the birth of gumpert
for a period in june 2024, i was possessed by the need to create puppets. just absolutely beside myself in puppet fervor. it made me quite unpleasant to be around.
this is the second of the puppets i created. the first puppet i am hesitant to show here because it is horrific, but this one is nice.
his name is gumpert. he is made of upholstery foam, fleece, and faux fur. did you know that the muppets are made of fleece, not felt? they actually used a specific type of fleece called polar fleece that is resistant to pilling, but it is also pretty expensive and i must confess that i do not, in fact, "got it like that." i used cheap craft store fleece, which still produces an exceptionally friendly-looking and soft puppet.
in total, i spent about 100 dollars creating this puppet. i don't really have a background in sewing, so these costs include thread and needles (i found curved upholstery needles to be useful in this process,) fancy new scissors, hot glue sticks, poly-fill stuffing, safety eyes, foam, 2 colors of fleece, and faux fur. i ended up buying a lot more fabric than i needed for future projects. if you just want to buy a reasonable amount of foam, fleece, and fur, you could probably make one of these guys for less than $60.
gumpert is meant to be a tiger salamander- you can see this in the spots- but due to his orange color and weird mohawk, he ended up looking a bit more like gay charmander. here he is using my laptop to look at illicit puppet ass:
