JoshPrime Makes Stuff

Hey reader! We have had so many puppet posts lately! This is going to be another one, except we are going to be doing something I haven't ever attempted before - vacuform eyes! I feel like a ringleader at a circus. Hold your gasps and those with weak dispositions should exit the blog now (That's not even a lie because the eyes look really creepy for a while). Mouth assembly was like most of my puppets where I used the foam head to guide the size and shape of the plastic and the velvet. I sewed in a strap for my hand as you have seen me do a few times. I added a bit of foam to the back of the head so that it would look more natural - if a blue furry dragon can ever look natural. Now for the really fun part, making the eyes! I have been working up the courage to try a vacuform eye for a while now. I have seen the crew on the SyFy series Faceoff use the vacuform to make awesome hand painted eyes for their custom makeup creations. I started by making a vacuform mold ...

Hey there readers! When we last left our friend Blue, he was all sewn together and had some fancy new gold horns. What he was lacking was eyes and some other little finishing touches. It is kind of upsetting that the eyes are the last thing, because they are pretty much the best part and really gives the creature a life of its own. I started with the mold I had made previously , to make some eyes for this little blue fellow. I had some leftover materials from that build and I don't think they held up as well as I was hoping. Some of the eyes I made came out great, while others never fully hardened. They had this strange gummy bear texture that I was certainly not tempted to eat. Detergent pods are not edible. I know this is only tangentially related, but why the heck are we still making detergent pods? So much money is being invested to make sure people know that the companies are doing everything they can to make the packaging safer. Why are they even a product in the first pl...

Hey Reader! I know its been a week since you last heard about how the dragon puppet was coming along. When we last left it, it had crazy loose fleece skin and a face that was equally part cat and part human - in that it looked like neither of those things. Regardless, I decided it would be green. The thought was that as I work on my rainbow series, this new addition could serve as the green puppet. You will see why that was incredibly wrong as this story unfolds. Call that foreshadowing. You know, the dramatic device where an important plot point is mentioned early in the story to return later in a more significant way. First step in creating this puppet's new fur was to use my pattern and cut out some panels. That pattern sure does look weird, but it fit with the fleece so I had to just hope that it fit. You will notice that my fur is white. That is because we are doing to try dying fur again! If at first you don't succeed, fail at it twice. I mean - attempt it twice....

Hey Reader, I have a bone to pick with you. Have you ever used a bath bomb? See, I am not traditionally that into face masks, facial scrubs or other such bath time products. I looked upon bath bombs with a sense of disdain that should be quite familiar to most folks from New Jersey - we have it about pretty much everything. After being convinced to finally try a bath bomb, I prepared my snarky comments and trademark New Jersey acerbic replies. Then I experienced a bath bomb first hand. It was one of the most magical experiences I have ever had. I was left with a seething rage. These things might seem like they are not reasonable to experience together. Lets start with the magic: my tub turned an amazing green color. We aren't talking a little pale green. No, my tub was straight up Ecto Cooler . I felt like I was swimming in a glass of Hi-C when I was 7. Further, the ball itself fizzed and spun around in the tub, all while making a satisfying hissing noise. It was amazing. I w...

Hey reader! I promised you a new toy this week! Again, it isn't exactly new, considering I bought it almost a year ago, but I hadn't found a good project to use it on until now. It is my very own VacuForm machine ! I was not aware of VacuForm machines outside of the SyFy series Faceoff . They are super awesome devices that allow you to sculpt something in clay or another medium, and then duplicate it in plastic! Shout out to Adam Kreutinger again for showing me that it could have an application in the world of puppets. He uses it for noses. I will probably do that eventually, but for today it is going to be used to make some horns! The one I got is for dentists. Inside the box is the machine itself, as well as a baggy full of ball bearings. These get poured into the tray at the bottom of the device. Notice that there are small holes in the tray. Ball bearings are also small, but not as small as those holes. That is quite fortunate. The idea is that the ball bearings a...

Hey reader, I saw this awesome puppet by Tiny Badger and wanted to try my hand at making something similar. I was preparing to go to a convention and thought that it would make a great prop for the floor. Before I packed my bags and headed to WhedonCon to talk about running the coolest podcast , I would have to make sure my puppet was ready to go! Pictured: Definitely not a cat I have been talking about carving a foam head for a while now. Since this puppet's head was going to have a much different head shape than anything I had made before, it was time to give this a try. This is one of those things that I just dove into without a tutorial. I just found my block of foam (that I got inside my packaging materials for a 3-D printer a few years ago) and started carving. I looked a few pictures of cat and leopards for reference. I thought a cat-like dragon would be cool. Unfortunately, you would certainly not know it to look at my carving. This is apparently what I think cats...

Hey readers! Last time we were hanging out together, I had just dyed by hands blue. Also a puppet, but mostly my hands. With hands that look like they were on a Gargamel hosted cooking show, I set out to sew together the puppet. You have seen me assemble a few heads now, and this one wasn't all that different. The triangle shaped mouth that I hoped would give the puppet a totally unique look really isn't all that noticeable. It is always interesting to me the things I spend a lot of time on that are just invisible in the finished product. It's ok, I will try again on a fleece puppet and see if that makes a difference. Learning! This head looks really odd with nothing attached to it, including its body. It doesn't have enough detail yet to look like an actual head, so its just this totally weird furry thing with a black void in the center. This angle is kind of horrifying. I am finding myself staring at it like it has some sort of pull over me. I need to move on. ...