I’ve been researching and preparing to take on my main character puppets. I need to make sure I know what I’m doing before I start them because faux fur is a lot different than the nylon fleece I used for my prototype puppet, and also a lot more expensive. I bought some tutorials from Project Puppet, and have started watching those and practicing stitches while I wait for my faux fur to arrive from the Etsy seller.
I’m feeling pretty nervous about finally taking on the actual characters in the show. I’m afraid that the image in my head just won’t happen, and I’ll feel like I don’t have control over the product. Whenever I’m feeling creatively anxious or blocked, I read Lynda Barry, who is a famous cartoonist, painter, writer, etc. (and just won the MacArthur Genius grant), so I’m including that in my research as well. She has a quote about how young people stop drawing when they can’t get their drawing to look like the vision in their head. She says, “Well, that’s impossible. The thing in your head is not a drawing.” I’m trying to take a similar attitude to these puppets, and release a little control. I won’t know what details and designs are possible until I try to do it. I’ve pulled back a little in designing every detail in paper and pencil, because a drawing is not a puppet! The limitations of working with fabric, thread, etc. will always push the design in another direction, and that’s ok.
As I work on the technical parts of my project, I’m also working on researching the tone and themes of my pilot. While my plot and script are final enough to work on characters and rough sets, I’m still looking for ways to improve the dialogue and puppeteering. I’ve been working off of the list of research topics on my previous post to try and perfect the balance between audiences that the referenced shows achieved. I’ve also been reading Making A Good Script Great by Linda Seger.
Next research update, I’ll have the beginning of one of my main characters and some lessons learned from my theme and tone research.