As someone running a (very) small business, it’s often in my best interests to engage in social media platforms I don’t necessarily enjoy as an individual. Twitter was one of the few exceptions. Despite its many failings, it was the last social networking site I actually kind of enjoyed, particularly after they introduced tools to help you weed out hate speech and Reply Guys. For years it’s been my main source of news and connection to the wider world, and I’ve met folks there who’s input I’ve greatly admired and cultivated.
That has, of course, all changed since Musk took over. I won’t go into the morass of reasons that the absurd Musk acquisition is a bad thing – many others have done that in more eloquent ways than me – but this marks the point at which I cannot in all good conscience remain. I’m deactivating my account, in the hopes that once Musk has finished feeding his ego and has burnt the place to the ground, perhaps the pieces can be picked up by someone less horrible.
Please do follow me on whatever other platform suits you, and by all means drop me links to your own profiles so I can keep in touch.
First off let me thank everyone. The direct shop is motoring along, the live streams always get a healthy number of viewers, and generally all is well in The Puppet Mines.
The other day on the build stream I had a young viewer who was only 12 years old and loved building puppets. I took the opportunity to tell them how happy I was that young folks are still getting into puppetry and let them know that was the age at which I also really got into building. Then when puberty happened the whole “puppet thing” didn’t seem cool anymore, and I let it fade away. Then literally 35 years later it came rushing back, and now look where we are. I have few real regrets in life, but letting puppetry lie dormant for so long is one of them. I urged my young viewer to be mindful of my experience should the same happen to them.
Thing is, puppets are a bit weird, right? We all know it. There’s a reason Jim Henson’s sense of silliness and the absurd meshed so well with puppets. So why puppets?
We often hear sentiments along the lines that “in the CGI age, is puppetry even relevant anymore?”. And then of course a phenomenon like Grogu on The Mandalorian happens. It was said that they had originally intended to replace the puppet with CG, but Werner Herzog himself famously said “Don’t be cowards” because the puppet work was so good. Turns out Werner was right.
Puppetry is just one of many forms of animation, and all animation has a similar goal: imbuing a sense of life into something fictional. From cell animation to stop-motion, to 3D rendering, the aim is to take something created in the imagination and make it believable (within context of course). What sets puppetry apart is puppets are the only form of animation that shares our physical space in real time. Nothing else can do that.
That bypasses a whole layer of “willing suspension of disbelief” in the brain. We don’t need to imagine Kermit talking to someone, we know instinctively that he’s right there. As amazingly lifelike as CG has become, part of us knows that it can’t exist. As wonderful as The Hulk looks, we know that Robert Downey Junior is talking to a tennis ball on a stick.
As a result, many puppet characters work better as abstractions and caricatures. They represent foundational archetypes, simple, and direct. This may be one reason why people on the Autism spectrum find relating to puppet characters so easy – they are *immediate* and clear in a way that nothing else is.
Puppetry is literally one of the oldest forms of theater in the history of mankind. In one form or another, it has always been with us and always will be. There’s something to puppetry that allows us to express ideas in a way that no other medium can achieve.
Are puppets weird? Yep. And that’s a good thing. Not everyone gets to be weird. Embrace it.
In 2019, I cautiously entered the world of puppet building for sale to collectors, hobbyists and professional puppeteers. The most logical choice of platform at the time was Etsy, a marketplace geared specifically towards hand made crafts and small-scale home businesses. I had never done anything like this before, and Etsy made the whole process as easy as it could be.
Over the following years Etsy grew into something much more unsavoury and uncomfortable. Fees began at a reasonable 3.5% of sales, then increased to 5%. While that was a blow, the value that the platform brought meant I could handle it. Then it was announced that if a shop made over $10k/year in revenue, it would be forcibly enrolled in their Offside Ads program with no option to opt-out, which meant any sale made from one of those ads was charged a whopping 15%. Then recently it was announced they would be increasing their fee to 6.5%. This was no longer manageable. I was losing a huge amount off of every sale, and to make it worse, the more successful the shop became, the more they took.
