Fluff & Such Pawpet Productions












2011/07/28 3:55 pm

Since Livejournal is undergoing major DDoS attacks (what seems to be an internal Russian affair that is affecting all Livejournal users) I'm abandoning LJ for my news feed here on FluffAndSuch.com for the forseeable future. Right now I just have a rough dump of my LJ contents. I'll fix it up later with Wordpress or something similar.

The journal was a mix of Fluff & Such stuff and personal things anyway. The new news feed will be restricted to Fluff & Such related psots.

Bear with us, says Hardley... :)


2011/07/28 2:18 am

For those that didn't see her hamming it up as a cute little kitten, here's a great pic of Cassie in her costume at Anthrocon this year. She LOVED performing in it and had a blast there. :)


2011/06/30 1:25 pm

Anthrocon 2011 is now over and I'm relishing the PCR. (I'm with Kage on that. I even had my own "STUFF!" issue after closing ceremonies.)

The Puppet Track seemed to go well enough, though the schedule fiascos had some impact on attendance. When the times for an event are different across the 5 different sources (program guide chart, program guide descriptions, official sched, unofficial iPhone app, unofficial Droid app) there's just not much a track lead can do. But turnouts were fairly good overall.

Jim Martin once again ROCKED, and with the excellent support from the A/V team in hooking up the Puppetorium with a cool rear-projection screen and hands-free mics, there were no technical snafus whatsoever.

As has happened before at AC, I spent so much time running things, I never really PERFORMED with a puppet. Really just a couple of the Hand-Libs improv skits, and that's it.

But I DID have a distraction this year. Cassie, our now 7-year-old daughter, came with us this year - and FURSUITED! Wow, but did she take to that like a kitten to cream! I'm so glad I got her suit finished in time. She had a blast with it, and wore it as often as she could. I'm starting to see more an more pictures of her popping up around the net. The thing we heard most while walking around with her in suit was "Oooooaaaah! She's so CUUUTE! Can I take a picture?" So there will probably end up being a LOT of them.

And... I'll say it here and now so that it's on the record...

Next year: NEW FLUFF AND SUCH VIDEO!

There. Now I've GOTTA. Everyone keep poking me about it to help keep me on schedule. ;)


2011/01/31 11:04 pm

My daughter wants a fursuit, or at least a partial, and she wants it in royal blue and white. Now I have a lot of Monterey Mills gray seal fur left over, and wanted to see if anyone out there would be interested in a yard-for-yard trade of the gray for blue and/or white in the same MM seal. Just two yards worth of either should do.

I'd also be willing to buy someone's extra MM royal blue and white if they have extra.

And as a third option, if someone ELSE wants 2-3 yards or more of either fur, there is a place that sells 5 yard increments at $15 a yard, and we could go dutch to get just what we need. (Monterey Mills only sells it by the 15 yard bolt, which is why we still have extra gray on-hand.)

Let me know soon if you are interested, and feel free to spread the word elsewhere or suggest other places I might ask around.


2010/04/28 11:35 pm

My daughter needs to bring a poem to school tomorrow, and she wanted it about kittens. So I wrote some limericks...

A momma cat had seven kittens
All black with white furry mittens
I picked up the third
Who nuzzled and purred
With whom I was instantly smitten

The Owl and the Pussycat sailed
On a boat, poorly built, that soon failed
Till the pea green sea
Soaked Pussy, and she
Plugged the hole with her tail and Owl bailed.

There once was a marvelous kitten
About whom great poems were written
She lived like a queen
But boy was she mean
And most visitors sadly were bitten


2010/03/15 5:11 pm

I discovered a fun new way to practice puppetry: Random Video Chats

There are services that connect you randomly to other webcam users with a button to change to a new random person at any time. This button gets hit a lot, so you are constantly looking at new people. Unfortunately, many people don't follow the rules of what you can be... DOING on the cam, so those with delicate sensibilities shouldn't give this a try. In fact, I won't mention the specific site I use here. Contact me privately if you want to know it.

But with a puppet in front of the cam, this otherwise rather boring activity becomes a lot of fun, for all involved. Tag was my host, as he's the most expressive of my puppets (despite the fact that you can't even see his eyes... Or maybe because of it.)

Tag was very animated and always actively emoting for each new person. He would start with a fairly neutral expression for each new connection, but then would react to or imitate the person on the other end. Those doing what they shouldn't get shocked and repulsed expressions (Tag is an innocent little doggie), anyone that smiles or laughs upon seeing the puppet gets a laugh, and the shocked or confused people get either a laugh or an imitation of their own shock.

Because it was constantly new people, I could rehash the same reactions over and over to get them more natural and expressive.

And when I caught the fancy of someone, or someones, a conversation of sorts would ensue. This was hampered because I couldn't get my mic to work with the flash interface, so Tag was mute. Half the people he chatted with were also mute, resorting to typing comments in the chat window. Tag did this only sparingly, not having fingers (and me being at a bad angle to the keyboard and typing with my off-hand). Whenever possible, Tag responded visually.

"Where's your master, doggy?" Tag looks left, looks right, shrugs and shakes his head.
"Are you a boy?" Tag looks down at his lap, looks back up and nods.
"Or are you neutered?" Vast, vigorous head shaking ensues. Pauses to look down to check, then continues to shake head vigorously.

Signs come up from time to time with requests written on them, usually with the word "boobs" in them somewhere. Tag dutifully scans the lines of text, mouth moving as he does so. When he gets to the end, he looks down at himself then back up and shakes his head with a shrug. One sign was sideways with a lot of tickmarks on it. Tag tipped his head to the side and read "If you tip your head to the side to read this, I win." as a hand with a sharpie added another mark to the page. Tag laughed. (Oddly enough, I didn't tip my head, but I guess that doesn't count.)

Tag would bark at the camera, put his nose up close and sniff, howl, and lick the lens, among other actions. If someone was playing music, he'd dance along or sing, if he knew the words. If someone gave obedience commands ("Sit!"), Tag would do his best to immediately comply. Bouts of imitation would quickly escalate to ridiculous antics on the part of the humans. And if there was a stuffed animal of some sort within reach of the other end, it invariably ended up on cam for Tag to sniff or bark at.

All-in-all, great practice, great fun. People that had longer interactions with Tag usually had only complimentary things to say before moving on. If you want to work on making your puppets really POP, this is a great way to get the practice with a real self-selected audience that never gets bored with you. :)


2009/09/14 1:12 pm

My father found this one and sent it to me. One guess why. :)



Yup! Space Teddies!

Those are actual teddy bears, and yes, they are where it looks like they are. You can even see the curve of the Earth behind them. Okay, while not technically in "space", they were pretty damn high up there! And it just seems SO familiar, doesn't it...?



Thanks to Cambridge University for creating a wonderful image in their quest for sub-£1,000 spaceflight.