Interview With Elizabeth Luce, Part 2

Elizabeth Luce is a graphic artist, illustrator and puppet designer. She has a Master of Fine Arts in costume and set design from UCLA and has worked on a variety of film, television and theatre productions. Elizabeth designed puppets for a Children's Fairyland production of The Wizard of Oz and Snapdragon Puppets' Emmy-winning video The Mousecracker. I asked her to share her thoughts on puppet design.



PJ: Whose work has influenced you the most?

EL:  There are so many illustrators I admire: Brom, Lisbeth Zwerger, Sulamith Wülfing, Brian Froud, William Joyce. And then there are movies that leave fascinating images in my mind -- Blade Runner, Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas, Baz Luhrmann's Romeo and Juliet, old art deco sci-fi movies -- as well as wonderful theatre set and costume designs I've had the opportunity to see.

I think the commonality is that all these works create an intricate and believable world, one with depth and endless possibilities. These works are at a level of complexity that I could never achieve, but they provide me an endless source of satisfaction and inspiration.

Interestingly, puppet design more often is about simplification and stylization. You need to extract the essence of the creature or character, stylize the look and yet give it full opportunity to be a dimensional personality that is immediately visually accessible. I very much admire the modular, abstract puppets of Eastern Europe, particularly Hungary and Czechoslovakia. This style is still strong today, but most of my references date from puppet books of the '60s and '70s. I love beautiful craftsmanship in any style, but I also know that the humblest sock can be a brilliant puppet in the hands of a great manipulator -- and with puppets, that's the most important thing of all.

Interview With Elizabeth Luce, Part 1

Elizabeth Luce is a graphic artist, illustrator and puppet designer. She has a Master of Fine Arts in costume and set design from UCLA and has worked on a variety of film, television and theatre productions. Elizabeth designed puppets for a Children's Fairyland production of The Wizard of Oz and Snapdragon Puppets' Emmy-winning video The Mousecracker. I asked her to share her thoughts on puppet design.



PJ: How did you become interested in puppetry?

EL: Puppets engaged my attention at least by the time I was 5. I had an art teacher named Benjamin Blake who, years later, I learned was a well-known person in the puppet and theatre world who had "disappeared" -- into our world, as it turned out.

Puff the Dragon, who blew smoke, a white mouse, a knight with a chest that opened to reveal a clock that opened to reveal a bird, and more. Whenever my class heard that the puppets were coming out, we hurried to sit in a mesmerized circle. In the after-school art program I had my first chance to build a real puppet -- a rod puppet.

I'm a bit embarrassed to say that halfway through the project I pooped out, and Mr. Blake had to bribe me with a toy from the toy chest to finish. It worked, though, and I still have the puppet. It's pretty funny-looking. Hopefully this doesn't say anything about my current work ethic.

Sketch Of The Week

Here is an early sketch I did of B.A.R.K. The Robot Dog. I was playing with the idea of not giving him a moving mouth and instead having him speak from a concealed voice box, like C-3PO. Ultimately this idea was abandoned because it put too many limitations on B.A.R.K.'s movement possibilities.

Illustration Markers

Illustration markers are perfect for creating bold, vibrant puppet designs. They come in a wide range of colors and several variations of gray, from 10% to black, which can be used to darken areas and create shadows. Some markers come in different tip sizes and may need to be refilled with ink after extended use. Illustration markers are pretty pricey and can be found at most high-end art stores.

Rough Sketch

If you look closely at this drawing, you'll see a light yellow pencil sketch under the darker, more refined lines. It's helpful to rough out a puppet design first with a light color before committing to a final dark line.

Variations

When designing a puppet character, especially one for someone else, it's important to develop several variations. These initial sketches can be simple and rough and should be seen as a starting point. The more drawings you do, the more options you will give the decisionmaker. Once a visual direction is decided on, you can draw more refined variations of the selected sketches.