Recently there was an organized effort on the part of sellers to draw attention to this, and I along with thousands of other shops participated in a week-long strike. Etsy has yet to respond in any meaningful way, but the damage was done.
Spurred by the increasing struggle to try to make ends meet on Etsy *despite* having a successful shop, many of us have been seeking viable alternatives. My decision was to launch my own direct shop right here on the site. I’m using WooCommerce, a well known and much used e-commerce solution, which simply takes 3.5% of sales as a processing fee. Very reasonable.
It means I’m focusing more attention on the site and having to drive traffic here, but the plan is to eventually move all of the higher-end items to the direct shop. At the moment having Etsy’s search results point people my way is useful so I’m not in a position to leave them altogether, but hopefully as this shop grows it will become self-sustaining.
It didn’t have to be like this. I was happy on Etsy, but their greed and exploitive behavior is something I cannot ignore any longer. It’s been a lot of hard work, very *very* scary and stressful, but also liberating to take my first step towards true independence. Thanks for sticking with me.
I had an interaction with a new client recently that was somewhat eye opening. They contacted me asking for a build with some specific colours, and sent along a picture of the Trans flag as an example but didn’t actually *say* “like the Trans flag”. I thought they were perhaps seeing how I’d react, so in my response I casually talked about the rainbow fur Greeblee I built for Pride and donated the proceeds to The Trevor Project, just to let them know it’s all fine and they could speak freely. Their relief was obvious. They told me that they had talked to other builders but when it came down to explaining what the colours actually were, they got a sense that things suddenly turned cold and uncomfortable. I reassured them that although I’m a CISHET guy myself, I try to be a good ally and they should feel totally at ease.
Rainbow Greeblee
It’s sad we even had to have that conversation in 2022. While we as a society have made some steps in the right direction, there’s still a long road ahead. This really drove that home.
Like every other aspect of society, the world of puppetry has long been dominated by CISHET white men, mostly out of sheer mirroring of social dynamics rather than overt bigotry. With the introduction of Sesame Street we started to see some of that change, and the field has been getting more diverse and inclusive ever since.
Of course there has been push-back. Puppetry and puppet building attracts a wide variety of people, and not all of them emulate the lessons of Sesame Street. Many who consider themselves conservative or merely “anti-Woke” (whatever that means) object to any amount of inclusiveness or sensitivity to other people’s needs.
Everyone in this field is standing on the shoulders of Jim Henson. That’s just a fact. And Jim, while not without his flaws, was a notably kind and welcoming person. From being foundational to Sesame Street, to promoting Richard Hunt, who was openly gay, he did not shy away from progressiveness. He considered the famous Muppet Show segment with Harry Belafonte some of their best and most important work. He was a staunch supporter of the Civil Rights movement.
This isn’t often talked about, but Jim was also deeply religious. He was raised a Christian Scientist in Mississippi, and although into adulthood he moved away from the strict doctrines of that church, he nevertheless remined Christian his whole life. Today we automatically equate Christian with Conservative, but like every other aspect of his life Jim forged his own path. For him, the purest and most obvious expression of his faith was simple kindness.
That’s a lesson that more of us, particularly in these brutal times, need to remember.
Operation: Puppet is and will always be welcoming, supportive and inclusive.
Well 2022 is off to a heck of a start for the puppet building world. First the bad:
Popular puppet builder and YouTube personality Adam Kreutinger has launched NFTs. I’m not going to get drawn into a debate about NFTs or their relative merits and drawbacks, and many in this space aren’t even clear on what they are. Suffice it to say that other than an environmental disaster, NFTs and the Web3 trend in general is more full of scam artists, hucksters and sleaze than a 1930’s carnival sideshow.
