Ventriloquist Puppet Project for Michael Harrison.

Its been awhile since my last post, but that’s certainly not for lack of exciting things happening at the James Kemp puppet workshop! I have been hard at work on many projects, planning future projects, and even preparing for a gallery show all about my work with Sublime Media Group here in Bowling Green at the Southern Kentucky Performing Arts Center.  I’m super excited also to share about a ventriloquist puppet build I recently completed.

This project came to me in the form of a phone call from ventriloquist Michael Harrison telling me that he wanted to create a lucky cat character for his new act. I had a tremendous amount of fun on this. You can hear the full story in the video below.

“Hey guys, James Kemp of James Kemp Puppets… As you can see I’m not in my workshop.  As you can see, I’m in my friend Aaron’s home photography studio.  I’m showing off something really cool today.  This was a really fun, really exciting challenge for me.  What you’re looking at, this is the lucky cat figure I made for ventriloquist, Michael Harrison.  Michael is a wonderful performer.  It’s so cool, he gets to travel the world on Disney Cruise Lines.  Very well know performer, been doing it a long time.  Another fun fact, this is my first ventriloquist puppet.

Puppets used for stage and on screen, have kind of subtle differences.  You want to exaggerate some of the features if you can get away with it because it’s being seen from long distances.  You want to make sure that the audience can really interpret those movements.

The first big thing about a ventriloquist figure is the entrance hole is not at the bottom of the body, it’s at the back of the figure.  I also cast the pendant for his collar out of plastic.  The eyes gave me a lot of trouble.  Due to the head shape, I tried a lot of different eyes and we finally settled on these.  I think they look great.  I’m not a ventriloquist, but Michael Harrison will make it look great.”

Photos from the Build.

As a bonus, here are some cool pictures taken during the creation of this puppet.