My finished products!

Amongst other things such as dialogue, props, music and lighting that would also contribute to the puppet show; these were my final puppets which I believed would most effectively portray the story of Little Red Riding Hood from the way they were developed!

Conclusion

Going through the design, develop and evaluate cycle with it's elements of investigating, ideating, producing and evaluating helped me to consider the concept of failability in a very personal way. It taught me to keep trying to find success to the problem even when it became frustrating or easier to settle on a function not to it's highest standard- just because it's easier. 

On a personal note, I have experienced many challenges and opportunities where I could not rely on anyone's decision but my own, and also being confident in those decisions. I believe that I made the best puppets the way I wanted them to perform; thus able to portray a functioning, appropriate and effective tale of Little Red Riding Hood.  

All the better to see, hear and TASTE you with!... Making Mr. Wolf

DESIGN

DEVELOP
The 1st attempt... 
My first idea for the wolf was to be a sock puppet. I chose this form of puppetry because I wanted to work with felt, which I thought would emphasise the wolf's characteristics, such as the gleaming white teeth. I also did want to achieve a sock puppet because I thought that it would also be the best type of puppet for a talking character, as well as a big mouth to eat the Grandma. I planned to glue on eyes and make ears which would be placed on the top of the head.

Some photos of the first wolf prototype being developed:

Test the puppet (identify the problems)... and redesign!
After developing this sock puppet and trialling it; I realised some problems.
1. The wolf didn't look mean enough
2. It was hard to make the ears and eyes stand out; which are the characters main attributes in the story.

I then looked around my home and found some recyclable items (a cereal box) that gave me the idea to use as the main body of the wolf! I thought that I could use the sock puppet I already had as the mouth and nose of the wolf through a hole in a cereal box which I would paint black. I would stick my hand up the opened cereal box and then put my hand through the hole and control the puppets mouth to emphasise it's talking. This way I could also glue furry ears on top of the box where they could be seen, eyes that could stand out for the audience to see (and were more wolf like). I was excited with this puppet as I thought it would really suit the character!

Test, evaluate and re- design x3 

I was very happy with how this puppet came out, all my ideas and assumptions about how the puppet would operate were effective. I didn't have any problems with the construction of the puppet, which I was overjoyed about because I wanted something to go right for a change! However there was only one problem that I wasn't completely happy with, which was that the mouth/ sock of the puppet was very stretched and therefore did not look as effective as I'd thought, as well as work very well. The bottom of the mouth was only the size of my thumb.

To find a solution to this problem, I once again had to go back to the research stage. I did not want to change my whole puppet, but just find a simple and effective solution. I found this in Susie Hodge's puppet book (2005). It was simply to use a circle shaped piece of cardboard folded in half (measured to the size of my puppets mouth) and put this inside the mouth to make it sturdy and usable. 

Lets make Grandma!

DESIGN

DEVELOP: 
The 1st attempt of Little Old Grandma...

I decided to start my first trial of Grandma; using a paper cup as the canvas. I used pipe cleaners as glasses, grey wool, and soft sponge for hands.This puppet was fairly easy to develop, although I found it difficult to mould the glasses and stick them onto the cup and fluffy wool (hair). Some photos below of me creating this puppet:

After trialling the puppet, I identified the following problems:
After making this puppet, I realised that it does not fulfill the criteria of 'the best way to tell Little Red Riding Hood'. This is because I felt that;

1. Its too small for the audience to see
2. The manual handling of the puppet wouldn't work very well in a performance, as my hand hardly fits into the cup, and its hands cant be moved or the puppet wouldn't look like she's talking- not animated enough.
3. Even though it is clear that is a Grandma character, I would like to have other distinguishing elements to make her more believable and look more professional, such as a dress, buttons and other features.

Develop a solution
Attempt 2
I decided to keep with the idea of using a cup, but developed a brand new puppet, this time using it as the body and make a separate head on top of this. I believed this would make the puppet bigger so that the audience can see it and much easier to use; which it was. Using the cup as the body also enabled me to have a canvas to show more Grandma qualities, such as ribbons and buttons. I still decided to use glasses, and they worked alot better, as I did not try to glue them to wool, but to the sock. I used wool hair this time because the fluffy wool on the previous puppet did not stick well to the cup.

I put a hole in the top of the cup to thread the head through and when you put your hand up the puppet, you can hold the end of the head sock which can make her nod and make movements to an extent.

Below are some photos of the Grandma character developed:

 

Making changes...

Again, I wasn't completely happy with my Grandma character. There were a few changes I wanted to make, which I believed would improve the puppets look and functions. These were; 

- To somehow make the head not slip through the hole but keep it movable to show animation and     personality. 

- The other was to make her look a bit more Grandma- ish! 

