The task before me

My big project is sculpting the alien from the drawing.  As I mentioned previously, the sculpture is for Buzz James of Braylu Creations. He intends to make a mold, produce polyurethane castings, and build figures from the castings. I came up with the drawing with his help, then Buzz provided the styrofoam armature, the vacuum-form eyes, the wood egg eyes, and the PVC-pipe neck.

My first job will be to mount the styrofoam armature on a PVC control stick. I figure I'll drill a series of small-to-larger holes at the bottom of the armature until the control stick slides in. I'll try to glue it in place. Next, I want to fill the cavities in the armature with wadded-up plastic bags secured with duct tape. Then I'll attach the vacuum-form eyes. Finally, the laying on of paper clay begins.

Green

Can you see it? I can't. I have a common red/green color-blindness. I think I've admitted to that before. In any case, one of my band members saw the Charlie head I'm working on and said, "Oh...a Frankenstein puppet". I asked him why he thought that and he said, "because it's green".

Usually, I ask my wife to check me on color, but she hadn't seen this guy yet. So, yeah. It's green. I prefer house paint on my figures which I order in the sample-size from Home Depot. I picked the color from online swatches. That's not a reliable way to pick color samples because every monitor is different.

I use a Behr house paint color called Coronado Dunes to paint Caucasian skin color. I think I'll mix in some acrylic yellow and try that out for Asian flesh tone.

And that's all for today.

No aversion to conversion

As you may remember, I like building conversion figures. This one was started 5 years ago (prior to my hiatus) as a special order from a client. Before I got too far, the client changed his mind, so this project has been staring at me for quite some time.

The client had requested an Asian character and that's what this figure will be when he's completed. The left photo shows the current progress. The right photo (Photoshopped) shows where I'm going. A fully costumed body has been sitting on the shelf all this time. I've built the self-centering eyes and the jaw is spring-loaded.

I have two more heads sitting on the shelf, one Charlie and one Slappy. They'll be getting some attention soon.

Get back

After a hiatus of almost 5 years, I'm active in the ventriloquist community again. I don't have much to show for it yet except for the cartoon drawing on the left. I've been engaged to sculpt a model of this fella by my friend and co-conspirator Buzz James of Braylu Creations. He's been building figures as well as designing, manufacturing and selling dummy-building parts. He plans to make a mold of my alien friend, cast heads from the mold, and build figures from there.

I'm also working on a website project that I will announce and unveil soon. It's still in the testing phase, but I expect it to go live within a few days or weeks. More on that later.

My reentry will probably not involve order-taking for figures. I'll likely build at my own pace and sell what I build. I'm way too lazy to do it any other way.

Over time, I'll clean up the links on this blog. I've noticed some have expired. Again, I'm a little lazy.

It's time

I need to admit to myself and others that the time has come to end this blog. I'm not really contributing to it and readership is declining appropriately.

I started the blog in 2006 to post news about my dummy-building adventures. You'll find nine years of proud moments, disasters and discoveries in the postings. I plan to leave the blog in place in case anyone needs to or wants to search for information. Just use the "Search" window in the upper left.

I appreciate the time you've spent reading and commenting over the years. I feel I've received more than I've given as I've posted to this journal. I will continue to design, build and sell ventriloquist figures. You'll probably see and hear about it from postings on the several Facebook vent groups, including the Kenny Croes Dummy Store Facebook site.

Again my thanks for making Vent Into The Mic relevant and fun. - All the best, Kenny

Pearl goes shopping

It's a hoot when customers send me photos of Kenny Croes Dummy Store characters in new duds. Best of all, they share stories of shopping excursions with their new companions. Auntie Pearl accompanied Harold to the clothing store and caused quite a stir. Folks whipped out their cell phone cameras and clicked away as they perused the aisles. Now Pearl has a brand new wardrobe.

News to me

She enjoys being a Pearl

Not many folks know this, so please be discreet. But Auntie Pearl here was an exotic dancer way back when.  Waaaay back when. But now she's settled into a quaint life of baking cookies, feeding her 17 cats and making book on the side. She's been thinking seriously of publishing her memoirs...and then going on a speaking tour. She just needs a partner to help her old (and amazingly limber) bones onto the stage. That's why she's off to meet Harold, her grandson (and sole heir).

In good company

It's always a delight to see customers so happy to be in the company of their new Kenny Croes Dummy Store figure. The little guy has been named "Nathan Little". The tall guy on the right is Franklin. He mentioned that he works with kids of various and blended ethnicity and he wanted a figure that might represent a kid of mixed heritage. So Nathan's skin color was darkened slightly to reflect that. I love the fact that ventriloquism is used to teach youngsters.

Professor Goofentickle

The latest conversion figure to emerge from the Kenny Croes Dummy Store is named Professor Goofentickle. He's likely a source of endless misinformation. His academic credentials are quite dubious. The professor has a PHD in silly subjects, so expect scholarly gibberish during his looney lectures. He was built for fun, so I hope he joins a funny faculty soon.

Upstarts

Like me and so many other ventriloquists I know, the passion for the art form began at an early age. The two young fellows pictured are displaying their recent partner acquisitions from the Kenny Croes Dummy Store. I hope this is the beginning of a long and successful run of entertaining family, friends and appreciative audiences.

Three's a crowd, five's a jailbreak

Obviously I haven't paid enough attention to my blog the last few months. And I still might not. But here's an update in case anyone is still interested.

I purchased three Charlie McCarthy heads on Ebay and finished the two conversion figures you see above. I also got an order for my Norbert character, so I shipped him to his new home last week.

In between all this I restored an old Jerry Mahoney doll. It was originally upgraded by Kevin Detweiler. I really admired the workmanship on his conversion.  I even learned a new tip after cracking open the head and seeing his mechanics. I repainted the little fellow, replaced his soft eyebrows with sculpted hard eyebrows and gave him a red curly fleece wig.

What about the fifth project? I repaired cracks in the head of an old Lovik figure (not pictured). So yes, I've been busy and I remain so with six more projects on the work bench.

And then there's this little fella

I just put this cherub-faced youngster on my website, kennycroes.com. He's looking for a home, too. Know anyone who could use a good laugh? I bet this little guy could help.

I'm old, I'm cranky and I like it!

This elderly gentleman may "brighten up" someone's Christmas this year, though it won't be because he's filled with goodwill toward men. He's a curmudgeon and he's hoping to find someone who will listen ad nauseum to his many complaints this holiday season. He'll be for sale on my website's "In-Stock" page. He's 42" tall, has moving mouth, raising eyebrows and self-centering side-to-side eyes.