Today we have a really special MAD TEA triple-threat: It’s an Etsy artist feature, book review, and interview all in one. MAD TEA stands for Monster Art Dolls Toy Etsy Artists. It’s a stretch I know. See this page for details about MAD TEA.
This week’s featured artist is Crankbunny, otherwise known as Norma Toraya. She explains that a Crankbunny is a large magical fish with rabbit ears that is part bunny. The fish has a hand growing out of its forehead. Crankbunny fingers are made of marshmallows. Being a monster, this all makes perfect sense to me. Besides having an Etsy store, Crankbunny recently came out with Paper Puppet Palooza, a book on making puppets. If that wasn’t enough already, Crankbunny has a blog. Crankbunny sells handmade puppets, pop-up cards, and cool mini decoders that you can use to send people secret messages. How cool is that!
Here is one of her puppets. She calls this a Lady Fish and I am almost fooled. I know it’s really a mermaid!
Filed under “I ordered mine so now it’s safe to tell you — Good luck!“, Crankbunny also sells signed and numbered, limited editions of a few of her puppets. Right now the Lady Spider and Flying Monkey Lady puppets are like that. I ordered the Lady Spider. Here’s a picture of mine (it’s blurry like an old-fashioned vignette because I’m experimenting with a Lensbaby camera lens).
Paper Puppet Palooza is half story-book and half instructional tome on the making of paper puppets. It includes instructions, templates, parts, materials, and even two full-color puppets you can cut out to make your own puppets. It works from the basics, to simple puppets, to marionettes and shadow puppets, and concludes with variations like pop-up cards. It also includes a gallery of work by other puppet artists: Sara Guindon, Lindsey Carr, Lisa Li Hertzi, Donna Leishman, Gwenaelle Gobé, and Bian Ewing.
I was excited to get the chance to interview Crankbunny via email. Here’s our interview:
You just came out with a book, Paper Puppet Palooza, that looks really awesome. Can you tell us a little about how that came about and how the process was for you?
Really it started out by someone at Etsy.com asking me if I’d like to do a workshop class at their Brooklyn space. Why not? I thought it might be fun and something new to try. I think paper puppets are super easy to make and love the idea of people incorporating the techniques into their own work. The book was a natural outcome from that because the workshops were fun and people got so much from them.
I decided to basically regurgitate everything that was in my brain about making puppets into Paper Puppet Palooza. The book helped organize all that brain matter into something better that was helpful even for me (because frankly it was all jumbled and somewhat intuitive). It was also a fun way to explore some new techniques and possibly mechanics too.
One thing I never had any luck with was creating different characters. The process of coming up with all the kookier silly stories was hard at first, but I wanted the book itself to have a story to it and its own world. Writing and working on those characters really helped me get over that hurdle. I wanted it to be more like a storybook than a how-to book because sometimes how-to books are boring or can just leave your head spinning.
I also improved my spelling and writing skills tenfold.
Tell us a little about how you create your puppets.
I either start with an idea for a character (‘let’s make a zebra!’) or an idea mechanically of what I want the puppet to do (‘a puppet that lifts its arm and drinks a cocktail’). From there, I research. A LOT. I gather up tons of references online, or at the library, through books, or just randomly from what I see on the street. I don’t take the characters or stories too seriously. I think of them more as the setup of a scenario that doesn’t have to go anywhere… takes the stress out of it.
The paper puppets are made from paper and small random household parts… nuts and washers for weights, string, plastic straw for string paths, wire, tape, glue. If the materials ever got too complicated, I’d probably get annoyed. All the artwork is done digitally on the computer and then printed onto paper. I don’t paint – too messy.
Wow. I totally thought you would be using designer gouache. Can you share what software and hardware (digitizing tablet, mouse, or…) you use to paint your creations?
I draw everything with a pencil and some good old paper, but everything then gets scanned into the computer and colored in Photoshop. For years I used a mouse to color/paint everything – but recently I got a tablet for animating that I use sometimes to color. Everyone always thinks I use real paint or coloring markers… but it’s been probably more than 10 years since I did that. I’m not into the mess and love my computer way too much.
In a short film on Etsy you demonstrate an alchemical process for turning robot laborers into robot fairies, a process you refer to euphemistically as “giving robots wings.” Are you amassing a robot fairy army?
Nope, no armies. I just don’t have the people/robot skills for that. I just like to think robots are great and they have feelings. They prob don’t wanna be making mass produced sweaters or boxes. It’s also based on the line from the movie “It’s a wonderful life” – Every time a bell rings an angel gets its wings.
Do you collect anything?
I used to collect die cast robots and toys from Japan, but then after moving a few times I realized it was really a pain to pack that stuff. I now collect vintage paper toys and old books on toy making and volvelles. Lighter and much flatter.
What exactly is a “volvelle?”
Volvelles are paper mechanisms usually used to calculate or work out associations between things (verbs, ingredients for recipes, measurements, baseball stats, etc). they don’t use them anymore – but back in the day they were very popular. Here is a wikipedia page on volvelles.
Attached is an ink blot. What do you see in it?
A giant bronze statue of a waterbear in the middle of a flowery park.
Ah. OK. I can see that. I saw a giant beetle doing a headstand on a pig’s nose.
There seem to be a lot of monsters in your work. For example, your recent stork card comes with a tentacled baby option. What is it about monsters that interests you?
Monsters are funny. There are so many options when it comes to monsters… what they look like, what they do, their hobbies, 3 eyes or just 1, possibly a tentacle or some suction cupped feets.
The tentacle in the baby basket of the Stork card is really just a joke… a possibly bad and less than tasteful one of someone giving birth to an alien.
Your book and puppets feature animals and people with shifting identities. There’s a giraffe who is mistaken for the Loch Ness Monster, and also a Dodo bird with a flamingo mask. Could it be that you are obsessed with this subject because you are really a spy?
I really like that expression – all is not as it appears to be. I think about perception in different ways and much of my work tends to reference that dynamic that can exist somehow. Sheesh -that sounds really serious, but I guess I just love how playful it can get. Sort of like how a Crankbunny is not a bunny at all, but really a giant funny fish with rabbit ears.
Is there a snake woman puppet coming in the future?
Naw, way to biblical for me. Next one will be birdy – possibly a peacock Brothers Grimm fairy tale type thing!
Anything else?
A bowl of soup with someone you love is better than steak with someone you hate.
Thanks again to Crankbunny for participating in this interview!
Here’s a photo of the same Lady Spider puppet from Crankbunny’s Etsy shop.
(The store photo is more real-to-life than mine, although the colors are a little washed out.)
Did I mention that Crankbunny is an animator? She is.
Well, that’s it for this week’s installment of MAD TEA. See you next week for more Monster Art Doll Toy Etsy Artists.
Don’t forget you can purchase Crankbunny’s fabulous Paper Puppet Palooza on Amazon!
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