“Don Marcelo y Napoleon”
Hello Dan:
I’m sending you a photo of my figure, Napoleon, and myself (I’m the fat one!). We had the privilege to perform for a Spanish speaking audience last Saturday, when the Mexican community in Calgary celebrated the independence of their country… I received many compliments on my performance (Mexican people are very generous and loving, mind you…) and they adored the fact that Napoleon was wearing a Mexican traditional suit! They appreciated that detail very much, especially if you consider that Napoleon’s character is, like me, an Argentinean guy.
I made him myself in paper mache. I bought the hands, eyes and body from Braylu, but I made all the rest… I especially like the mouth movement, it’s just the lower lip, not the whole jaw, kind of like a “living mouth” but without using the leather patch.
I hope you can get a suit like this for Don Frijoles! And don’t forget the Texan boots… I bought Napoleon’s on EBay, very cheap…
A hug from Marcelo (“Don Marcelo y Napoleon”)
Marcelo, a very nice Mexican ventriloquist figure. Thanks for sharing with us.
Dan
www.ventriloquistcentral.com
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Dan Willinger is a ventriloquism enthusiast and ventriloquist figure collector. He has been collecting for over 25 years. He created the Ventriloquist Central Collection. It now has over 100 ventriloquist figures and over 50 of them are Frank Marshall figures. Because of his love for the art of ventriloquism, Mr. Willinger created the website Ventriloquist Central. For more information about the website, go to: http://www.ventriloquistcentral.com
Copyright 2009 by Dan Willinger
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Nothing as good as a homemade figure, the look so original and different. Don Marcelo y Napoleon should put their photo on Gallery.
Very nice figure. Beautiful outfit. I would like to know more about the lower lip mouth movement.
Thanks for the compliments, I’m glad you people liked my Napoleon… Bob, the lower lip movement I installed in my figure works more or less like those marionettes from the old Gerry Anderson T.V. shows. But to tell you the truth I took the idea for the mechanics from a figure made by a latino gospel ventriloquist, Coco. You can check his videos and take a very close look at his figure Yiyo if you type the words Coco Yiyo in the Youtube search engine. It really works a lot like an Insull figure, but you don’t cover the hole with leather and the trick is to make the lower lip thick enough to cover that gap. But you’ll get a better idea if you check Yiyo’s mouth movement… And his outfit, is one hundred percent the real deal, I bought last year while visiting friends in Matehuala, a lovely city in Mexico.
Thank you Marcelo, I checked out Coco Yiyo on You tube. Very clever and very effective. I like the look with out the slots, and the mouth opening shows up well. Thanks again. Coco seems to be very good , unfortunately I don’t speak Spanish, so I really couldn’t follow his act, but his manipulation was very good.