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A definition of puppetry. What’s a puppeteer?
A list of all types of puppets and a glossary of terms.
Why should you use puppets?
Where to find inspiration and ideas?
How to commission a puppet maker
Quick guide to making puppets
Four sites you should bookmark

Listen to the podcast above, or download it here. Subscribe on iTunes! Or subscribe to another podcast service. Transcipt is below… Submit yourself or someone else!

Hello, and welcome to the School of Puppetry podcast. Each month I talk to a puppeteer about their work, their insights and their techniques.

I know a lot of you out there are keen to learn more about how to make caricature puppets - that is, puppets that look like real people. Not knowing how to do this myself, I thought it best to talk to someone who has some experience doing it.  So this month’s interview is with Brian Hogg of Hoggworks.

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Each fortnight I post a question related to puppetry. It’s up to you to figure out the answer, and the first person to guess correctly gets a shout-out on the site. There’s only one rule: you have to post a citation for your answer, and it can’t be Wikipedia (yes, you can use this website instead ). Let’s face it, Wiki just makes it too easy for people… The answer and winner will be revealed on each following Friday (ie. at the end of this week).

This week’s question was:

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A while ago I posted an article which discussed four puppetry websites you’ll want to keep bookmarked. Now I’m presenting a list of websites which offer useful converters and generators that will help you make your puppets, sets and costumes. There’s everything from measurement converters to online printable rulers, and even some sites that are just plain handy for other reasons. The most interesting ones are at the bottom…

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This week I was contacted by someone for a set of custom-made shadow puppets, and it got me thinking how useful it would be to have a checklist of all the things that I should ask/do when in such a discussion. If you’ve been around the various puppetry forums, you will have noticed Andrew Young from PuppetVision previously offered up a creative commons version of his ‘Puppet Pricing Calculator’, an Excel file which is designed to help you calculate how much to charge per puppet. Well, in that same vein, I’m offering up my

Puppet Commission Checklist as an Excel file or PDF

for free and under the same creative commons licence (attribution only). If there’s anything there that you think should be added, please let me know and I’ll update the file.

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