Here's a fun character we built earlier this year:
This one is a live-hand, sack-monster type puppet with an eyebrow mechanism, meant to look like a Sesame-Street-Grouch-like character.
This is a great example of one of our "Full custom" puppets, with new patterns and shapes made from scratch.
Here's a video of the build progression, and some shots of the final puppet in action:
This one was a unique challenge. We ended up tailoring a sweatshirt into a live-hand arm for this character. Which at the time, was the first time we had done something like that.
This character turned out to be several firsts for us. This was the first time we shipped a puppet internationally, (though this didn't influence the build at all). This was also marked the first attempt of our technology-assisted pattern making process, to create the skull for the puppet. To get the shape we wanted, we modeled the head in a 3D software, and through some computer magic, we ended up with a pattern that made the head you see.
It turned out exactly like we wanted.
In retrospect, this method may have been better suited for a more complex shape. However, we learned that we could use that process if we ever needed to make something particularly intricate.
(For example, we would likely use it for a particularly involved Full-Custom style request.)
This character was a custom order from quite a while ago.
These sketches are variations of the character based on a written description of him.
The sketches were based mostly on an explanation of the character's personality. This description only gave a few specific physical traits, so much of it was open for interpretation. I wanted to have a variety of options to choose between while still keeping maintaining the essence of the character's personality.
We settled on this for the final design:
We used this illustration as a guide while we built the character.
