Turtle Puppet

Recently I made a Turtle puppet for Surrey County Council. It was for an annual Childminders' Network meeting they host. They didn't request a turtle specifically - they told me to make whatever I wanted to. It was great to get the opportunity to make something totally new and without any limits on what I could do.
Why did you choose a turtle if you were allowed to make anything Dave? 
My son is 18months old and last week he started saying 'tuh-tull' whilst sitting on his "finding Nemo"baby-changing mat. Simple really.
So here are a couple of photos of the Turtle under construction and a video of the completed character. I hope you like him.

 This is is the turtle with the basic head built and the shell still under construction

Here I'm finishing off the lining of the shell - you can see the fins already stitched in place

Wonnacott Wolf's Antique Valuation Challenge - Episode 1

It's a bit of fun - I hope you like it :)

Pierre's new show

It's 2011 and Pierre the great is back on the Tube of You... enjoy :)

take care - Dave

'Terry' the Urban Fox - full body puppet

If you'd love a fun fox puppet, then you're going to want to meet: 

Terry the Urban Fox

Terry is a brand new professional full-body puppet hand made in England by Hellyer's Puppet Workshop. He measures approximately 34inches (86.5cm) tall from the top of his head to the soles of his feet. He also has an excellent arm span of approximately 40inches (102cm) allowing real scope for expressive arm gestures (two arm rods with elastic bands are included!). He has a bushy tail which follows him everywhere he goes... it has a wire inside it to help give it shape and also to allow you to pose it just the way you want it. He's a great fun character who will really engage audiences of any age... he's a friendly urban fox!

Terry is an unusual character and as such he has an unusual mouth action. He is designed so that his upper jaw does all the moving when he talks rather than the much smaller lower jaw. This is the opposite to many other hand puppets you will see but it enables him to 'sniff out' what's going on in town with a much more believable action. 

Like all the puppets made in Hellyer's Puppet Workshop Terry has been made out of great quality materials. Terry's body is made out of durable and lightweight mini-cell foam and his head is made out of durable and flexible reticulated foam. His body is covered completely in 1" pile chestnut brown faux fur fabric with his head and tail being covered in 1" pile chestnut brown deluxe faux fur. Details on his ears and hands are in 1" white fun fur, Terry also has a keychain on the waistband of his trousers and a dog-tag round his neck. He is lined in polar fleece for added comfort. 

Note: This professional quality puppet has been hand made by Hellyer's Puppet Workshop for adults, it is not a toy. Hellyer's Puppets are used in many countries in shows and films to enthral and entertain. If you'd like to find out more about our puppets and how they're made search online for: "Hellyers Puppet Workshop"

We hope you love this character as much as we do - Happy Bidding :)

Happy New Year from Hellyer's Puppet Workshop

So we've successfully reached the end of 2010... a year packed full of great memories!

This year in the summer I was fortunate enough to visit the United States again to teach puppetry at I-Fest (you can buy DVDs of the workshops I taught from OneWayStreet.com). Despite the festival being fantastic as usual (and being looked after so well by the One Way Street team - Thanks to Todd and Susan!) the highlight of the trip this year had to be the visit to see the Blue Man Group in Chicago! Dave and June Privett from Playsoup took us along and we had a fantastic time!

Also in the summer I was able to visit my friend Phil Fletcher again who is a fantastic puppeteer and puppet builder. We've known each other since the good old days when MySpace ruled the earth and Facebook hadn't even been invented :) Phil is now working at the BBC in London and he (and Warrick - also a puppeteer at the BBC) were kind enough to show us round TV Centre and their studio.

Later on in the year I also taught at the One Way UK annual puppet festival in Reading, I have been teaching at that particular festival for the last 13 or so years so it was great to be asked back again (must be doing something right). 

And all this activity has been squeezed in between puppet builds and some fairly major planning sessions for the future of Hellyer's Puppet Workshop (the fruits of which will be seen in 2011).  I'll leave you with two videos... the first is Pierre's big end of year 2010 quiz:

The second is a wrap up from me and a possible New Year resolution.

All the best for 2011!
Take care - Dave

Sid the Cyclops

If you love fun monster puppets, then you're going to want to meet: 

Sid The Cyclops!

Sid is a brand new professional half-body puppet hand made in England by Hellyer's Puppet Workshop. He measures approximately 21inches (53.5cm) tall from the top of his yellow mohican to his waist. He also has an excellent arm span of approximately 40inches (102cm) allowing real scope for expressive arm gestures (two arm rods with elastic bands are included!). He has a cute little pot belly and just the one eye (but hey... he just wouldn't look the same with two!). He's a great fun character who will really engage audiences of any age... he's a friendly monster!

Like all the puppets made in Hellyer's Puppet Workshop Sid has been made out of great quality materials. Sid's body is made out of durable and lightweight mini-cell foam and his head is made out of durable and flexible reticulated foam. His body is covered completely in 1" pile electric blue deluxe faux fur fabric with details in 3" pile yellow fun fur. He is lined in polar fleece for added comfort and his nose and eye-lid are covered in hand-dyed antron fleece. The fleece covered hump in Sid's mouth will help you grip it while manipulating him, and his neck is separated from his shoulders to allow greater flexibility of movement.   

Note: This professional quality puppet has been hand made by Hellyer's Puppet Workshop for adults, it is not a toy. Hellyer's Puppets are used in many countries in shows and films to enthral and entertain. If you'd like to find out more about our puppets and how they're made search online for: "Hellyers Puppet Workshop"

We hope you love this character as much as we do

Happy Bidding :)

Take care - Dave

Hellyer's Tag Cloud

My friend showed me this recently and i thought it was pretty neat... wordle.net can generate a pretty tag cloud of your blog. Here's mine:

It's heavily influenced by that fact I was recently at I-Fest and was writing reports of what happened the night before (as you can see)... but it's a bit of fun :)

Take care - Dave

Just a quick update today:

take care - Dave

How to make money with puppets... a new book

As a rule I'm not a fan of posting adverts on my blog... but Paul Louis sent me a link to his new book recently and I thought it would be helpful to a lot of the people that read my blog (judging from the questions I get emailed). I'm guessing most of you will have seen his videos from eHow on YouTube so you'll probably know who he is, but for those of you who don't know him check out his bio below: 
Paul Louis has been a professional puppeteer, filmmaker, award winning actor, writer & composer since 1981. He is a now popular Internet Video Puppetry Guru, featured on eHow.com, TVlesson.com, 5Min.com and all over YOUTUBE. As a power seller on eBay, Paul has built more than 4,000 custom puppets for theaters, ministries and film/video production. He is a "direct call" listed puppeteer with The Jim Henson Company, and the creator of the former nationally syndicated children's puppet TV series, "Jelly Bean Jungle" (Which President Clinton called, "High quality children's programming"). Louis has performed as a puppeteer for more than 30 TV & Film productions, including the hit cult film, "Team America: World Police." He now teaches puppet building and performance workshops all over the world, and collaborates & advises producers on their own puppet related projects for TV, film and theatre.
If you'd like to check out the book for yourself then please follow the link below:
Click here to view more details


take care - Dave

I'm back from I-Fest and have had a little break - but now it's full speed ahead in the workshop again!

One thing I did realise when I came home from the States was I never showed a video of Wolfgang - I just posted his photo on here. Now don't get me wrong the video isn't going to be an Oscar winner or anything like that... but i like it. It doesn't even feature any good puppetry... but it's fun: enjoy!