Best puppet books according to redditors

I really liked this one. It's obviously more about Jim than just The Muppets, but it covers a lot of what you're looking for.

Jason Surrell's books - Pirates of the Caribbean and The Haunted Mansion Both books have an incredible amount of detailed history behind the rides (in all parks) and subsequent movies, etc.

Tintin plush doll I honestly don't understand how 3 of these are still available at that price.

Tintin the Complete Companion If he doesn't yet have all the books, I assure you he will, after you get him this book.


Hergé and the Treasures of Tintin This book is incredible for every Tintin fan. What makes this really stand out are all the wonderfully reproduced pull-out facsimile documents of rare sketches, personal drawings, posters, unfinished pages. There are posters in here that I consider worthy of framing.

Tintin in the Congo English colour Collector's Edition A must-have for any Tintin fan to finally complete their collectionof all 24 titles. This was hard-to-find and out-of-print for awhile, but as of 2016 is once again in print and available for a reasonable price. Get one while you can.

Tintin figurines Absolutely any one of these. Shop around. They're out there.


...Coffee mugs, drinking glasses, t-shirts, I could go on, but I think you get the picture. :)

It's a moving mouth puppet, also know as a mouth puppet, the same basic mechanism as most Muppets.

I doubt you're going to find specifically a "How to make a moving mouth fish puppet" tutorial, but really all you need to do is make a standard mouth puppet (which there are tutorials for) and build out the back of the head into a tail.

James Wojital recently made a fish puppet like this for his niece and photographed a few steps of the process.

Finished Puppet

The fleece pattern

Most puppets of this kind have a foam "skull" and use foam or polyfill to build out the body. This is then covered by fabric, normally some kind of fleece.

There are a few patterns for creating mouth puppets here.

Here's one tutorial on youtube, broken into several videos it details most of the process of creating a mouth puppet.

If you've got some time and a small amount of money on your hands, I highly suggest The Foam Book a great resource for building with foam. You can also purchase a great puppet pattern from Project Puppet.

If this is all overwhelming you and you want something really simple and cheap, just get a colorful sock, add ping pong balls for eyes and fabric for fins and you're there. You can make the mouth perform better by wrapping a rubber band around it.

If you have any specific questions, feel free to ask!

The pattern is from this book, which also had toys for the kitty and a cute story

I’d also recommend the Mark Waid run during Heroes Return. Kubert’s art is amazing, and Waid really nails the symbolic elements of the Cap mythos.

https://www.amazon.com/Captain-America-Garney-Kubert-Omnibus/dp/1302908316#productDescription_secondary_view_div_1520693043351

Too bad. :(

Well I highly recommend this book then. It covers EVERYTHING.

• https://www.amazon.com/Pirates-Caribbean-Jason-Surrell/dp/0786856300
  
• https://www.etsy.com/listing/571184704/vintage-walt-disneys-pirates-of-the

1. Whatever size you are comfortable with and fits your budget, really. Do you have plenty of cash, and are you doing a lot of detailed puppet design and motion? Then go as big as you'd like. Are you trying to keep things simple and cheap? Keep things relatively small (6-8 inches, but if you've got delicate craftsmanship you can make even smaller puppets). Some pre-made armature kits have set scales of puppet sizes for their product lines, but if you're making everything from scratch, the scale is up to you.
   
   
2. Best cheap/affordable material: aluminum wire and plasticine (oil based) clay (I would avoid Sculpey...it has a sort of frustrating "crumbly" effect at the worst times). Easy to order from many art/craft suppliers, and is one of the more common combinations. If you want to make human characters with cloth clothes, you should research foam latex for the flesh parts of your characters. Clay and cloth would get messy. How you want to animate will help dictate your material. Is there talking/expression changes? For clay that means re-sculpting each change or replacement pieces. For things like foam latex and other more permanent mediums, you are only left with replacement parts unless you're a wizard and can make detailed facial armatures for expression changes. =\
   
   
3. This, [this,] (http://www.amazon.com/Stop-Motion-Animation-Edition-Effects/dp/0240520556/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1346291030&sr=8-1&keywords=stop+motion), and anything you can get your hands on via googling techniques and forums, really.
   
   
4. I am so far from Amsterdam it hurts. ;)

I searched for a while too and kept finding myself at the original Japanese webpage for this pattern, or at the English-translation-still-with-confusing-pictures page on the same site. The pattern I linked to here was the one that I found easiest to follow. Make sure to share a picture when you finish - they're so darn cute and each one I see pictures of looks like it has its own personality!

I had been eyeing off the Amineko book (http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1589235711/ref=redir_mdp_mobile/188-5009491-1725431) for a while and finally ordered it today...

You need this Mini Mosaics book. I'm teaching it next term so I got some practice in. I'm not sure what my photo settings are in fb, but here's a link to the cosmetic bag I made using this technique. The beauty of it is that you iron the wee squares onto fusible interfacing, which means that the results are going to be perfect. If you're not doing huge pixel art, mini mosaics is the way to go. My squares are 1"x1" finished, but you can also do .5"x.5"!!!

This episode recommended two books for additional reading on Jim Henson

• Jim Henson: The Biography
  
  
• Imagination Illustrated: The Jim Henson Journal (amusingly they mispronounced the author's name. It's Karen Falk, not Karen Flaks)

Basically, you just need a standard camera. Stop motion, like other forms of animation, is essentially a series of stills, so you set up the scene, take a shot, move everything just -barely-, then continue on down the line.

If you're actually interested in doing this, I might suggest a few things. First, pick up a copy of The Animator's Survival Kit by Richard Williams. It's an essential book on timing and basic animation principles that will help you immensely. You may also want to consider Stop Motion: Craft Skills for Model Animation to see how things progress and make sure you have a proper, showable film at the end.

Do know that it's a long, tedious process. But if you have a story you want to tell, it'll be pretty awesome. I just graduated with a degree in animation, and I happen to think it a wonderful artistic form that should be encouraged.

There is a fascinating book called "Street Gang" that tells how Sesame Street got started.

Both of the following books are pretty good at breaking down the whole process, not just the craft part of it.

Cracking Animation

Stop Motion: Craft Skills for Model Animation

Not yet unfortunately as I barely have time to craft, and I'd imagine shipping to the states would be crazy too! But they are called Amineko and there is a book with patterns for it, they are pretty famous online :) Here if you crochet or know someone who does!!! <3

Here is the desktop version of your link

Oh, then you would definitely use a plaster mold. UltraCal-30 is typically referred to as the finest plaster for molding, but you can get a away with anything. There aren't any hard rules.

This is a great book that covers almost every topic: https://www.amazon.com/Stop-Motion-Skills-Animation-Effects/dp/0240520556

I would also recommend using plasticine over sculpey if you're going to make a mold. The heat created as the plaster sets could harden the sculpey and make things a lot more difficult.