The nature of my job as a field geologist is such that I have blocks of time that are brutally busy and then down time between projects. I had some downtime today so I decided to make one of the puppets/characters for the first installment of S.O.S. -
THE MONSTER BUTTERFLY!
There's a part in the first episode that Marisol get's chased around the stage by a beastly giant butterfly after snooping too close to a smaller, cute butterfly (painted as a decoy on the big butterfly's wing). Like I've mentioned before here: kids crack up over chasing. I've been wanting to make this thing for a while so I started with a drawing:
Then I went to the art supply store and bought a bunch of paint, brushes, an exacto knife, brass brads to make the hinge for the jaw, and duct tape. I had some nice big slabs of cardboard from when I recently ordered a new futon couch so I used that and started painting!
I've never really painted before. I can see why people find it so relaxing.
Ta Da! I think it turned out great! It's HUGE and hilarious. In the above pictures it's laid over my full sized bed. The colors turned out nice and I'm glad I bought the florescent orange (for this and future uses). I think I'm going to have to rig it so the puppeteer is wearing the wings part like a sandwich board and can use both hands to open and close the mouth.
I had some fun making the monster butterfly today:
