Scientist reborn

Here is version 2 of the Scientist. This is so much better. There's a lot of hot glue here. the burns are slowly subsiding...

Asymmetry

Mr Punch naked, with hand in position that, if inserted, would produce the pose he is in.

One thing I hadn't considered in advance was that thumb and forefinger are quite different in length (and fatness). This has some unexpected consequences.

It makes it hard for a two-fingered puppet to be used on either hand. The positioning of the holes through which the puppeteers fingers support the puppet's arms has to made to fit either a left hand or a right hand, but once made for one hand, the puppet cannot easily be used on the other...

Costume ponderings

I've not made as much progress as I would have liked, on account of working on kitchens, but have got the basic concept for the two fingered puppet pretty much sorted.

This involves making the sleeve and arms as one piece, and the body without arms as another as shown here, and stitching together.

Mr Punch in an old costume

Blinkin' Blimey, e's an 'andsome devil.

Micro Mr Punch is wearing a previous (and sadly deceased) puppet's garb, but he looks rather dapper methinks. Taken from a dead man, tsk, tsk.

He will get a new set of clothes of his own, but looking sharp in hand-me-downs, meanwhile.

Mr Punch's body...

Mr Punch is looking good. I went for full body in the end and it turns out to have been a pretty good idea...

Skeleton problem may be solved

A-ha! This came to me on the train.

I have made a breakthrough in changing to a puppet with a full (if small) body with a separate sleeve attached horizontally.










This works by mounting the head on a rod (as a counter balance), and attachin the pivot to the costume inside the neck. This frees the two working fingers (thumb and forefinger) to move freely without being contrained by holding the rod

Puppet skeletons gone wrong?

I am starting to think I have not cracked it with the basic design of how a small two-fingered glove puppet needs to be mounted on the hand.
The problem is that I am trying to adapt the traditional mount for three fingers, and not just trying to start from scratch with what works for two fingers. It is not working!
Using a trad glove puppet with the arm upright it is surprisingly uncomfortable and restrictive to move the puppet arm with the index finger.

I had a bit of an a-ha moment thinking about a steadicam mounting, which might be a better model than a glove puppet. How weird is that?