Useful/Interesting puppetry websites to look at
Here’s a list of sites that have been useful to me. Some of them have to do with puppet building, some puppeteering techniques, and some are just fun to look at. Maybe there are even better sites out there, but they are of no use to them if I don’t actually visit them, right? So here are the sites that I actually visit regularly. You can also find them (and more) in the links page.
PuppetVision Blog
This site is updated daily with lots of information about puppetry. The author Andrew posts up a lot of links that’s worth checking out, including interesting puppet videos online, puppet building tips, puppetry events, puppeteer interviews and more. Many sites that I regularly read and am recommending here are actually found originally via his blog.
Puppetry Lab
Puppeteer / puppeteering instructor Amy Harder posts many puppeteering tips on this site. The most useful thing on this site I found are the instructional videos. For example, there’s a video showing you how to hold the arm rods. I’ve seen a lot of introductory puppeteering articles simply say form the rods into an X but this is really vague to many people until you actually see a video showing the puppeteer’s hand in action. There are also other helpful tutorials on how to make your puppet swim, and how to utilize the camera, etc. It’s a site worth checking out.
The Wippets
This is a podcast by self-taught puppeteer Ron and his gang. It’s the home of Barff, Spafford, and more recently, Jimmy and Phil. I love their wacky episodes and it’s certainly an inspiration in terms of how much you can do when you are self-taught and armed with imagination to make something experimental at home. Check out their videos!
Expert Village
This is a site that has a lot of instructional videos. I learned how to build simple puppets from this video. I do it somewhat differently (for example, I do not use rubber cement and I do not use foam) but I build puppets using methods that are variations of these videos. There’s also a good summary on puppeteering basics. Both sets of videos are done by puppeteer Paul Louis.
Puppetbuilding Dot Com
As the name suggests, this is a site about puppet building. The show covers a lot of puppet building techniques and tutorials written by puppet builders. A lot of these refer to more professional puppet building than the stuff I do. For example, some of them use different types of foam that’s only sold in large quantities and I simply don’t have access to them and won’t bother. The concepts are still worth checking out though, even if I don’t use the same materials.
There are other links to sites that are worth checking out but aren’t directly related to puppetry. Check out the links page for more!