My First Post! - A Brief History of My Making

Hey readers!

My name is JoshPrime and I like trying new things - or more specifically - making new things. This blog is where I will painstakingly record my inspiration and process as I make (hopefully) cool stuff. My facebook albums - Josh makes [insert random thing here] now - just aren't cutting it anymore. I want to keep better track of what I want to do differently so that I can keep getting better. I am a big advocate of making things yourself. Not only will it help when the zombie apocalypse comes, but it keeps you thinking creatively and lets you tinker with things until they are just how you want them. Plus, its super fun. (Puppets are a vital part of survival in the zombie apocalypse. Do you see any puppets in The Walking Dead? No, and people die all the time on that show.)

My first puppet: Chloe

It all started with the puppets. Puppets aren't just for teaching the ABCs on Sesame Street, or for proselytizing to children about the bible. If you don't know what I am talking about, type "puppet bible" into YouTube. I can wait, this is a blog after all. It's asynchronous so do whatever you want. Are you back? I know, that stuff is crazy. I am a guy who blogs about making random stuff and even I think they have too much time on their hands. Anyway, I saw a production of Avenue Q at a college and the cast/crew had made all the puppets themselves. I wanted to see if I could make puppets too!

Chloe was my first puppet.  I don't have much photos of the process of building her - a big reason this blog needs to exist. Chloe was a lot of fun to build. Her eyes are bathroom door stops and I am hiding a lot of my early puppet building naiveté with giant fuzzy eyebrows. The mouth in particular is an area of puppet building that I really struggle with. All the puppets I have made so far have hot glued mouths. To those of you who know about puppet building: I know, I know, sewn mouths are the way to go, but I am working on it. My next puppet will have a sewn mouth - I hope. I had to hide a lot of stuff with her, but she is still pretty fantastic. Though maybe I am biased.

Griz is not speaking to you, cuz he can't

Fast forward to my newest puppet - Griswald. I am just realizing now he also has big bushy eyebrows. They aren't hiding and mistakes, I guess I just like them. I had grown a lot in my puppet making. Griswald has wooden dowels in his ears and a ribbon running down his back. Pulling it gives you a little wiggle of those ears. He has a foam body (unlike Chloe) and a mix of fur and fabric accents. He has some major issues in his mouth though. I hadn't ever worked with fun fur and the lack of stretch makes his mouth a struggle. I am hoping that I can fix this in my next puppet. Opening mouths is kind of a big part of the final product. He is lucky he is so cute.

I want to work on a new series of puppets next. It will give me a chance to try out some awesome new stuff I learned watching Adam Kreitunger.

Once I caught the maker bug I made a bunch more stuff. I made a haunted dollhouse, took up baking cakes and tried my hand at quilting. I want to continue making awesome stuff, and writing about it here to you fine readers (hi mom!).

You should try making stuff too! Try out what you like and see if you can make something cool!
Until next time,
JoshPrime