New Project for Blog

Hi guys, I have been busy over the past few weeks and because of that my blog updates have suffered BUT..... I have been organizing a cool new step-by-step project with another talented artist, More will be posted soon about the project in the next few days. Stay tuned

A Thank You from Sesame Workshop

I recently recieved a note that on the Sesame Workshop facebook page I was mentioned for my donations I have been making to Sesame workshop. Thank you Carrie and I look forward to donating more in the near future. Check it out here http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sesame-Workshop/13759741267#/note.php?note_id=33468077854&ref=mf . Have a great day all

Deciding on new puppet to show building process

Hi all - I am currently deciding what I should do for my next step by step building blog. Should I make a cute little girl monster or a human looking boy? Let me know what you all think - and I will consider all opinions. Have a great day everyone

PROJECT PUPPET contest voting open

Project Puppets puppet building contest is now open for voting. follow the link below and support the puppet builders who entered. GOODLUCK to the finalists! www.puppetcontest.com

Villian Puppet Finished

Hi all , I have FINALLY finished the villian puppet - I have decided to list him on Ebay over the next few weeks , I will post on here when I list him. I think I will list him as "BUY IT NOW" as he has taken many many hours to make .

Oscar the Grouch in my Living room

Just thought I would post this photo, It's my Oscar the Grouch and Slimey I made in my living room. It's great when people come to visit for them to see a childhood favourite looking back at them. He is a puppet, I just havr him on a purpose built stand in the trash can.

Photo of maximus

Here is a early photo of Maximus, still needs his collar, legs and a tail - then as always the wonderful job of picking all the seams to hide them. He is a fantastic puppet to operate, I have made him quite small and with a flexible mouthplate. I have decided to go with a green dog collar instead of blue which you will see in the coming blogs.

Another puppet design

In a few of my past blogs about my villian puppet a few people noticed this little guy I have been working on. His name is Maximus Pup - he is a design I have had in my head for a while now , A lazy overweight dog.

Almost finished

He now has his hair, which I am happy with. I tried to make him look almost cartoon with his hair and try and make him "cartoon evil" if that makes any sense . He still needs his buttons on his jacket but apart from that he is finished - It's been a long road as always but the end result I am very happy with.

villian clothing

Here are a few rough photos of the villian outfit, he is wearing a blue shirt with white dots and a purple high collared jacket , lined with a stripey purple fabric, black pants. He also has a red neck scarf and pocket watch chain. I still need to find the right button for his sleeves and front of jacket. I am happy with the way his jacket has turned out, considering I made the pattern up. He is slowly getting here.

Fozzie Bear replica

I was going through a box of unfinished puppets and found my Fozzie Bear head - He is one that I really want to finish, but now instead of making him into a puppet I may make him into a poser replica now that Master Replicas seem to have pulled the plug on future Muppet replicas, Mind you I have a LONG list of puppets to get through before I can even think about this - just thought I'd share my thoughts about it on here though.

Villian puppet nearly finished

Well I have spent most of the day making clothes for my villian puppet - he just needs the right buttons now and his outfit is finished. I also added his hair - which I am happy with. I will take some pictures soon - now all he needs is a name . have a great day everyone.

Sketch for puppet

Here is the initial sketch I drew for the villian puppet (which was originally going to be an old man as you can see) , I have since changed a few things to his design. Firstly he will no longer have grey hair - I think I am going to give him a dark hairstyle, also he will no longer be wearing a suit and tie, he will be wearing a more evil jacket with large upward collar - kind of like the new Willy Wonka jacket...... I just need to searcg for the right fabrics. Lastly he now has purple bags under his eyes , not flesh toned like in the sketch. Stay tuned.

Ears are on

These two photos show the ears attatched to the head, all that needs to be done now is his hair - which I am still deciding on. The two photos show eyebrow mech movement and flexibility of mouth.

Sesame Workshop Donation

Thanks everyone who bidded on my last Ebay puppet (pictured aboved) with your help I donated $52.00US to Sesame Workshop . Thats about an extra $200US in the past few Ebay listings you have all helped me donate to Sesame Workshop - Thank you

Arms attatched

Here is my latest update for the villian puppet. I have now attatched the arms to the body, also attached the neck and sleeve. He is coming along nicely, all he needs now are his ears and the Antron has been done , then he needs to have his seams picked to blend the joins and then shaved to give a nice neat finish.

