by Stormlight » Fri Aug 19, 2011 6:08 am
Love puppets! When I was a teen, I was in our church youth group's puppeteer act. I'd watched the shows for YEARS and always wanted to be a part of it, so I joined as soon as I was old enough. But it was REALLY hard (and hot) work, having to kneel behind the stage with three to six other people and hold up your arm as high it could go while making the puppet talk, moving its mouth in a realistic manner. I had to hold my hand flat, like making a duck shadow puppet on the wall. My fingers were in the puppet's upper mouth, my thumb in its lower jaw. I had to hold my hand stiff and move only my thumb to make the puppet talk. Very difficult. Plus I also had to manipulate two rods attached to the hands and stuff (like Kermit has). Can we say arm cramps? O_x
The ones with the human arms/hands were even more difficult because two people were practically on top of each other to manipulate it, and those suckers are a lot heavier than you'd expect. lol
But it WAS a lot of fun. We'd go to other churches and have shows and contests and stuff. We were even in a couple of local fair parades. The puppets themselves had changeable hair and eyes, a lot like BJDs now that I think on it. They were actually like the puppets in Quidam's post.
As for other puppets, I have a little stuffed dragon I bought years ago, and I have two of the puppets from the Imaginarium at the Renn faire. My griffin is horribly beat up, though, so I really need to replace him (probably if/when I go this year). His poor feathered wings are all torn up, thanks to my cat getting hold of him. My other one is a little dragon, with cloth wings. He isn't as big as the griffin, so not as advanced. They never stay on my shoulders, though. Not without tying them on. lol