It’s very sad to see Adam go down this road, and I hope he reverses course. Adam has done a great deal to make puppet building accessible to many people, and it’s disappointing to see him tarnish his reputation in this way.
Needless to say Operation: Puppet does not nor ever will endorse NFTs.
In good news, I’ve got back into the live stream space. Last year I streamed quite a bit on Twitch but I found it interfered with my daily workflow. Then two things happened to drive me out of the field: first the hate raid situation ramped up on Twitch and the platform had an insufficient response to keeping creators safe. It just felt gross to be on the service. Then I had another Etsy builder copy one of my patterns from the stream and start selling puppets that were an obvious ripoff of one of my designs. That felt horrible, and discouraged me from streaming altogether.
Thanks to a suggestion from a Twitter follower, I came up with a format that would allow me to stream again with comfort: Q&A. Instead of just building my standard models, I could answer questions and give demonstrations.
I’ve done two of these now and they’ve been wonderful. Audience participation is excellent and I think folks are finding them useful, so I’ve decided to double down on them. At the moment the current schedule is the second and last Friday in every month, and I’m streaming simultaneously on YouTube, Twitch, Facebook and Twitter, so they should be easy for most folks to watch. As always, stay tuned to my social media for announcements.
Finally, since I’m now taking time out of my shop build time to do Q&A streams, I’ve dipped a toe into crowdfunding. I’m happy to do the streams regardless so no one should feel obligated, but helping support the stream is a great way to encourage more. Any money made from the stream will be invested in the stream itself, from better equipment to paying Restream subscription costs, etc. You can support me at Ko-fi.com/operationpuppet, and I appreciate any amount you can give.
Well, that was a year, wasn’t it? As the pandemic drags on and with the rising threat of Omicron, being here at all and still semi-functional is itself something to be proud of. We’re all going through a lot right now, with the promise of more to come.
This was the year I felt I established myself much more firmly in the puppet building world. I had my first professional client (thanks again Sarah), and overall, it was a good year for the shop. While I’m just breaking even, the fact that I can pay my bills in a sustainable way is a huge triumph for me personally. I’ve spent my entire professional life working for other people in jobs that ranged from neutral to downright toxic, and this is the first time I’ve ever actually *enjoyed* my job. It took far too long for me to find this path, but now that I’m here I intend to make it last.
Looking ahead, I hope to keep the puppet train moving right along (get it?) in 2022. I have some new models I’m prototyping, as well as refining existing models. I already have a couple of big and important commissions lined up for January, and after that I’ll start to repopulate the shop. I’m also planning on starting monthly Q&A live streams starting in January, and I’m looking forward to getting back into that space. Those who follow my Twitter feed know I’m facing some health challenges as we go into the new year, but I’m determined to meet those challenges and press on.
The Oracle will continue to spread his wizardly wisdom as well. At the time of writing, we’re enjoying a bit of a surge in TikTok viewers, which is encouraging. I resisted TikTok for a long time, but I think I’ve found a format that works well with my style of humor.
As always, many thanks to y’all for continuing to support what I do. Operation: Puppet is and will always be primarily about carrying the banner of kindness and play that the work of Jim Henson stood for. In a world increasingly filled with darkness, that’s the candle I intend to keep alight.
**please note, I do not sell replicas of copyrighted characters. This build is for my own private collection**
Ah yes. The frog.
Is there any more iconic puppet? Anyone who loves The Muppets, who grew up with the work of Jim Henson and company, knows that this (apparently) simple little amphibian is the North Star of the genre.
It goes far beyond just the design and construction of course. Jim put so much of himself into Kermit, it’s hard to really see a delineation. Owing to a very simple structure, Jim’s hands brought Kermit to life in a much more *direct* way than other characters. And over the years Kermit’s personality moved closer and closer to Jim’s; the kindly and occasionally frazzled leader who held together a ragtag gaggle of misfits and freaks, who’s biggest desire in the world was to entertain.
