This is a puppet that I had very specific ideas about before I started building him. I literally threw him together in about two days to meet a self-imposed deadline. I wanted him to "fit in" if I took him to the Minnesota Renaissance Festival and used him as part of a routine. He was a pretty big hit with everybody except some of the entertainers who, in absolute contrary to their training, didn't know how to handle talking with him in an impromptu fashion. He is built of as many pseudo-period materials as I could find including: papier mache, felt, wood, bamboo and leather.

Fuzzball is a "dust monster" that lives under Rex Raccoon's bed. In fact her entire family lives down there, but dust monsters are lazy and don't like to move around much...and Fuzzball is a bit hyperactive. You can see why her family sends her "outside" to play so often! Fuzzball was performed for the pilot of REX's ROOM by Ann Sawyer and her voice was done for the promo tape by Alice McGrath.

Jennifer and I decided to make really esoteric suits of armor for entry in a Sci-Fi World Con costume contest. We argued for weeks about what the motif should be and drew endless pictures of what the suits might look like. We finally settled on using the motif of a carousel...gold leafing, gingerbread, the works. Jennifer's armor was an appaloosa horse and mine was a lion. I am most proud of the inset images on our shields and arm-guards that Jennifer painted...they are all scenes from Aesop's Fables (Tortoise & the Hare, Fox & the Grapes, City Mouse/Country Mouse, Raven and the Water Jug)...I just think they are cool. The armor is mostly fiberglass and frightfully uncomfortable. But any suit of armor gets to be uncomfy when you wear it for more than nine hours straight!

In a presentation called "Mission to Mars", my wife and I made and donned these costumes inspired by the incredible pulp fiction cover paintings of the 1950's. I was a menacing Lizard Warrior and Jennifer was a "Bubble Headed Space Babe".

Meet Harry Sepulveda. Harry is the kind of puppet you get when you cross a laboratory rat with a Concord grape! Harry is a pretty laid-back rodent, though, and makes his living as an emotional counselor at the local puppet clinic.

Rex Raccoon: Star of his own children's television show, Rex is a puppet I built specifically for that purpose. He is operated and voiced by Adam Whisner for the REX's ROOM Sneak Peek in the movies section. He is a hand puppet that can be operated by one or two people depending on how many hands we need for a scene.

Another costume piece. Robby is built almost entirely out of foam carpet padding. I used the original blueprint drawings to scale from while I was building. Not shown here is a fantastic companion costume of Altaira (worn by Jennifer) from the movie FORBIDDEN PLANET where she and Robby made their screen debut. Alot of people confuse Robby (Forbidden Planet, MGM 1955) with the Robot from LOST IN SPACE (Desilu, 1966). They were, in fact, designed by the same man, but were completely different robot suits and appeared together on LIS in two episodes.

When the James Ford Bell Museum Of Natural History needed a mascot, I spend a couple of days and came up with this. The bird in question is a Sandhill Crane and he(she) was serendipitously named "Sandy" by my wife, Jennifer. The problem with the whole thing was that most people don't know what a Sandhill Crane looks like, so I got all manner of greetings and comments including references to "Big Bird", "Woody Woodpecker" and last of all, my favorite: "Hey, chicken ding-ding!"

I started making this puppet from some fur that was gifted to me by my friend Andy and an old foam puppet base that I had laying around. Originally he was intended to be a really happy, smiley character...but in the end, he turned out to be a bit of a "drug-head" looking guy. Kinda like Cheech Marin or something.

These are images of modified ventriloquist dummies that I was in charge of at Minnefex, Inc. They were created for famous ventriloquist Jay Johnson (whom you may remember with his little buddy "Bob" on the old sitcom SOAP). He does personal appearances for big-roller companies with puppets done up in the likeness of the CEO or highly placed company officials.  He hired Minnefex to remodel standard ventriloquist figures for this purpose. The face sculptures were executed by Nate Corteau and David Weiberg. There are six puppets in all so far.