Yes, the holidays are truly over. Not that they had actually happened for me; my main reason for ‘going on holiday’ was to stop posting updates for a while and take a break from continually churning out content. I need such a break  every now and then, as coming up with good content for School of Puppetry is time-consuming and towards the end of last year I produced a lot of highly researched stuff. But while you were all enjoying the end-of-year, I was still busy behind the scenes doing a number of different things to make the site better. Here’s a sample:

• Discovered and ‘fixed’ the comments problem. My initial concerns over it being a 6-month long problem was unwarranted, it was only something that occured in October due to the move to a new web host.
• Added new links to many of the free patterns lists, including: the marionettes, set designs (a whole bunch of new ones here), finger puppets, and shadow puppets (now includes the only tutorial on the net I’ve seen for wayang kulit). In most cases, the new links have been added to the bottom of each list. I’ve also removed any outdated links that no longer work. There are still plenty of freebies to add at later date though.
• Added a new review of the Human Foam Puppet Pattern from a customer
• Added a new section on buying animatronics in Australia to the ‘where to buy puppets‘ post
• Updated the links page, removing dead links, adding new screenshots, and correcting URLs where necessary. UNIMA China’s website is not only no longer working, but doesn’t even seem to exist in the international domain name database; it’s been removed. Karen Prell’s website is no longer at karenprell.com, the new URL is now listed. Bear-town.com is no longer working; and A Puppet A Day is now known as The Mad Puppeteer (same URL though).

If that weren’t enough, I have set about rewriting and developing my marionette tutorial which hasn’t been migrated from my other site yet. This will be a completely revamped tutorial, with a number of versions depending on your choice of complexity. I have completed making my very own gallows - which I’ll post info on how to make later on - and am beginning work on the marionette itself. As this tutorial will be quite more in-depth than before, and requires a lot of pictures, it won’t be for another month or two until it’s ready. Of course, I will be updating the site with other things in the meantime.