Puppet Materials?

We need to decide what to make our first puppets out of. Ideally they will be a puppet-building practice exercise for our real main-character puppets, so we should make them out of whatever we plan on making Lucy and Oscar out of. 

consider: http://www.axtell.com/manip.html

Jonathan, Kirsten, and I were thinking about the pros and cons of felt vs. wire frame with paper mache, and hand puppets vs. stick puppets. 

Felt: we don't know a lot about it, but it seems like a cool material, and could end up being really nice looking and sturdy. Where do we get the wool? How hard is it to do? Could we have easily moveable joints?

Wire frame + paper mache: Jonathan made a wire-frame prototype for Don Quixote that has really well-functioning joints and looks good. The paper mache would be the questionable part regarding appearance, and possibly durability/good motion.

Hand Puppets: Easily moveable mouth, but that would use up one whole hand, and would also possibly make the puppets really big. If we used just one finger to move the bottom jaw, the size issue might be remedied. Do we need a moveable mouth?

Stick Puppets: No moveable mouth, but we could probs move two arms instead of one arm and a mouth. 

We would like to start building our self-puppets on Friday at Kirsten's dad's office at 10:00am (there's a Ben Franklin very nearby, so we could tromp over and make our first materials purchase there), so spare a couple thoughts for the material and design questions here before Friday.

Character Bios

Name: LUCY
Nicknames: her mom calls her lulu, oscar calls her lucy goose

Birthday/Zodiac: September 15, Virgo

Sex: Female
Age: 20
Parents: Joan of arc, clown by claude verlinde

Birth order/siblings: passle of brothers, all younger

Hometown:

Current Residence: the tower

Occupation: imaginaut
Salary: paid in ideas/stories – kept in a notebook. Can’t use it too many times, gets old/worn out.

Talents/Skills: knows art history, retains facts well, no nonsense, organized (disorganized when researching – waves)

Greatest personality flaw: isolates herself, too involved in her work, has a hard time relating to decisions based on personal subjectivity or feelings.

Best quality: logical, original, creative thinker.

Personality: Logical, original, creative thinkers. Can become very excited about theories and ideas. Exceptionally capable and driven to turn theories into clear understandings. Highly value knowledge, competence and logic. Quiet and reserved, hard to get to know well. Individualistic, having no interest in leading or following others.

Linear thinker

Truthist

Leah and Ellie mashed together.

Background: middle distance runner, page at a library (LOL), used to do plays – really good extra

Physical Characteristics: a little chubby, jumper with cat, little cat purse, black energetic hair with pigtails? Doesn’t wear the uniform because it’s stupid

Race: image

Nationality: vague
Height: large and in charge
Weight: large and in charge

Dexterity: left handed +10

Favorite Color: dreamsicle orange

Eye Color: black
Hair Color: dark purple/blue/red

Hair Style: energetic hair with pigtails
Glasses or contact lenses? no
Skin color: vague – little dark, olive?
Distinguishing features: catpurse, pigtails, eyelashes
How does he/she dress? Dress with cat, collared button down flannel, mary janes

Speech Patterns: LATER

Health: secret gaptooth, lactose intolerant

Hobbies: collects bugs, reads historical fiction (secretly historical fiction romance novels) – obviously a big reader. Note-taking, always writing.

Spirit Animal: koala

Name: OSCAR
Nicknames: weed

Birthday/Zodiac: March 11

Sex: male
Age: 20
Parents: kiss of the muse, cezanne

Birth order/siblings: little sister

Pets: turtle, sock monkey

Hometown: vaguely european

Current Residence: the tower

Occupation: imaginaut
Salary: paid in ideas/stories – kept in a notebook. Can’t use it too many times, gets old/worn out.

Talents/Skills: energetic, yo-yoing, making, always doing something

Greatest personality flaw: no attention span, does not assess risks very well, bad driver – never allowed to drive.  

Best quality: extremely loyal, great people skills, adaptable.

Personality: Friendly, adaptable, action-oriented. "Doers" who are focused on immediate results. Living in the here-and-now, they're risk-takers who live fast-paced lifestyles. Impatient with long explanations. Extremely loyal to their peers, but not usually respectful of laws and rules if they get in the way of getting things done. Great people skills.

Connects things intuitively

Picky eater – health nut/snob

beautyist

Background: swimmer, grew up on a beach, mow lawns – draw pictures, worked at a grocery store- did the chalkboard things.

Physical Characteristics: always wears the uniform because he thinks its awesome (but it’s stupid)

Race: image

Nationality: vague
Height: variable
Weight: moderate

Dexterity: right handed (secretly ambidextrous, but very much)

Favorite Color: rainbows!

Eye Color: black
Hair Color: orangey yellowy blonde

Hair Style: always under his hood thing, little puff bursting out
Glasses or contact lenses? Yes – square, dark blue/bright red it’s like whatever.
Skin color: vague – on the lighter side, edging towards yellow and pink?
Distinguishing features: jumpsuit/hood/poof, glasses, sock monkey?
How does he/she dress? Body suit with utility belt with imaginauts logo.

Speech Patterns: LATER

Health: cavities, split ends.

Hobbies: jig-saw puzzle

Spirit animal: otter

painted people, puppets, personalities

Alexa Meade paints people on people. Athena in the literature episode? Maybe more?

Also, shadow puppets!

Also also, here is a list of 16 personality types which we might use as a jumping off point for our two main characters.

link!

My suggestion:

Oscar: ESTP

Friendly, adaptable, action-oriented. "Doers" who are focused on immediate results. Living in the here-and-now, they're risk-takers who live fast-paced lifestyles. Impatient with long explanations. Extremely loyal to their peers, but not usually respectful of laws and rules if they get in the way of getting things done. Great people skills.

Lucy: INTP

Logical, original, creative thinkers. Can become very excited about theories and ideas. Exceptionally capable and driven to turn theories into clear understandings. Highly value knowledge, competence and logic. Quiet and reserved, hard to get to know well. Individualistic, having no interest in leading or following others.

Thoughts?

Characters of the ImagiNATION

So our show has two main characters, a boy and girl duo, as of yet unnamed. We've decided that the girl should specialize in history and the boy in art. Within the show, their physical form changes, but their 3D puppets are their "true" selves. If they are in a certain painting, the aesthetics of the painting world they enter alters their physical appearance, but they still retain some obvious physical features that distinguish them as our beloved main characters. <3

There will be several other characters in the show too, like the artists they talk to, the characters in the paintings, and the individuals having creativity issues. Alongside them are other characters (imaginauts??) that help out our duo. 

One possible character:

Name: General Aesthetics

Age: 50s - 60s

Bio: Civil war general with an eye for visual cohesiveness! Mustache! White horse!