It seems to a few that my piece I wrote on the blog about figure makers has stirred the pot quite a bit and therefore did garner some good comments (Click here to see the blog). My intention with this blog was to be informative and let everyone know that at this present time it is not an easy task to find a pro figure maker that will deliver a figure in a very timely fashion. Of course for this to take place the figure maker must be a full time maker to be able to fill orders with relative speed. If you are a builder but have a regular job then it just takes much more time to deliver.
Now you say what is relative speed? Let me say that for the maker you have many steps that take place; create a head either by carving ( takes much time ) or casting, fabricate the head stick, make the mouth palate, install eyes ( some make their own eyes and this takes more time ), install mechanics and the time factor grows with the amount of mechanics, paint the head, wig the head, build the body, make fabric arms and legs, attach hands ( carved wood takes much more time ) paint hands and finally dress the figure. I must admit that the process is long and time consuming and as I originally stated there are very few who you can go to now to purchase a figure fromthat does all these steps as a full time job.
I have to say in my initial blog I said that Albert Alfaro disappears and then reappears before ConVENTion and then is at ConVENTion with a full table. This caused him to receive a few emails from some folks so I hope that I caused him to get a few orders. He is still available for anyone who wants to contact him for a figure. I say this because he contacted me and told me so. I am sorry Albert I just have not heard much about your figures in the public eye .
I have had some comments covering the fact that there are makers out there that are building on their own and I will agree that is a true statement but the blog I wrote was about full time figure builders and where are they. We all can contact Braylu and purchase everything we need to assemble a conversion figure but I was not talking about that at all. I think Braylu is a wonderful site for all of us to get parts and even completed figures from and I myself have used Buzz from Braylu to get items for some of my figures in the Ventriloquist Central Collection. A great place for all of us in ventriloquism.
I hope I have explained myself and everyone understands my thoughts which still remain the same I feel it is difficult today to purchase a Professional ventriloquist figure from a Professional builder. There are very few and they take a lot of time.
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 2010 by Dan Willinger
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I must say Albert Alfaro makes the best character figures available today! I have several! He is a great guy too! Thanks Albert!
You stated that: We all can contact Braylu and purchase everything we need to assemble a conversion figure. Braylu now has several cast heads available from the Kenny Croes Collection along with everything you need to complete a Professional Ventriloquist Figure. I have already built a couple myself. Check them out. Montanadan
Dan,
This is a great post if I do say so. I really like what you had to say here.
Cheers,
Larry Harris
I agree with you, Dan. And let’s talk about custom-made wood carved figures today. Who makes them regularly and full-time? Only Conrad Hartz comes to my mind right now… And he seems to produce significantly less in recent years. Creating a complete wood figure solely by hand and without using a duplicator machine, which I believe is how he works, is a big task and very time-consuming.
When I started carving wood figures for myself in 2006, there was an attempt to do offer them to the public. But it didn’t push through when I found out I couldn’t do it because it took away so much of my time and I was regularly performing.