- I like the concept of the cup as the main structure or body that I could work with, and I wanted to use more material so it could be imagined by the audience that she was in bed.

Attempt #3

Evaluation

I believe that this final puppet of Grandma is perfect for what I wanted it to do! I still used the cup as the body, which was good because my hand did fit up there without a problem. The large piece of floral fabric was much more Grandma looking, as well as hid the start of my arm and make her look like she was nice and comfy in bed! The paddle pop stick and cardboard head was much easier to move and her googly eyes made her look much more animated! Her hair was easy to stick on and I used red felt for cute little lips. I found other Grandma decorations from the op shop, such as a pearl necklace and buttons. I decided not to put glasses on the final product, as it would crowd her face and wouldn't be able to see her eyes as clearly. 

 

When performing... 

When the puppet is performing I imagine her to have props all around her, many old items , a grand father clock and perhaps have Oprah or Dr. Phil on TV in the background... this comes from my personal experiences of my own Grandmother. Also having her dialogue spoken traditionally with a weak voice would be most effective, as the other characters are mostly modern.

Introducing... Our first puppet, Red Riding Hood herself...

Solution 1
DESIGN: Select the best solutions and construct a prototype. 
From my plans of each character and the materials I had, which were various soft fabrics, wool, paper, paddle pop sticks and boxes; I decided to develop my first round of prototypes, hoping that they would only need minimal alterations in the future. Trialling these prototypes also allowed me to explore what materials were easy to work with and which suited the character; as well as which worked best in a performance environment.

DEVELOP: Prototype 1 
The reason why I chose to do a finger puppet for Little Red Riding Hood was because I thought she was the best character for actually having legs. Putting fur on for the wolf may have been too difficult and seeing as the Grandma traditionally doesn't even get out of bed, there was no reason for her to have legs! I used a stencil to make this character. I decided to try and use this opportunity to make Red Riding Hood a little bit modern, and tried to make her look like she had a 'hoodie' jumper on.

While developing the puppet, I came across a problem!: While gluing the denim on as pants, I realised there may be a problem in cutting out the holes to put your fingers through as legs. Because the fabric and cardboard together wold be very thick to cut through, I then tried to cut holes in the fabric and cardboard separately then glue them together. However this also proved unworkable as the denim fabric made the holes look to messy and jagged.

Solution to this problem
At first I was unsure on what to do, so I went back to the researching step and looked up what puppets actually were. I realised through research on Dr. Zagami's website, anything can be a puppet, as long as it's controlled by a human etc. Information found at: (http://www.zagami.info/2139EPS/Puppetry.html).

I decided then not to use the original idea of legs through the puppet, but simply controlling the puppet via paddle pop stick! Even though it wasn't my original design, I realise that when working with projects, sometimes you have to go with whatever works better and use problem solving! I realise that this also changes the original style of the puppet from finger to paddle pop stick controlled.

Some photos of me constructing the first paper/ fabric and paddle pop puppet:



Evaluate and reconstruct!
After making this prototype, I realised some flaws that this puppet may not be the best way to represent Red Riding Hood in a presentation as she is the main character- she needs to stand out and be seen! However I did like the fact that I managed to keep a modern tone to her design via the 'hoodie' and denim shorts. I went back to the research stage and found that I could make a much bigger and detailed 'paddle pop stick'/ wood themed puppet and create a puppet using a wooden spoon! The idea was given to me by the puppet book by Susie Hodge (2005). She also stated that this new design could animate the puppet with a finger and thumb, which was one improvement from my paddle pop stick puppet that I was concerned about. Below are the instructions/ details from the book. 

Some photos of the developing wooden spoon puppet: 

I was at a few unsure moments with this puppet, as I really wanted to keep with the original theme of the finger puppet, in having some modern qualities. This was difficult when trying to glue the felt 'cap' on her, as the material didn't stick easily on the concave wood. It was very frustrating and was trying to think of different alternatives; Could I just leave it to look like a beanie? Should I just take it off and make a traditional cape? Does she even portray Little Red Riding Hood?


I decided to then pencil her face on (above photo), and draw braces to make her look like a typical teenage girl. I chose cotton red patterned fabric for her, which I thought was quite modern, to look like a dress. I painted her face (with braces) and finally decided that I had finished! I was very happy and satisfied with my finished product and thought that it would do a great job at portraying Little Red Riding Hood, as all her planned functions did their job, she was the right size and she was modern to show a little uniqueness! 


When performing...
I would use happy music when she was walking to Grandma's, such as 'I'm walking on sunshine'. And have the whole set in colour with flowers and a bright sun. I think her summery dress would blend well with this theme. I would perhaps have her dialogue as modern as possible, with talk of social websites, TV shows and modern teenage slang.