Kermit is *embedded* in the subconscious of everyone who loves this style of puppetry, and naturally, everyone would love to have a Kermit. And when you build puppets, you can make that happen.
To puppet builders, making a Kermit is a rite of passage. And this might seem odd because at first glance, Kermit is very simple. Really just an elaborate sock puppet with a couple of ping pong balls, right? Well, yes, honestly, on a purely structural basis. But with Kermit, the devil is in the details. His form is so iconic and so firmly rooted in our minds, that if you get one thing slightly off, the whole thing looks wrong. Kermit requires not just knowledge and skill at building puppets, but the ability to capture the *essence* of a character. You cannot build a good Kermit unless you *understand* Kermit.
The true test of a chef is not if they can make a complex soufflé, it’s how they make a slice of toast.
Two years ago when I set about to build a Kermit of my own, I was ill prepared for the task, and struggled quite a bit. Although I came close, something was just a bit off. Kermit’s famously flexible mouth was a big stumbling block. Of course I knew all the conventional wisdom that floats around puppet building circles — gasket rubber being the material of choice — but for various reasons it never worked out for me. The glue wouldn’t hold, the inner lip was too large, it was misaligned, etc.
First attempt at a Kermit head
It was really quite distressing. There’s a weight of responsibility one feels when working on Kermit that isn’t present in other builds. This isn’t any puppet. This is royalty. You have to get it right. After a series of failed attempts to make even a decent head, I had to shelve the frog. I wasn’t ready.
In the intervening time I worked on builds for the Esty shop and generally tried to improve my skills. Like any other craft, puppet building is a matter of practice. There are conventional methods and accepted ways of doing things, and the novice *must* learn those and internalize them; but once those lessons are learned, you find that sometimes you do things different than the standard way. Slowly, with care, you find *your* way.
A few months ago I felt ready to return to my Kermit build, and this time things were different. I had developed processes and methods I preferred, and I decided that I would be bold and try to build a Kermit that way. For practice. It went pretty well.
There comes a moment in every build, usually when placing the eyes and pupils, that the character springs to life. I will never forget the moment I placed Kermit’s pupils on and instantly knew I’d done it. He wasn’t technically perfect, but I’d captured the core feeling of the character. I was satisfied.
Practice Kermit done
Kermit’s design has changed quite a bit over the years, and in order to get things right I had to do a lot of research. The result is my goal was not to make a replica per-say, but to create a kind of composite Kermit, blending the qualities of many decades in an alchemy that resulted in the essence of Kermit.
That was for practice. Now is the time to do it for real. Now comes Final Kermit.
At the time of this writing he’s about 70% done, but I’m very happy with how it’s going. Folks who follow my Twitter feed will know some of the design choices I’ve made — pilly 70’s style fleece, muted colour, floppy fingers instead of armature etc — and it’s going much smoother thanks to the experience of building the practice Kermit. A few more days will tell.
Final Kermit under construction
As a character Kermit is very much a *summary*. He’s Jim’s kindness and creative drive, he’s Steve and Matt honouring a legacy, and he’s our hope for a gentler, more generous world. He’s not silly, but he is the axle around which much silliness revolves. He is quiet happiness.
It’s not easy being green, but it’s worth the effort.
Just shy of a year ago I started doing some puppet building live streams on Twitch pretty regularly. While I’ve streamed various things before, this was definitely the most viewership I ever had, sometimes with ten viewers or more. This doesn’t sound like much but for a small streamer, it’s not bad.
I have one major rule with all my online content generation: it has to be fun. No burnout. No feeding the algorithm. This of course limits my viewer base quite severely, but I’d rather have a handful of regular viewers and enjoy doing the streams, instead of a larger audience but burning out and living in fear that taking a day off will kill my numbers.
