Sesame Street puppets

I noticed the other day that the Wal-mart in my area (ON, Canada) were selling "fun fur" bath mats... or some kind of mat. Some of the colors were pretty close to Oscar and Cookie Monster.

I'm not sure if the mats had a rubber backing on them, I didn't really look that close.

Love the Gonzo! Nice workHMS Mike.:thumbsup
 
A couple things in answer to people's ponderings in this thread...

When Muppets wear out, they are shredded to bits and thrown away. Seriously. So no one can copy any patterns or fish something worthwhile out of the trash.

The original SESAME martian puppets were made of crocheted HATS someone in the Muppet workshop found. Remember, SESAME debuted in 1969, so wacky hippie wear was still common. When the originals finally wore out, new fabric had to be crocheted from scratch to replicate them.

The fellow who was briefly registered here and was selling Muppet replicas has been kicked off numerous forums for egregious behavior. AND he is one of several defendants in a Disney IP suit that he will surely lose big time. I know who he is and can vouch that he is a scoundrel - avoid!

Now a couple questions:

Trentrooper, you buy antron fleece pre-dyed? Where? Your puppets look like Armslength patterns - are they? I ask because your description of the process and materials sounds like textbook David Pannabecker.

HMS Mike, you made that Gonzo replica? Or did you buy it from someone - the work looks very familiar.

Finally, someone asked about making a Kermit. Attached please find someone's exploded view of the MR Kermit poser puppet. It's not exactly like the real functional puppet, but is a good guide for making a stab at it.

Cheers!

Rick
 
Hi Rick,
Yes I made The Gonzo myself. He is made of reteculated foam and fur, He did have a working eye mech. but it jammed.

HMS Mike
 
HMS Mike said:
Hi Rick,
Yes I made The Gonzo myself. He is made of reteculated foam and fur, He did have a working eye mech. but it jammed.

HMS Mike
Click to expand...

Great work! Gonzo is extremely hard to make. Even the people making the real Muppets have a tough time making him look the same each time.

Weezer said:
How tall is Kermit?
Click to expand...

The MR poser puppet is a little under size. From the bottom of its butt to the top of its head is about 13 inches, and his legs are about 12 inches long. From the tips of his longest fingers to the top of his arm is about 14 inches.

Hope that is helpful. Keep in mind that the real Kermit is slightly bigger. In terms of scale, it might help to remember that the original Kermit's eyes were a ping pong ball cut in half.

R
 
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rickrickrick said:
The fellow who was briefly registered here and was selling Muppet replicas has been kicked off numerous forums for egregious behavior. AND he is one of several defendants in a Disney IP suit that he will surely lose big time. I know who he is and can vouch that he is a scoundrel - avoid!
Click to expand...

That's good news.

I hope they burn him at the stake!
 
I once thought it would be nice to build my own Kermit, but I remember being put off by people talking about "secret invisible seams".

Kinda got the impression that muppet making was a closely guarded secret.

Thought about converting a toy, but they all seem to be a cartoonised version of Kermit and the Master Replicas one was a trifle expensive for my budget at the time.

I do a mean Kermit voice! :D
 
Yeah, the fact that I do a pretty good kermit voice myself is what got me interested in making one so that I can use it to play with my daughter. I really want to have one identical in every way to the television/movie kermit because if she is anything like I am, she'll notice the differences.

Of course I'm not interested in selling copyrighted or protected material in any way, I just wanted to have a decent quality "friend" for my daughter. Hopefully I'll be able to pull off a Kermit at some point. Not sure everything I need is here, but it is a start. I'm wondering what the inside of Kermit's head looks like, since his face is the trickiest part.
 
Correct - there is nothing inside Kermit's head. It's one of the reasons he is so flexible and - when used by the right person - expressive. It is also why so few puppeteers can perform the real puppet well - you have to have a large hand like Jim did. When people with smaller hands use the puppet, they have to put stuffing in his head. Then, of course, he doesn't really look the same.

In some ways, Kermit is one of the easiest Muppets of which to make a replica. His shape and construction are relatively simple. But he is also one of the hardest in other ways, because, for one, his fleece is NOT the standard antron, and simply cannot be found anywhere (hasn't been manufactured since the seventies). New Kermits are still being made of that 30+ year-old fabric that the workshop stored away. It is the same fleece the Fisher Price toy Kermits were made from in the day. The custom fleece the MR Kermits were made of was a pretty good match visually, but doesn't hold up for a real puppet.

R
 
good to know that rickrickrick, now I can just buy up a bunch of Fisher-price kermits from ebay and cannibalize them for their felt!!!! :)
 
Rickrickrick... Thanks for the info. I was about to post basically the same thing when I ran across your posting.

For those interested in learning how to build a very nice "muppet style" puppet (and in the process learn a lot about working with the materials and techniques that will help you to start making really killer replica muppet hobby projects), go to www.projectpuppet.com and get one or two of their patterns. Build them. They WILL teach you very important stuff that will apply.

Some of the puppets I use on Transylvania Television were based from Project Puppet patterns. Batfink is their Glorified Sock Puppet pattern that I modified for the character. In fact, his body is made from one of the other HEAD patterns they supply.

In the case of the Yip Yip Aliens, they're pretty simple and won't require an advanced knowledge of foam/fleece/fur/stitching/gluing.

