quickbooks contest

Hey everyone

I would like to just make an update we have remained in the judges favorites. In 8 days they will be placing 5 videos for america to vote on. We are hoping that we will be in those 5. When that happens we will need all of you and everyone you know to help us. Once voting starts you will be able to vote once a day. Till then please feel free to take a peak at our video and comment or rate the clip. We appreciate your help. Rest assured we will continue to make puppets whether we win or not this will just be a jump start.

here is the link:http://jumpup.intuit.com/start/?p=contest&id=3727

Thank you in helping our dream come true,

All those crazy voices

So, I have been looking into voice character acting like the voices you hear on cartoons. It is amazing stuff!!!

I have found that a lot of it is practice as one would imagine. However a lot of it has to do with creativity as well. When creating a new voice for a character it is important to think about the motives, attitude, and overall personality. Some tricks in creating a voice are changing pitch, speed of speach, and dialects.

If you are interested in more about character voices be sure to check out Billy West the name may not be familiar but I'm sure his voice is. Billy has done voices for Futurama, Ren and Stimpy, Doug, as well as countless other cartoons.

My personal favorite though is Mel Blanc. If you don't know him he created all the voices for Warner Bros. cartoons. Mel has tons of range as far as different characters. I feel as though many people do lots of voices but usually I can hear similarities in all of their characters. Mel on the other hand is so good it is almost impossible. He is a one man show literally jumping from Bugs to Daffy to Elmer and back to Daffy it is amazing that he can even keep all the voices organized in his head.

well keep practicing those voices

Happy Holidays

Happy Holidays,

It has been a busy month. We have made lots of puppet for both video and for clients. We have improved greatly on our performance skills. We are also in a contest right now for a chance to win 50k to start up a company. Well I am very happy with how everything is going and we are getting more attention all the time. There is lots of stuff on the horizon for the new year and will be a lot of fun to keep everyone posted with all the new stuff that will be going on.

till then happy holidays

Deadlines

So, I have been busy getting all my puppets done this month. The deadline being Christmas of course. The Progress so far stands at one puppet done, two puppets half way done, and three all cut out and ready to be sewn.



So, this brings me to an interesting point I could have accepted more puppets to do this month. However, to not finish a puppet is worse than saying, " I could have done it for you if you came to me sooner."



In my mind it is not worth rushing the jobs, I want each puppet to be awesome and just as good as the next. It is not fair to the client to get a sub par puppet because the puppet builder over booked himself. This is something you should always consider when accepting builds with a deadline. Most people will respect you for saying that you want to give them a quality product and do not have the time(do to previous orders) to meet their deadline.

Designing a Puppet

When creating a character or a puppet it is important to have that character be able to match his persona. To accomplish this one must draw and redraw your puppet idea.

For myself I do a rough sketch of what I think I may want for the puppet keeping in mind the persona so if the puppet is supposed to be spastic and weird I would need to work that into the drawing. Usually the first drawing is half way decent. I then try and think about some ways to improve that sketch.

Once I have figured out the elements I want to change I will redraw the design. This may take several drawings to get what you want. Take your time and have fun with it.

I then create a Model Sheet once I have a final look for my puppet. This allows for me to think about the puppet in three dimensions. My model sheet usually contains a profile, 3/4 angle, and a frontal view. The model sheet can also contain some drawings of details such as hands, teeth, etc..

Once I have all that I began working on the puppet. But, that is another post.

Puppetry requires many many talents

So, I have been busy doing lots of stuff to keep the puppetry awesomeness going. I have been doing my best to continue to improve on all levels of the company. The fact of the matter is that so many things are needed to start a puppet company one could get a little lost. So, I decided to break it down into a little list to help myself keep on track.

1. Learn about puppets- This includes history of puppets, how to make puppets, puppet scripts, etc....

2 Puppet Building- You aren't much of a puppet company without these so, start building. Every puppet you make will teach you about puppets. Every puppet I have made has helped me with understanding more and more about construction.

3. Puppet manipulation- So, you have some puppets now. However, you need to learn how to make the puppet believable. There is a big difference in waving a piece of cloth around and having a creature come to life. The key to performance is practice, practice, and more practice.

4. Performance- For people to see your work you need to formulate a story or a short skit. This takes time but it is a lot of fun. Your performance could be just about anything from a puppet running into a wall to a puppet reciting Shakespeare.

5. Business- If you want a real puppet business at some point you have to do the business end. This includes making contacts, web pages, business cards, pricing, keeping records of expenses, etc...

6. Repeat- do all these steps again, but better this time. If you continue to go through these steps and try to improve on each one all aspects of the company will improve at the same time.

Hope this helps someone, as a creative person I tend to get carried away with the fun parts like performing and building so this list helps me stay on track. Hopefully, it will do the same for you.

beginnings

This is the beginning of the tales and adventures of "Little's Creatures" a newly formed puppet company.  

In the last several months since I took the plunge into making my own puppets a lot has happened.  First off I have been making puppets (lots and lots).  I have been learning tons of the info that is required to start a buisness such as websites, contacts, buisness cards, etc... . Performing with puppets takes a lot of practice to make it believable; not an overnight task at all. But, it sure is fun practicing.  I have also got some friends to assist me with my dream, one of those being my friend Stephen who has been bringing a lot to the table, from technical advice to comedy. My brother has also begun to help when he can.  

I thought at first that puppetry would be this secret thing that nobody would know about.  But, it is exactly the opposite.  We have been getting tons of recognition which is great but to keep up with the popularity is a lot of work.  

So, that takes me to this blog I thought it could be fun to keep everyone up to date with the day to day stuff that it takes to start something like this.  So, I hope everyone learns from my mistakes and benefits from my successes.