At this low level of course there is zero revenue from streaming, so it *must* be kept as a fun thing. I see it as a way to keep in touch, help people just coming into the field, and introducing puppet building to people who never even thought about it before. Indirectly folks may find their way to the Etsy shop by discovering my video/streaming content, but that’s just a byproduct.
Over the past couple of months growth on the Twitch channel has stalled, and while open-ended growth isn’t necessarily the goal, it still didn’t feel right. I started thinking about what, if anything, I could do. It struck me that I already had twice the number of followers on the YouTube channel as Twitch. Was I splitting my audience for no reason? What if I multi-streamed? Is there even a live stream audience on YouTube?
A couple of weeks ago I tried a multi stream and much to my surprise the Twitch and YouTube numbers were about even. The downside is I really didn’t like splitting chat like that, I felt like I was spinning too many plates. Unsure what to do, I decided to take some time to think about how I was going to proceed.
Then the hate raid issue on Twitch blew up. At the time of this writing, it’s still a major issue and Twitch has yet to give any substantive response. It’s beyond horrible, and certainly makes me feel gross to be broadcasting on that platform. Of course YouTube is far from innocent in allowing toxic Internet culture to thrive, but at the moment it’s not quite the sewer that Twitch has become.
So this is a long-winded way of saying that yes, the build streams will be back but I’ll be broadcasting solely on the YouTube channel, at least for the time being. I already have a core viewer base on YouTube and this is a good way to keep the channel alive between Oracle episodes.
As for when this will happen, I’m aiming to start up again the first week of October. I’m taking the week of my birthday off this month and it would be silly to start again now just to take a break in a couple of weeks, so October makes sense. Plus I’ll be coming back for the Halloween season, which is always fun.
As always, stay tuned to my social media for updates.
It’s been a very weird couple of years, huh? All the more for me because after starting a little Etsy shop in late 2019, it’s now successful enough that building puppets is my full time job.
Operation: Puppet is more than just the Etsy store, of course. In fact it started as a YouTube channel, featuring my web series The Oracle. At first I started building because I couldn’t find exactly the puppets I wanted for the show, and then… well here we are.
Puppetry and puppet building have been a deep passion on mine since I was a child, and through O:P I’ve met many wonderful folks in the wider puppet sphere. While a niche hobby for sure, it’s much bigger than I ever expected and new people are coming into the field all the time.
I feel incredibly lucky that I’ve found a place in this community. It’s a rare and precious thing to be able to do something you love as your daily job, and I appreciate every moment. It’s hard work and I take it seriously, but it’s also a labour of love.
So here’s to the launch of the actual-for-real web site. I plan to do a regular blog about what I’m working on, both on the shop and The Oracle, plus thoughts about the wider puppetry world and various related musings. I don’t realistically expect too many folks will be all that interested, but if I’ve learned anything from being in the puppetry world, you don’t need a lot of people to make a very fulfilling and worthwhile thing.
Be sure to follow my social media links for notifications when something new is posted here.
After an intense bit of shooting and editing, I’m pleased to announce that The Oracle will be released on Feb 1st. It will launch with 3 episodes and then a new one will be added every 2 weeks(ish). Current plan is to release on the 1st and 15th of every month.
After some research I decided it would be in the show’s best interest to launch on it’s own channel, rather than the main O:P one. While the show isn’t *really* a kids’ show, it is definitely family-friendly and Safe For Work, and I want parents to feel they can let their kids watch it without concern. There is no swearing or off colour humor, and won’t be. Some of the older podcast and stream archives on the official O:P channel have some salty language, and YouTube does *not* like it when you have that kind of content on a kid-friendly channel.
I’m going to be pushing this a little more than I usually do on social media because I think there’s a chance for this show to get a decent sized audience and I’d love it if we could. If we can get to 100 subs then we become eligible for a custom YouTube URL which will just make sharing all that much easier.
So… Call To Action! Click Like and Subscribe! Tell your friends! Share on social media! The Oracle is coming in 1 week!
