Hands On Ventriloquist Figures

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To me the hands on a Ventriloquist figure are very important. I always picture the figures in the Ventriloquist Central Collection and when I do I also show the hands. Many of the makers of the golden age had very distinct hands and so I like to show them.

My partner on the web site , Steve Hurst, always laughs when I show them even in the videos that I make for the site. He always says who cares about the hands!!!??

Well I do and as I was sitting and thinking about hands I figured I would throw this out and ask all of you…..Are the hands important on a ventriloquist figure?

Your comments are welcomed!!

Dan
www.ventriloquistcentral.com

Have you seen the Frank Marshall Tribute DVD, click here

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Ventriloquist Central is the brainchild of Dan Willinger and Steve Hurst. Dan 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. Steve is a ventriloquist as well as builder of ventriloquist figures. He also has a background in sales, marketing, building websites and computers. Because they both love the art of ventriloquism, the website Ventriloquist Central was born. For more information about the website, go to: http://www.ventriloquistcentral.com

Copyright 2013 by Dan Willinger and Steve Hurst

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4 Responses to Hands On Ventriloquist Figures

  1. Curtis Jones says:

    To me hands are as important as the face…..
    If you have a great figure that comes across well and has a good face ( makes the character inviting) and a pair of hideous hands then it has lost some of its appeal.

    There are some figure makers (past and present) that make/made great faces but the hands are an after thought.

    I can imagine that is why some vents cobble together a body- something that will make a great presentation.

  2. Ben Veenkamp says:

    I totally get you Dan. I’m quite fussy about the hands as well. It often surprises me some of today’s figure makers charge so well, but still add very basic hands. I call them flippers because there’s no detail, all the fingers are joined and often the whole hand is just one colour.

    Good detail on the hands adds more life to the figure.

  3. David Boiano says:

    I totally agree with you Dan, the hands are important, they are out there, they can be seen quite plainly. One of the things that will catch my eye very quickly is if the hands are way too big for the figure, or too small.
    Many will probably disagree with me on this, but I’m also not a fan of the molded hands most everyone seems to be using these days, they are too lifelike, and it’s too much. Probably why my favorite hands on figures will always be carved hands, no matter how well they are carved, you can just usually always tell they are carved and they just look right on a figure (unless they are too big or small of course). Even carved hands that aren’t finally detailed just always seem to look right to me.

  4. LeeDean says:

    The last photo is from my Marshall 38″ girl figure, one of the few figures where Marshall closes thumb to first finger, so maybe could hold a flower. He did this a lot on marionettes, I have heard. On the importance of hands, when finished only head I ever made really wore me out so did stylized hands and feet–simply cut lines lines to suggest separation of fingers, and a little notch to suggest end of thumb. touching first finger. By the way, three lines makes for four fingers, not four lines, as I found out the hard way and had to fill in one line so two fingers on one hand do appear a little large, but that’s ok, using the best wood there is to work, black walnut. For the feet four lines suggests separation of the five toes.

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