Silent Library – Spanking Chair
This one was fun to make! I traced my hand, scaled it up 200% and then made a foam hand with acrylic nails from the pattern. The arm is made out of 2x4's glued together and swung with the aid of pneumatics. I scaled up a normal wooden chair 150% and built it out of [...]
Read more »Silent Library – Creature in a Jar
This one was a challenge! I made this creature out of all sorts of materials: lobster claws, doll parts, shells from the beach, latex gloves, ping-pong balls, dust masks, shark jaws, lots of latex, and a toy octopus... a real potpourri of stuff. Katie Akana thought of the pneumatic mechanism to suddenly open the creatures' [...]
Read more »Fake Pies for Sesame Street
I made these two pies for a cooking segment on Sesame Street. One pie needed to be made out of eight complete baked apples, and the other out of eight sliced apples, with a pair of eyeglasses hidden inside. I made the crusts out of sculpey, and the apples were standard fake styrofoam fruit... I [...]
Read more »Junk Mail for Big Bird
I needed to make a few junk mail flyers that were going to arrive in Big Bird's mailbox. I stayed late one day to make sure that the "birds in slacks" flyer was done in time.
Read more »Candy Television
At first I tried making this breakaway glass TV screen out of expensive plastic casting materials, but to keep things within our budget I switched to a sugar-glass recipe. I made a silicone rubber mold of the actual TV screen, so that the mold could be carefully flexed away from the screen without cracking. The [...]
Read more »Greeking Garbage for Grouches
"Greeking" is when logos are obscured, or fake product names are made for labels that will appear on television. These are some cans I made for Oscar the Grouch. I used globs of hot glue to simulate goop on the cans... the best part of making things for the grouch is that it is okay [...]
Read more »Stork Puppet
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Read more »Sesame Street – Dollar Bill
I designed this dollar bill for a Sesame Street episode about finance. It needed to be easy for children to find the numeral "1" in the design, and look familiar as a banknote, but not so close to the design of the US dollar bill to get us into legal trouble. The original drawing of [...]
Read more »Silent Library – Indian Burn Machine
Designing and building this machine was one of my biggest challenges on Silent Library. Figuring out a way for the hands to rotate around a point where I could place no pivots was tricky - so I made a semicircular track for a set of rollerskate wheels, and attached a pair of silicone hands to [...]
Read more »Silent Library – Egg Gatling Gun
My task on this project was creating an automatic mechanism that would fire a dozen eggs at contestants on Silent Library. I experimented with a tennis-ball-style launcher first, but settled on a gatling gun setup, powered by a disassembled t-shirt gun. The revolver chamber is made out of sections of PVC tubing ringed with UVA [...]
Read more »Silent Library – Wrecking Ball Crane
This seven-foot-tall crane was made to strike game show contestants in the groin with a sand-filled plastic wrecking ball. The frame is made from steel, with plywood panels, heater vents, lawnmower wheels, and some video arcade switches. Courtland Premo helped with the electrical system, and I managed to hit the poor contestant in the groin [...]
Read more »Silent Library – Phony Ostrich Eggs
This was a fun challenge! The writers for Silent Library wanted to hit the contestants with ostrich eggs... but since ostrich eggs are expensive and are so hard that they need to be opened with a hammer, I needed to create some fake ostrich eggs that would make a mess and not kill anyone. I [...]
Read more »Silent Library – Wheel of Rulers
I cast my hand a whole bunch of times on the third season of Silent Library - in this case, six times to make a machine to slap contestants with rulers. The vinyl rulers are sewn to the hands with fishing line so that they don't go flying off in dangerous directions, and the wheel [...]
Read more »Godzilla-like puppet Must Destroy Healthcare!
I made this puppet for a health-care advocacy group. In a short video, the puppet will wreck hospitals, clinics, and maybe even get to eat some ambulances and doctors. I'll be doing the puppeteering today, so I'll post a link as soon as it is available. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that fire will be [...]
Read more »Silent Library – Tennis Ball Bike
This bicycle was rebuilt from a machine that was used the previous season. I only ended up using a few pieces from the original machine since it functioned in a very different way - the contestants needed to be hit in the face instead of the groin, so the new machine needed to be completely [...]
Read more »Silent Library – Catapult Hat
I had fun making a system of wooden gears to operate this mini-catapult. The mechanism tightens slingshot rubber bands, and a pull-cord releases the catapult arm.
Read more »Sesame Street – Letters and Numbers for Sesame Street
I'm working in the Art Department of Sesame Street, and I made plenty of letters and numbers for the 41st season. Most were made out of foamcore or blue foam, but I did make some "7's" that I scored so that they would break apart easily when Cookie Monster chomped on them.
Read more »Silent Library – Noogie Machine
I cast my hands in silicone rubber with a wooden dowel inside each knuckle. The hands were attached to two drills, and I made a crane mechanism that would lower the fists slowly towards the contestant's head. It made a girl cry! (not because it hurt her, but rather because it mussed up her hair [...]
Read more »Silent Library – Foosball Team
I made the steel frame and mechanism for these kicking foosball characters, along with most of the foam casting. The mechanism was a challenge since it needed to be simple to use and reset automatically with the crank turning in only one direction. Becky Holmes and Jason Singleton sculpted the positive form for the foosball [...]
Read more »Silent Library – Dizzy Machine
This machine was made out of a giant turntable with a truck hub inside, and some bike parts. All of the smooth bearings make it pretty easy to turn fast enough to make a contestant barf. Becky Holmes painted the machine with some pretty amazing paints and made the whole thing look like it was [...]
Read more »Silent Library – Wedgie Machine
I built this machine starting with a crane that I'd built for a different challenge. A pulley was added in the place of the crane's arm at the top of the machine. A rocking and platform was fastened to the base of the machine (made out of some bicycle hubs and gears, and a home-made [...]
Read more »Whitest Kids U’Know – Great Wall of China puppet
I went to Chinatown and picked up some pyjamas from a bargain rack to get some fabric for this puppet. The head is made from foam and cardboard (with googly eyes) and the mouth is opened and closed with a piece of clotheshanger wire.
Read more »Whitest Kids U’Know – World Trade Center puppets
With googly eyes.
Read more »Blue’s Room – Miniature Props
For the show's introduction, we needed some dollhouse-sized props for a tiny set. These props are all about 2 or 3 inches in size. It was fun to use some music wire for the guitar's frets!
Read more »- UI/UX/Product Design
- Museum/Exhibit Design
- Propmaking
- Sesame Street
- Silent Library
- PBS – Hooper Interstitials
- Blue's Room
- Cube Fabulous
- Inside Amy Schumer
- Whitest Kids U'Know
- Storyforia
- Rob Thomas – "Someday"
- Hamish and Andy
- Godzilla puppet
- J. Viewz – Come Back Down
- Snow Cat
- Paul Taylor Dance Company
- Miscellaneous Props
- Family Circus
- Project Accessory
- The Heart She Holler
- Furniture Design
- Illustration
- Comics
- Animation