Meet Virgil!

I'd like to introduce you to Virgil, the newest member of my puppet entourage. He is a jaguar. More importantly (for him), he is a vegetarian jaguar. He would have been awfully disappointed in me for having eaten a ham-topped-cheeseburger this evening.

I built him originally for Project Puppet's 'Jungle' contest, but I wasn't able to finish him in time for various reasons. Some facts about him: his eyes are 28mm glass lion eyes from a taxidermy shop, his fur is made from a soft towel fabric I found at JoAnn's (painted yellow with acrylics and covered in spots with black Sharpies and brown/red Prismacolor markers), within his arms and hands are wires to give him a stiff elbow or finger configuration, hidden at the base of his wrists are two metal threads to screw in the arm rods that I made for him, his nose and tongue were made from painted Sculpey molds (I need to go over his nose again, since it's chipping, and then cover it with a clear acrylic protectant). That's about it...if you have any questions, feel free to ask!

Anyway, please enjoy the photos. He took a lot of work, and I'm pretty happy with the results.

front

back

arms up

profile

bling

closeup

pompous

having fun with my roommate, Dan

being goofy with Dan

I also made a puppet stand (two, actually), which I am very proud of. It just took a dowel, a wooden 'clock face' from Michael's, a 1/2" drill bit, and some wood glue (plus black paint and polyurethane).