-Gordon
www.transylvania-tv.com
 
Is reteculated more dense than other foam or more flexible? Just curious what makes this particular foam so popular with puppet building. Is 3/4" the ideal thickness normally? Great info. and thanks to all for adding your insite experience and information here.
 
Reticulated foam is a big catch-all term for open cell foam (standard polyurethane foam is closed cell foam). The porosity or density is what determines how flexible or stiff it is.

The preferred density is a personal choice. For puppets patterned from sheet foam, the "normal" density preferred by most professionals is 35 ppi (pores per inch). For carving something out of a block of foam, higher densities are preferred.

35 ppi reticulated foam ("scot" foam or filter foam) is extremely difficult to find. As far as I know it is stocked by one and only one supplier in the whole USA - Rogers Foam, which has a very high minimum order. It comes in a neutral off-white color. Reticulated foam is cheaper and more readily available in a charcoal color, but you won't find 35 ppi - it'll be 20-30 ppi at best. Most places that carry the black foam call it filter foam, as it was originally created for refrigeration applications (you've probably seen it sold in thin sheets for air conditioner filters at your Home Depot or Lowes). BTW, this is what early Muppets were made of before the neutral color was available.

Using reticulated foam is a refinement normally reserved for professional level puppet building. Hobbyists will do fine with polyurethane. It's cheap, readily available at upholstery or fabric stores like Joanns, and easy to work with.

Rick

PS - The most common thicknesses of reticulated foam used by folks like Henson for patterned puppets are 3/8", 1/2", 5/8" and 1".
 
The_Mike said:
I've always been interested in seeing if anyone had any leads on custom Sesame Street puppets. My wife was always such a huge Grover fan, I've been dying to find something that look remotely close to what you saw on screen as a gift for her.
Click to expand...

In the 70's there were toy puppets released that I thought looked pretty good. My brother and I used to own Bert & Ernie. The site below shows them:

http://thedarkmask.com/sesame/sesame_street.htm
 
Trooper_trent said:
hmmm hard to say. I'd guess after all is said and done, around $80-90 for all materials.

Foam, Antron Fleece, Spandex (for the hand sleeve), tubing (for neck and lower body support as well as bottom ring for ease of access for your hand, Doe Suede (for the red mouth lining), sheep skin chamois, rubber, dense foam, and plastic for the mouth plate,grip and hand strap, doll arm hinges, poly fiber stuffing for the arms, eyes, hair material, and clothing, contact cement, and hot glue, materials for the arm rods, and whatever personal touches or features I decide on.
The sewing machine, hot wire foam cutter, and other tools you only have to buy once, so I'm not including those.

Definitely go with real Antron. Anything else will bunch and wrinkle.

Feel free to ask any questions. There are definitely some really good tricks to making them that you wouldn't think of...things that make a huge difference in the quality of the finished product.
Click to expand...

Hey, Trent. This is a great list and your puppets look excellent. My Wife is a puppeteer and builds her own puppets and I am always on the lookout for tips and helpful hints for her to apply to her puppet building. We recently had a puppeteering workshop with Steve Whitmire in Atlanta, and in the class we were using puppets built by Steve himself. I've been on kind of a mini-mission ever since to try and figure out what was going on inside the head! What types of materials I was feeling in there. The inside of the mouth felt to me like the rubber that red playground kick balls are made of. And there were thin wood dowels or something similar as grips.

I would be EXTREMELY interested in step by step photos of your parts and processes.

My Wife's site is http://www.puppatoons.com, BTW.
 
I'm in the process of writing a web series and one of the characters in it, is a puppet.
179824_148043795250946_139110059477653_239036_8363564_n.jpg

The puppet was made for me by a very skilled puppet maker named Matthias Weber in Hamburg, Germany, who runs/owns this site/business here ZUCKERLIFABRIK

I was able to design the puppet with him, but, IN CASE the show does well, I thought it would be fun to show "Bostwick's" creation, so here he is. This video may help anyone interested in making their own puppet.
Making of a Goblin Puppet - YouTube

Also, here are some additional early photos of his life
170740_145502142171778_139110059477653_227170_3046158_o.jpg

135323_145502238838435_139110059477653_227173_7298343_o.jpg

133738_145502215505104_139110059477653_227172_51887_o.jpg

54751_145502185505107_139110059477653_227171_7043638_o.jpg

169805_145598375495488_139110059477653_227654_7631542_o.jpg
 
What kind of material is the main body ( purpleish) made from? is it Lurex? or Tinsel based? PIGS IN SPACE

- - - Updated - - -

What kind of material is the main body ( purpleish) made from? is it Lurex? or Tinsel based? PIGS IN SPACE

Pumpernickel said:
Many have been on display for years, including a special ongoing Jim Henson Workshop, at the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta. See link and a sample photo I took (of Pigs in Space) a few years ago.

Pumpernickel

http://puppet.org/museum/spec.shtml#hensonworkshop

http://i302.photobucket.com/albums/nn114/pumpernickel_2008/props/pigsinspace.jpg
Click to expand...
 
My daughter wanted to be Beaker for her High School Halloween So I whipped this up in 2 days. Finding the right color materials was a bit tricky. Picture_272.jpg
 
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