Lion puppet

I have recieved a few emails in regards to my lion puppet - well you wanted a closer photo, so here it is ! He is made from reticualted foam and covered in Antron fleece, his mane is orange orstich feather with blue highlights. His tail is posable also. Hope you like him.

Hands and Arms for Villian puppet

You can see in the photo above that i have machine sewn the arms and hands , also on the left is the neck and sleeve.

Above is the hands and arms turned right side out ready for the foam structure to be inserted.

And finally above are both hands finished , well almost finished they need to be picked and shaved to get rid of any seams. Picking the seams is what takes the most time and is not my favourite job , but the end results always speak for themselves.

Muppet Whatnots have arrived

Well the Muppet whatnots have arrived at F.A.O.Schwarz - well online anyway at www.fao.com

They are $90US each, you have three body options - blue,orange and green. There are several choices for eyes and noses etc which you get you pick and choose which one you would lik eyour Whatnot to have. Ok now they seem to be Ok for someone just getting into puppetry or a Muppet collector , But If you have always wanted your own professional puppet i'm afraid these are not what you are looking for. Now here is something I have noticed, the top picture shows the Whatnots when they where advertising before they were released , and the photo below that I from the catalog - there are BIG differences as far as i can see just by looking at the two photos. Number one is that the first puppets seemed to be made from Antron fleece ( the same as the REAL Whatnots) whereas the ones for sale seem to be a different fabric ( seams galore!). Secondly the first photo shows the puppets to have hard mouthplates in them whereas the others seem to maybe have soft foam mouths, and thirdly the eyes and noses seemed in much better proportion to the head than the ones in the catalog photo. Of course this is just my opinion from looking at the photos - hopefully they will be much better in person ( much like thr MR replicas)

Update on puppet

Ok well his nose has been stitched on and I did have bags for under his eyes which were a slighty darker colour than his skin - but because he is slowly turning into a villian I went with the more visual purple for his bags - which make him instantly look more evil. Next I will start covering the hands and arms. have a great day all

How to contact me

Below is my Email , this is usually the best way to get in contact with me , I do try and reply as soon as possible - it just depends on the volume of mail I get plus my workload - so please be patient


jeyebay@hotmail.com

Boober Fraggle puppet replica

Hi all, I finished my Boober fraggle some moonths ago - but he ended up in a box with all my other replicas and I forgot about him. Here are a few photos of him - keep in mind that he is not being operated in the photos so they look alittle static. He is a tiny puppet , I like the idea of compact size puppets with great design. I can't wait for the new Fraggle movie - should be awesome.

eyes and eyebrow

Once the nose and skull have been covered I then attached the eyes then stitched on the "brow" then attached the black eyebrows to the eye mech. Next is bags around his eyes and attaching the nose. This guy has evolved from a cranky man into a villian - well a cranky man villain ;o)

Fleece has been sewn together

Above is the Antron Fleece which has been hand dyed to a light skin tone, it has been hand sewn to help reduce the visablity of seams - the seams will be completely invisable once it has been finished.
Above is the Antron skin after it has been applied to the skull, it has been carefully glued around the mouth. It fits nice and snug, I always make my antron skins alittle smaller as Antron stretches to fit.
Next is the pattern for the nose, it was made the same way as the head pattern - it just needs to be cut and sewn together.

