ARMY OF ELVES

Strings were stressing my brains out and I couldn't handle it. Ripped them all out and started again.

Much too fiddly and there is no way that I can control all of the puppets on set! I'm going to have to compromise here and go back to a wire armature memory joint so that I can have these creatures hold their own pose until I move them again.

This feels a bit like a failure to me. I'm technically not using Henson's processes am I? I'm not using hand puppets, or marionettes and I'm not using live-action performance.

I guess I'm still trying to think and work in a similar manner and I'm following his philosophies of world building, but I wanted to challenge myself more than this. This is still challenging, I'm exhausted, but I wanted to learn new things too. Get funky with media etc. Make the landscape but NO TIME. NO TIME!!!!!

Need a whole village of Gelflings but don't know how many I can actually get done in a day and then I need to fabricate their outfits, hair and apply faces.

  

A process shot. Never as elegant and magical as Wendy Midener (now Froud), who worked in the Creature Shop with Henson during the filming of the Dark Crystal AND Labyrinth, but it's pretty groovy to capture the physical and mental exertion of puppet-making before the creatures come together. Here's me - in the zone. Here's me MAKING THINGS.

Spoiling the magic. Behind the scenes. The realm of Jay.