A Parisienne TOTO
My Friend and fellow 'Clubster' Damien Weis built himself a splendid black and white striped TOTO.
Damien is from Lyon, a place with a strong 'Guignol' puppet tradition. But this long-neck character is more popular in Paris shows.
Although I already have a 'long-neck' puppet in my show repertoire, I decided I needed a 'French' inspired version.
My desire to build this character started when Damien shared a very fast method for making puppet legs and feet.
I made some legs just to try the method, and realised right away I would end up making the whole puppet.
The glove body of this puppet, started with the pretty coloured inside layer, and made the usual way.
However the Head was far from normal.
It was a real bit of puppet 'recylcling'.
I had three unfinished 'Counting-Routine' clowns from years before that I wasn't happy with and had never finished.
In the end I only used the eye section of the head I recycled.
New cheeks and mouth were carved and mounted onto a thick dowel rod.
Nothing was wasted though because a few weeks later I used the mouth and nose part to make my diminutive King of Hearts.
A turned up 'Ski-Jump' nose seemed to feature on all the French Totos I has seen online.
So I grabbed a block of wood with a nice straight grain and tried the same shape.
The result was pleasingly cute.
In a huge stroke of luck I chose yellow fabric for his trousers and to cover the lower part of the glove body.
Had I picked a different colour it would have been harder to repurpose the puppet into the 2024 "Ruby & Gold" Season.
I quite often say that regular hands are my least favourite part of making a puppet.
That's because they are fiddly and time consuming.
But fists, or hands that hold props are quite the opposite.
I find these super fast to cut out and carve.
Consequently I really enjoy making them.
Square aluminium tubing and strong magnets mean that hands can easily be interchanged.
Secured to the puppet body by hot glue and then fabric and PVA woodglue.
That all makes a strong bond.
Again I was lucky that the costume I chose to make was loose fitting and not attached to the main body.
I say this because the original idea of using Toto as a Plate spinner did not work out.
When I'm not happy with how puppet is progressing I tend to stop work on it and just lay it aside.
So poor old Toto was abandoned for about three years until I reworked him for the Heights Ruby & Gold Summer Season of 2024.
LOTS MORE PICTURES AND INFO WILL BE ADDED TO THIS PAGE IN THE VERY NEAR FUTURE
CHECK BACK AGAIN SOON Cheers Richard.
