Rough Sketch

When designing a puppet, don't worry about making your initial sketch perfect. Pick a drawing implement that you're comfortable with and rough your idea out on paper. Don't censor or critique your work -- this is just the first step.

Tints, Tones and Shades

You'll notice there are several colors missing from this color wheel: pink, brown and navy blue, just to name a few. These color variations are called tints, tones and shades. Any pure hue that is lightened by adding white is called a tint (red + white = pink). Any pure hue that is muted by adding gray is called a tone (orange + gray = brown), and any pure hue that is darkened by adding black is called a shade (blue + black = navy blue). These Sesame Street characters exemplify good use of tints, tones and shades.

Click here and here for more information on color theory.

Interview With Elizabeth Luce

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.

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Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10

Sketch Of The Week

This bear design was drawn for a puppet short film I wrote and directed called The Magic Meadow. The story is about a bear and an ant who are not happy with their lots in life. Click here to view The Magic Meadow.

Color Theory 3

Yellow-green, blue-green, blue-violet, red-violet, red-orange and yellow-orange are tertiary colors. They are created by combining one primary color with an adjacent secondary color. For example, yellow plus green will give you yellow-green. These Sesame Street characters exemplify good use of tertiary colors.

Click here and here for more information on color theory.

Color Theory 2

Orange, green and purple are secondary colors created by combining two of the three primary colors:
Red + Yellow = Orange
Yellow + Blue = Green
Blue + Red = Purple
These Sesame Street characters exemplify good use of secondary colors.

Click here and here for more information on color theory.

Color Theory 1

It's important to understand basic concepts of color when designing puppets because they will help you choose different color schemes. Red, blue and yellow are primary colors -- they can't be created by combining other colors. Every other color can be created by mixing different combinations of the primary colors. These Sesame Street characters exemplify good use of primary colors.

Click here and here for more information on color theory.

Happy President's Day

Sketch Of The Week

Here is another concept drawing I did for the dragon character in our puppet show Hazel and the Dragon. This design is loosely based on a horned toad.

Cultural Art

Different cultures have unique artistic aesthetics that can be applied to puppet design. By researching and studying the artwork of different cultures, you will notice the creative use of shapes and colors. Imagine the dynamic character that could be designed based on the totem poles of the Native Americans of the Pacific Northwest or the dragon renderings of the ancient Chinese.

Interview With Elizabeth Luce, Part 10

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: What is your next puppet project?

EL: We're working on mouth and rod puppets for a TV show the King County Library system is developing. I'd like to start developing a storyboard and set models and sculpting heads for my mutated Aladdin project (it really has little resemblance to the original anymore). And I think I will be building another giant puppet for this summer's Solstice parade. There's more, of course....

Happy Valentine's Day!

Interview With Elizabeth Luce, Part 9

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: What suggestions would you give young artists interested in designing characters and puppets?

EL:  Preston Blair's animation book is a brilliant starter guide to stylization, movement, the sculptural shapes that are the basis of a figure and more. For puppets -- both designing and building -- studying the work of 2D animators is really useful, particularly the older styles, like Disney. The Simpsons is a witty show, but the drawings aren't as dimensional -- the figures don't have as strong a sculptural basis.

Collect books with ideas and inspirational material, see movies and plays, check out other people's art, be alive visually. Take life drawing -- it's unbelievably good training for all types of illustration.

Associate with other artists of all kinds. Be excited about art and creation all around you. It's easy to do.

Always push yourself to be better, but be pleased with what you create, whatever level you are at. Every vision is unique, and when effort is put into a project, it almost always is of great interest to others.

Learn from the work of others, even mimic a style to get that into your designing and building vocabulary, but then move on and look to create your own unique vision. No more split heads!

Sketch Of The Week

Here is an early concept drawing I did for the dragon character in our puppet show Hazel and the Dragon.



The Hazel and the Dragon Valentine's Day e-card is now available at Puppetgreetings.com.

Interview With Elizabeth Luce, Part 8

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: What do you do when you get stuck on a design? Do you have any suggestions for getting the creative juices flowing?

EL: Oddly, I seldom get stuck for ideas. I do, however, sometimes draw really crappily and can't express my ideas well, no matter how hard I try. Usually the problem's gone by the next day.