Update of man puppet

Ok the next step after all the foam skull has been created is to pattern the skin to cover the skull. I usually use fabric similar to T-shirt material to create the pattern by covering the head and cutting the pattern on the skull. The end result is seem in the photo above, the head is in three sections - left,right and under the chin. Other pieces which will help to make up the head are the ears, nose and neck. More photos soon

My Muppet replicas

Hi there All, I get ALOT of emails each week ( like atleast 20) of people after Muppet Character puppets. So I thought I would use this Blog to explain to everyone why I don't sell these puppets. The first and most important reason is due to copyright laws - thats the big one, secondly I mainly make Muppet replicas as a hobby - I find them (most of the time) to be a challenge. Everytime I make a replica I find out a new or better way of making a particular part of a puppet. And last of all I don't really want to spend my days creating puppets of someone elses design - I enjoy being able to create original designs and seeing them put to good use. So I hope this explains it alittle better ( and my email is 20 emails less a week now)

WHATNOTS at F.A.O.SCHWARZ

F.A.O.SCHWARZ will soon be selling Muppet whatnots, from what I have seen they look to be pretty good quality. There seems to be three heads to choose from blue, green and orange. I will be very interested to see what these puppets are like up close, to see if they are quality products or just a mass produced items. If my memory serves me correct they will be on sale from 22nd October only at F.A.O.Schwarz

PROJECT PUPPET

I have decided over the next month to purchase a puppet pattern from www.projectpuppet.com and review it here on my blog. I find patterns such as the ones for sale at project puppet the best way for a budding puppet builder to learn the in's and out's of a puppet. I will of course have to find some time to do this , but it should be fun . If you are after a great project with great results check out project puppet and get started on your own puppet - the possibilities are endless.

Below is a short video I have Edited from and interview with Caroll Spinney - he mentions my work - the puppet he is trying to remember is Gooby the Bunyip (An Australian Mythical creature) . Also is a painting he drew of Big Bird and Gooby playing together.

LATEST GONZO NOSE

Here is my latest Gonzo nose, I have been at this stage for a few months now - I can never seem to find the time these days to spend on my replicas, which is a good thing for gonzo because I like to let gonzos nose foam turn slighty yellow as it does with age - looks more authentic.

Here a few photos I took of my workbench today - still pretty messy I guess, it's clean when I'm not making puppets ( which is not very often). The foam body parts you see are for a cranky man puppet I am building at the moment. The Arms are reticulated foam with leather joints. The hands have wire armature - they with have removable rods. The head is also reticulated foam, the top half of his head is closed cell foam as he has an eyebrow mech - i find it keeps the head shape better and gives you something to attach the eyebrow mech to. His mouthplate is dyed reticulated foam for flexibilty . Once all the foam structure for his body is finished I will then cover him in Antron Fleece.

Also on the workbench is my Oscar the Grouch puppet - just fixing up his internal ribbing. Also building a Nicky puppet (from Avenue Q) . Also in the top photo is a lion puppet.

NEW MUPPET MOVIE FOR TV

I recently saw some photos from behinds the scenes of the new Muppet Movie "Letters to Santa" and I must say that Miss Piggy and Fozzie both seemed to have very round faces? maybe its taken from a bad angle but I think they have been on the Christmas Pudding early this year.

Puppet Building on my Blog

Hi Everyone, now very shortly ( in the next few weeks) I plan on showing step by step how I make my puppets - I just have to decide what kind of puppet to make , then I will sell the finished product on Ebay. I am thinking of making a little boy monster - but that may change by the time it comes for me to start making the puppet.

Terry Angus puppet on Ebay

Up for auction on Ebay is this adorable dog puppet made by the wonderfully talented Terry Angus. He only has 4 days left so go check hin out before its too late!! Terry doesn't sell many puppets on Ebay anymore - so I suggest you grab him if you can , I think I might even put a bid on him - RUFF!

http://cgi.ebay.com/Professional-Dog-Muppet-Style-Puppet-Angus-Puppets_W0QQitemZ110297392386QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item110297392386&_trkparms=39%3A1%7C66%3A2%7C65%3A3%7C240%3A1318&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14

PROJECT PUPPET CONTEST 2008

Its that time of year puppet builders where the guys at project puppet (www.projectpuppet.com) have begun there puppet contest. This years theme is " A Space Odyssey" check out the details and enter if you dare www.puppetcontest.com . As in the past I am one of the judges - each year the entries are getting better and better, I can't wait to see what crazy space creatures we see this year! goodluck everyone

Hi there, this is my latest puppet to be auctioned off on Ebay. his name is MON-KEY - and he's got a black belt so WATCH IT!!