Know The Character

Before you start drawing, try to familiarize yourself with the character you're going to design. Make a list of all the puppet's personality traits. Will he or she be nice, mean, grumpy or goofy? Is the character young or old? Does he or she like kittens or dragons? What's the character's favorite activity -- sewing, soccer or sleeping? Write down as many descriptive terms as you can and use them to inform your design.

Sketch Of The Week

These rough storyboards were drawn as we developed the story for Swazzle's new Valentine's Day e-card. The card will be available at Puppetgreetings.com in early February.

Antlers And Horns

When designing a puppet with antlers or horns, it's important to keep size and weight in mind. A puppet with extra things on its head will be more challenging to operate. Notice how much smaller Reggie The Reindeer's antlers are than those of a real reindeer. If a puppet must have large antlers or horns, keep in mind that you will need to build proper support into the head.

Capturing The Essence

Longtime Muppet builder Don Sahlin regarded Jim Henson's simple scribbles and sketches as representing the essence of the character that Sahlin was to build. He used Henson's drawing as a starting point, and then they worked together to refine and further develop the puppet's design.

Scribbles

Here's a great trick I learned from my friend Sam Hale, a talented puppet designer and builder. If you're trying to develop an idea for a fun puppet design, start by scribbling on a piece of paper. Look at the scribble from different angles until you begin to see a form take shape. Use the initial scribble as a starting point and draw in the details.

Spindly Arms

I love to design puppets with long, spindly arms. These arms will give any puppet a wide range of motion. Bonnie Bunny and Jeffery The Fox, from our holiday show Polly Polar Bear and the Prince of the Sea, are two of my favorite puppets with long, spindly arms.

Sketch Of The Week

Happy Friday the 13th!

Secondary Movement

Puppeteers are responsible for bringing puppets to life, but puppet designers are there to help them out. When designing a character, try adding an element that will provide secondary movement, like floppy ears, feathery hair or bouncy antennae. Secondary movement helps sustain the illusion of life even when a puppet is motionless.

Red Fraggle, from Jim Henson's Fraggle Rock, exemplifies this technique.

Asymmetrical Design

Not every puppet design has to be perfectly symmetrical. When designing a character, see what happens when you draw one eye bigger than the other or make the nose crooked.

Light Table

If you want to clean up or refine a character sketch you've drawn, try using a light table or light box. The drawing surface is lit from below and allows an artist to see more than one drawing at once. By placing the original sketch on the table, you can trace the lines you like and redraw the ones you don't. If you don't have access to a light table or light box, try taping your drawing to a window and using natural light.

Mercer Mayer

Sometimes when I get stuck on a character design or need some visual inspiration, I like to study the work of Mercer Mayer, a wonderful illustrator whose book One Monster After Another is a favorite of mine. The illustrations show a strange world populated by weird and wacky creatures. Every time I look through the book I find something new.

Sketch Of The Week

Here is another dog drawing I did as I designed characters for our new show Rex and Boots Super Sleuths.

Opposites Attract

When designing two puppet characters who will perform together as a team, try drawing them as visual opposites of each other. This will give the puppets a unique look and help the audience distinguish between the two characters.

Finish The One You Hate

Sometimes about halfway through a drawing, I'll realize that the sketch I'm working on is completely inappropriate for the character I'm designing. Rather than abandon the unfinished design and start over, I try to finish the drawing. By working through a "bad" design, I sometimes land on an idea that wouldn't have occurred to me otherwise.

Colored Pencils

Are you tired of designing puppets with the same old boring drawing pencil or pen? Try dumping a bunch of colored pencils into a container and pulling out a random color to draw with. You'll find that a bear, cat or goblin looks completely different in green, pale pink or vermillion. I use Prismacolor pencils. They come in a wide range of colors, are reasonably priced and are available at most art supply stores.

Take Away Features

When designing a puppet, feel free to add or remove any features. Some of the most interesting Muppet characters are missing eyes, ears and noses, but they don't seem to mind. Frankly, the puppets would look wrong if they had their missing components, as illustrated here.