Interview With Elizabeth Luce, Part 7

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: You designed characters for Fairyland's production of The Wizard of Oz. Was it challenging to develop unique designs for characters that are so familiar to people?

EL: Actually, I think I designed puppets that were fairly in line with both the books and the beloved movie. That was what was needed for that particular client. I made a sweet, gentle version, with fun colors that emphasized the whimsy, which was appropriate for the younger crowd that sees the shows at Fairyland.

Now the Broadway version of The Wiz, that's a fabulous twist on an old idea.

Interview With Elizabeth Luce, Part 6

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: Could you talk about the challenges of translating a two-dimensional design into a three-dimensional character?

EL: Creating more than one view of the character if others are involved with the building. I might think it's obvious what the character looks like from the side view, but it really isn't to someone else.

Choosing the right building materials -- this can make or break your design.

Doing a mental run-through of the building process from start to finish so that all steps happen in optimal order and you don't have to retrofit something.

Making mockups as many times as needed to get important parts right before going for the final version.

Interview With Elizabeth Luce, Part 5

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: Do you have a favorite drawing implement?

EL:  General's No. 2 multipurpose pencil. It's got nice, dense graphite. But any soft graphite pencil will do.

Sketch Of The Week

This is one of the earliest sketches I drew as we were developing the story for Hazel and the Dragon. The drawing is of a young prince bringing a baby dragon to his father, the king.

Swazzle's new Valentine's Day e-card will be available at Puppetgreetings.com soon!

Interview With Elizabeth Luce, Part 4

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: Could you describe your design process?

EL: I have many, many books and clippings of ideas that I have collected over a long time -- my design library. I use these to trigger my imagination for a particular project, then set them aside and begin to draw.

If I'm designing historically accurate costumes, I'll create photocopy files of costume details for easy access and for creating the more technical spec drawings. I think it's very, very important to pour a lot of ideas into your head and not rely on vague ideas. It's doing your homework and preparation.

I will loosely sketch several ideas for any one character before I start to zero in on a final sketch. Sometimes, if there is a set of characters, I'll block out all the silhouettes first, to make sure there's an interesting dynamic going on there.

Next I will make a more focused sketch (which can be loose, if I'm the builder, or more finished, if others will be building). I sometimes like to scan this sketch into the computer and print out multiple copies. This way I can color in fast and dirty with felt pens or colored pencils to experiment and get the interplay of colors I want. If I'm working with a director, this could be the stage where I show him pictures for discussion. Because the drawings are looser, I don't mind making changes.

When a professional final sketch is needed, I illustrate with pencil on bristol board or watercolor paper, then color with watercolor, felt pens or Prismacolor pencils and pen and ink to complete. I've found that you can put watercolor paper through a laser printer if you don't want to work on the original.

A technical side note: I've also begun to color the scanned loose sketches in my computer with Photoshop, using the "multiply" setting for brushes (it acts like a felt pen). It's a bit primitive, but fast and useful. Plus, I can use the "replace color" and "hue and saturation" controls to change colors around and play with them.

Since the hue control simply spins every color around equally on the color wheel, two colors you've paired tend to stay relationally copasetic. It's really interesting. You get lots of new ideas. [See sample, above.]

Interview With Elizabeth Luce, Part 3

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: What makes a puppet character design strong or interesting?

EL: A deliberate silhouette for the character.

A distinct personality that can be read in the face and body. Even sitting on a stand, the finished puppet should feel alive.
Inventive clothing that supports or indicates the history behind the character. In theory, every stitch would have been chosen by that character for a reason.

Going with type sometimes, and sometimes against.

Dynamic use of colors. Use stereotypical colors judiciously; think out-of-the-box and be well in control of the colors you choose.

Build in good movement -- you are also designing the movement the puppet will have, so give the operator something dynamic to work with.

Good eyes, with a glint of light, that are well focused.

Stylization is more important than exaggeration. Huge noses and ears may look fun on paper, but they can be cumbersome in 3D. What is it that says "rabbit" about a rabbit? Streamlined head shape and windblown ears, if he's speedy? A little puff-puff body and face with tiny button eyes and giant whiskers, if he's "sooo cute"?