When I was invited to build the puppets for this innovative new show, I was delighted and ready for anything. You & Me has a retro design style that reminded me of puppets I grew up with and loved as a kid.  I knew I would be working on something very special.  The designer/creator and host had a full vision of the show and together we created a colorful hybrid of puppets and animation.

It was a dream job. From the technical challenges of building the body costumed Betty, to talking bananas, speedy bunny slippers, a Frowner, a ninja squirrel, a competitive cat and hipster duck Chuck, I got to build every puppet that appears on screen. And there were a lot of them.

Big and Small is a multi-award winning television series with success worldwide. It celebrates diversity and cherishes friendship. Big and Small has a special place in my heart because of the exceedingly talented people who brought this show from page to screen.

I was brought on early in the production to head up the Puppet Department.  The 52 eleven minute scripts were incredibly funny and demanding in scope. Multiples of each of the lead characters would need to be built with different capabilities. The puppets would need to do everything. The first script had Small riding his remote control car on the ceiling. I had experience building and performing full body or sometimes referred to as table top or bunraku puppets sometimes shot on a green or blue screen and we decided this was the best way to approach the build of some versions of the characters. As the name Big and Small suggests, scale and proportion of the characters and finding ways for them to share the screen was a consideration in the build of the puppets. 

We built three Big puppets and seven Small puppets each serving different demands of the scene or camera angle. All of the fur and fleece for Big and Small was custom milled for the production. Big has an eye blink and eyebrow mechanism and Small has independent ear movement. The additional characters evolved along side the leads and enhanced the magic of the bucolic countryside realm of Big and Small.

The puppets endured the rigors of an eight month shoot in Toronto and held up beautifully. They would go on to do an additional twenty six episodes in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

This is a proof of concept screener produced by my creative partner and I for a Global Market Conference in Cannes, France. It is currently in development to become a series in Belfast, Northern Ireland in the summer of 2016.

I performed and built the flying squirrel character Poppy and her large fluffy counterpart Cooper began his life as Amigo in a long running children's series Amigo and Me for CBC

I was an integral part of the build of this beautiful body costume 15 years ago and worked with the suit performer on the series. It is a stunning work of art done by an incredible team. The fur was created by rug hooking yarn. I knit the hands, feet and face covering. 

This exciting project brought me to Montreal, Quebec to work with an incredible group of artists.

I was given the lively marmoset characters Smooch and Winslow to construct and create. This was my first experience building puppets that would be filmed full body and performed by multiple puppeteers. The puppet characters were filmed against a blue or green screen and the backgrounds were comprised of computer-generated animation that the puppeteers could interact with in real time.

Both monkeys had an eye blink and eye brow mechanism. They were to function as hand puppets as well as bunraku (full body) style and since we were only building one of each character, each puppet had to be precisely engineered to work in any situation. It was a technical challenge and wonderful learning experience.

Mamma Yamma and Salmon des Champlain are two of the characters that host the morning block of children's programming on CBC across Canada. If you have a preschooler they are likely familiar sights. I couldn't be more proud to have built the loud talking yam and scaly French fish!

As you may have guessed, this show ain't preschool.

I was approached to design and build Rocko the Dog for the pilot episode of Puppets Who Kill and I did so whole heartedly and without pay unless the show got picked up.

Rocko the chain smoking dog ( yes, he had a smoking mechanism)  and Puppets Who Kill went on to do award winning comedy in their 53 episode half hour series run.  I was the Lead Props Builder on all 4 seasons. It tested my creative wits to invent and build the preposterous and often obscene props that scripts called for. 

I was in very good company for this wild ride with an incredible cast of Canadian actors, puppeteers, writers, directors and comedians.

This was an introduction to realistic animal puppet building, studying the movement and physiology of lemurs.

My focus on the puppet build was the body, hands and feet. The fingers and toes were individually sculpted and cast in rubber, the fur was custom milled. I went on to wrangle on the television series for Seasons 1 & 2. Wrangling essentially means assisting the puppeteer, doing repairs and maintenance of the puppet, changing arm rods and attaching props and rigging as puppets can't pick anything up on their own! On this show it also meant washing off camel spit, making sure the ostrich didn't poke at the puppets shiny eyes, and ensuring the the brave puppeteer didn't have spiders falling on to him while stuck in a barrel with his arm through a hole. Martin and Chris Kratt were very sensitive and always put the animals needs before the show, it was a marvelous experience. Where else do you get to be ten feet from bathing jaguars, watch emu eggs hatch, and make friends with capybaras? Only in Animal Junction.

This grandfather/ granddaughter team of puppets were built for a music based pilot for PBS. It has not made it to series yet, but I have high hopes for this multi-generational innkeeper duo.

This television series was semi-realistic with a cast of detailed animal puppets against real and animated backgrounds.

 Tyconderoga the turkey and Ish the wolverine were the characters I was entrusted to build. I was among incredibly talented builders who were inventive in the materials and techniques used to create each of the animals that lived in this mystical land telling stories based on traditional Native characters and mythology. This was a wonderful learning experience and honed my skills immeasurably.

Nana's backyard is a special place. Its filled with cleverness and humor and pure imagination. I became involved with this troupe of artists and my contribution was Alice the cat and a rebuild of the happiest dog in the world puppet Russell aka Russer. I was a wrangler on the series which made me part of the Nanalan' family and for that I am forever grateful.

Chester the cat is Tati's confidant as she navigates the magical hotel.

The monkey brothers Ooh and Aah host the Playhouse Disney line up in a series of shorts.

What you probably want to see by this point is more puppets, right?? Well...here is an assemblage of puppets and miscellaneous projects I've done over the years that didn't get their own gallery pages.