I've long been fascinated by what puppets and animated characters have in common. Experimenting with digital puppetry has allowed me to both experience and study what happens when you put the two together. Animator Lynn Tomlinson and I collaborated with UMBC's Imaging Research Center to create an award-winning digital puppet app that has been used in her live performances and presented at conferences internationally.
What is a digital puppet?
Digital Puppets are drawn characters (animated figures) performed live by puppeteers. Digital puppetry most often involves puppeteers/actors using motion capture suits and/or complex video-game-like controllers to make an image come to life. You can read about digital puppetry's use in the film industry in my essay "Unholy Alliances and Harmonious Hybrids: New Fusions in Puppetry and Animation" in The Routledge Companion to Puppetry and Material Performance, and in my book, A Galaxy of Things: the Power of Puppets and Masks in Star Wars and Beyond.
What is a digital puppet?
Digital Puppets are drawn characters (animated figures) performed live by puppeteers. Digital puppetry most often involves puppeteers/actors using motion capture suits and/or complex video-game-like controllers to make an image come to life. You can read about digital puppetry's use in the film industry in my essay "Unholy Alliances and Harmonious Hybrids: New Fusions in Puppetry and Animation" in The Routledge Companion to Puppetry and Material Performance, and in my book, A Galaxy of Things: the Power of Puppets and Masks in Star Wars and Beyond.
