Custom Bear Puppet Created by James Kemp

I am so happy to be able to share this great character that was designed by Thomas Woody of Thomas Woody Art!  This is one of the best characters I’ve ever done, hands down, and so much of that is thanks to being able to work with such a talented designer.  I love the way this bear puppet named Banjo turned out.  

James Kemp Discusses Building Banjo

Check out the video below for the full scoop, and be sure to visit http://thomaswoody.blogspot.dk/ for more of Thomas’ incredible designs!

Hello again! James Kemp from James Kemp Puppets, the website where I show off all of the crazy puppets I’m building.  Today, I’m showing off this crazy puppet.  This is Banjo the Bear!  Banjo, is a great creation.  I had a ton of fun making this guy.  What made it so much fun was that I got to work with my artist friend again, Thomas Woody.  I worked with Thomas 2 years ago on this really cute little dog character.  He’s just kinda skinny and simple, and he’s got this great fur, and his name was Mango.

This is Banjo, like I said, and there are a lot of really cool things about Banjo.  Banjo came about, a totally original character of Thomas’s.  He is a big puppet.  When you’re working with a puppet this size, you’ve got to think about things like performability for the puppeteer.  You’ve got to think how’s this going to feel after minutes if not hours of performing a character.  One of the things that I did to circumvent the weight, I made this really cool series of boning rings.  It’s basically a hoop-skirt inside the puppet.  It does a great job of keeping the body shape.

He’s got a really great tie.  It’s a built in prop for the character.  A challenging thing about building this puppet was the fur.  I had to hand trim the fur.  This puppet brought a lot of challenges but I was so happy to do it.  Please, check out www.thomaswoody.com to see more of his great art.