Another Happy Customer. . .

Below is a picture of Sparky just before he headed off to customer Frank Conenna in New York. I always worry about these little guys until I've heard they have arrived safe and sound. Here's what Frank had to say to my wife (Cathy) and me (Mike Brose):

"We picked Sparky up from the post office today. I wanted to tell you that he looks and works great! I could not be more pleased. You are a true artist. He was worth the wait. You have absolutely gone beyond my expectations. I am very happy to have found you both in my pursuit of a ventriloquist figure. Again, thank you both. If you ever need me to provide a reference or feedback regarding my experience, please do not hesitate to ask me.

With Regards,
Frank"

(I made an extra body for Frank. One body has the regular stuffed feet that come standard, and the other body has bare feet, as shown below. Having 2 bodies makes it very easy for costume changes)

Thanks to Frank for all the kind words. We do aim to please, and we hear about it often from our customers. But it is always nice to hear it again.

A peek inside the process. . .

A peek inside the installation of an upper lip sneer in a professional ventriloquist figure's head. A customer and good friend requested this animation for his figure order (he ordered awhile back and just finished his figure recently) and I wanted the challenge of installing this animation in this particular character head, as there is limited space inside our popular Fred head. Here's the figure on the workbench......

I took several snapshots along the way while building this figure, per our customer's request, and took some video footage as well and put together a quick glimpse of the process, that is now up on our YouTube channel. Click on the link below to see the video. Enjoy!

Upper Lip Sneer - A peek inside the process

Sparky's Younger Brother.........

Introducing Sparky's younger brother 'Skippy'! I've been meaning to do this for quite awhile, but 2013 has been so crazy, I just could not get to it until now. In any case, with no further ado, here he is, Skippy!

He is now up on our website and is available as a finished figure, or as a kit head. Here are the links for those pages............

'Skippy' - Finished Figure

'Skippy' - Kit Head Casting

Hope you like him!

Fred on the Workbench

Like many other figure makers, when a figure is completed, I will spend some time making sure everything is working as it should before the figure gets sent out. And as you'll see, when I do this, I pretty much always end up making the figure talk a little. Yes, as the saying goes, "I talk to myself a lot, and work with dummies all day long!"

The professional ventriloquist figure shown in the video below, is made by me, Mike Brose, of Puppets and Props, and has moving mouth, side-to-side self-centering eyes, raising eyebrows, and one-control blinkers (which means one control closes both eyelids at the same time). 

We of course also offer figures with two-control winkers (like the figure in our Sparky video on YouTube), which can close each eyelid individually or both at the same time. Here is the video clip of Fred on the Workbench getting a little mini workout with his controls......

To find out more about Fred and to see some of our other quality figures, you can go here on our website......

 http://www.puppetsandprops.com/FiguresNew.html

I get this strange feeling.....

Every so often, while I'm working in the workshop, I get this strange feeling like someone is watching me! Hmmmmmmmm.............. 

I don't think I'm imagining it. Someone IS watching me!

 

 

Oh no! Everywhere I look there are eyes following me!

 

 

And MORE eyes following me!

 

Then my wife taps me on the shoulder and says, "Did you forget that you work in a puppet shop again, dear?" "Sigh!" Yeah, every once in awhile, I have to be reminded of this strange, but wonderful reality. I build puppets for a living! It's a way cool, childhood dream that has come true for me and is now my regular daily workweek. I actually have to pinch myself some days to see if this is all really happening or not. 

 

Very fun, but strange profession at times. I still get a kick out of it when my adult kids tell me about one of their friends who asks................

 

 "What does your dad do for work?.........  He does what?!?"   

 

Fumbling on Facebook....

I'm probably one of the last holdouts for getting onto Facebook and finding out how the social networking and such works. I did finally join up last summer and muddled through the process, and have slowly but surely gotten familiar with things on there and the basics of how it works.

One thing I really struggled with before signing up on Facebook was figuring out if I should have a personal page or a business page (I mistakenly thought at that time that you could only have one or the other). I had seen a lot of people who made obvious business posts on their personal pages. And the Facebook business page set up, I didn't quite understand how it worked.

I asked my son-in-law about it (he's very smart when it comes to computers, social media, etc.), and he strongly suggested I go for a business page if I was going to use it for my business. Well........, I was a little stubborn, and after looking at the situation and thinking it was better to go the other way, I set up a personal page, and started out that way.

Finally, about a month or so ago, after noticing some business pages, I did some more research on the whole thing and discovered you could have both a personal page AND a business page, and there were definite advantages to having a Page just for the biz. Also, per Facebook policy, you are not supposed to be using a personal Facebook page for business. They can close your personal account! Yikes!

So......... I have since apologized to my very smart and kind son-in-law, and also started a business page for Puppets and Props on Facebook. This is actually just a long way of saying I put up a business page on Facebook. If you get a chance, take a look, and of course, please 'Like' my page!

A Thousands Words. . . .

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. If that is true, then a video must be worth quite a few more words, eh?!? My blog has had several pictures of the inside of the heads of figures that I have made. And many have let me know that they appreciate seeing these type of photos.

 There's a fair amount you can learn from a still photo for sure, but seeing the actual mechanisms in motion tells a whole lot more of the story. It's a lot easier to see what does what. This last week, after a hard days work in the shop, I took a few minutes and shot some video inside one of the heads I made.

This video shows the set up of what I like to call the Basic Four: moving mouth, side-to-side self-centering eyes, raising eyebrows and winkers. There are a variety of ways those animations can be made. This video demonstrates one way of doing these basic four mechanisms. Enjoy!