first effort hadn't gone very well i then went outside to look at some of the trees and what there  bark looked like and found to small pieces of bark to use as a reference. 

I then had another go using the plaster but this time being more gentle when creating the grooves in the plaster, i created a lot more as well so it look more realistic. I think that this one worked better as it doesn't look particularly realistic but does have quite an interesting pattern.  

I then decided to move away from using the plaster as i thought that it would be to heavy to use as a prop. I therefor tried to use paper and glue instead as it would be a lot lighter and but still keep the piece quite sculpted, i think that it has worked quite well although it isn't that realistic i like that texture that the paper has once it is scrunched up as it has a look that is similar to bark.

Wing Mechanism 2.2

After making my second wing mechanism i then decided to make another one which is very similar to the previous one, but instead of having one larger piece of wood i used to smaller pieces so that it was easier to make the wing open and close. Having the design like this made it a lot easier to make the wing move as it need very little effort to move, where as the previous one was quite hard to move using the string and didn't open very well by using the springs.

Simple Puppet Structure Attempt

I quickly made a puppet structure to see how it would work. I actually think that this design works really well as it is very light, simple to make and is easy to work, i could then use a structure like this for the bird puppet but using it for the basis of the puppet and then building a structure around it to make it look like a bird.