For Other Hand Productions
I always try to do an accurate rendering of the puppets I make before I make them. This not only helps me but it is also good for the portfolio. I know that I've gotten a number of jobs because my finished product looks like my design.
One of the tricks I do is to draw in pencil first and then xerox it. Now I can do color weighs and see how diferent fabric or paint will look, without having to redraw from scratch everytime.
Another handy trick; I paste my final drawing onto a page with this neat border and color copy it to turn in. It looks much more professional, and some folks are impressed by the packaging as much as the content.
But I do have content in my designs. For instance... Arlequino is a traditional character in Italian Comedia Del'Arte. He is also one of the only characters that Pinocchio meets that is also a puppet. So- I wanted to seperate him from the other puppets in the show and to do that I made him a Sicillian Rod Marionette. I had a traditional Italian character paired with a traditional Italian puppet design. Admittedly I had to modify the Sicillian Rod style, because I wanted a slightly diferent movement, but the effect was the same. You had been wondering about the big stick in his head, hadn't you? Now you know. Go back to Arlequino?