Following the sad demise of Archaeopteryx I felt I couldn’t bear the shame of my mould-making failure and had to give it another go.

Adding to my challenge, I decided to create a robot character, which maybe isn’t the natural fit for a rubbery old latex puppet, but it sort of just happened.

The robot, as yet unnamed, was programmed to deliver a vital message to humanity, to avoid disaster and help survive as a species, but some calamity befell his craft, which crashed spectacularly. Where it was going, I couldn’t say, and maybe it was travelling through time or through undiscovered and unimaginable dimensions.

To survive he had to repair himself with bits of humans, maybe his crew mates? He pulled through, but started developing the foibles and failures of humanity, including memory loss, and now he can no longer remember his message of vital importance!

He is sculpted from plasticine over an armature of polystyrene wrapped in masking tape. I’m hoping that the open mouth will make a natural shape with the latex to open and close with my hand.

Next stop, making the plaster mould…

It also happens to be World Puppetry Day! Not sure what that means particularly, but it seems apt to post about puppets.