-
Puppet commission checklist
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.
-
Is it hard to make a puppet?
As with most topics on puppetry, the short answer is ‘it depends’. That’s not really all that helpful for a beginner though, so I’ll elaborate: certain puppet types are easier to make than others. But it’s still not as easy to describe as that…
-
Making 'professional' puppets as a beginner
You could just start with the Beginners’ Guide to Puppetry. This really is more about professionalism than about giving you a "here’s how you build a puppet from A to Z" type article. For that, well, as I say, head here.
This is one of those topics that irks me, because it’s a lot of myth and a lot of misunderstandings amongst the general public about how to go about making ‘professional puppets’. In this article I hope to both shed some light on those myths, and show you how you can go about doing it yourself at the same time. So let’s start with the basics: what do we mean by ‘professional’?
-
Four puppetry websites you must bookmark
Whether you are new to puppetry or a long-time builder or performer, you’ll want to be bookmarking the following four sites. They are not only incredible sources of information about popular puppetry topics - and obscure ones - but are excellent sources for community activity. You can find answers with a quick search, or you can ask the knowledgeable people who regularly visit and post on these sites. Most puppeteers I know are happy to exchange information, share photos and videos, explain their tips and techniques, or just have a friendly chat. So where can you find these people?
-
How to commission a puppet maker
This is sort of a beginners’ guide to knowing the right things to ask in order to commission a puppet maker. For the sake of us puppeteers, learn about how the commission process should work: read before you do anything; finding the right person for the job; quotes and prices; timelines; policies and payments; replicas; giving specifics; galleries and showcases; following up; and WHERE TO FIND PUPPET MAKERS.
@Calynn, thanks for your thanks! :)
... School of Puppetry on Free pattern: How to make a finger puppet, Felt version