Sunday, December 14, 2008

How ideas fall into place.

A lot of my ideas form at random moments. I try my hardest to keep them. Store them up inside and save them for later. I have always loved Sesame Street. My favorite characters were Ernie, and Grover. I remember watching VHS recordings of countless episodes that my mom would record for us. (along with some Zubilee Zoo) Ever since I was young I have always wanted to create a puppet show for children. You know, teaching lessons. Morals. Biblical principles. Things like that. ----side note---- look up Quigley's Village. By far one of the best children's ministries to come out of the church.

I created something called "The Webster Show" when I was attending Indiana Wesleyan University. The Webster Show was my original thoughts for this puppet show. It would include: Webster. Picture Ernie from Sesame Street as a young boy. that sort of puppet/kid look. wearing a ball cap, shirt, and smile. Webster has a sister named Emma. Emma adores her brother, and looks up to him. Webster loves his sister dearly and always tries to be the hero. Emma also has a blanket she calls Samson. Her blanked has frillies all around the edges that she thinks looks like hair. Emma and Samson have a very "Calvin and Hobbes" relationship. Whenever Webster, Parents or even the dog Jellyroll is around the blanket appears to be just a blanket. But when she is alone. Talking through a problem, or just needs to say something, the blanket flips, and it has eyes and a mouth, and talks back to her. Sort of a conscience. Webster has a best friend. And the parents are only ever shown by just "voices" (having legs on stage)

This idea has been with me for 6 years. Off and on I randomly draw the blanket. But though I felt it was a good idea, I have never really touched it at all. until a couple months ago.

This past year I was asked to lead the 6th grade group at Gateway Community Church. After talking about it with my wife, we decided to do it together. I couldn't be happier about it. We have a small group, and we are learning a lot together. Them, and us. We decided a new name for the group. inQuest. with a motto: in route, in spire, in tune.....
A while back I worked on a bulletin for our group to tell the church what we had been learning about. It was all about discovery in our group. And exploration. I found a piece of clip art to place in the program. I really liked the image, and thought that maybe I could draw my own version of it. Soon I realized. I drew Webster.

From here on everything sort of fell into place. That night I drew out all of the characters in the show. From Emma to Samson.



Jellyroll to Manning the moon monster (Websters best friend)




And Mannings pet Glopple.
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So here we are now. Maybe someday I will make the actual puppets. Maybe someday we will do little puppet shows in front of the church, or for just the little kids. Soon I will show you pictures of Webster and Emma, but why spoil you all in one post?
What once began as an idea called the webster show, seems now to be almost fully formed as "The Webster Robot Show"
The Webster Robot Show characters and ideas copyright 2008 ideasfrommars

1 comment:

mrsrod said...

Those scans turned out really well. Maybe we can work on those puppets in the workshop.