This puppet was a commission for a client who wanted to give a very unique birthday gift to his wife. Super sweet, right? This guy is winning at the whole husband game.
The Little Mermaid was in my top three favorite Disney films growing up (the others being The Lion King and Aladdin). So when my client told me they wanted a mermaid puppet, I was all in.
I started cutting out the fish scales for her tail pretty early on. This project was finished back in July 2016. 
It has come to my attention these past few years that I really enjoy dressing up in costumes. October of 2014 I did what I dubbed the “Costume Challenge” where I wore a different costume every week day. If you are doing the math that is 23 different costumes! Now the stipulation was that the costumes were pulled from my pre-existing wardrobe/costumes (with the exception of the April O’Neill costume, which was rented) and props were created from supplies around the print shop I worked. So, some costumes are better than others…
Growing up my mom hand-made our costumes and she taught me how to sew. However most of my costumes are more compositions than built/sewn from scratch (why re-invent the wheel?). My favorite costume that my mother made was Demona from Gargoyles only using my action figure and the TV show as references for the pattern. She surprised me at school and came dressed as Eliza Mazda. I barely recognized her in the black wig. Best. Mom. Ever.
I’ve attended many special film screenings, premieres, festivals, art exhibits, concerts, and fundraisers in costume. Managed to win a fair amount of costume contests, including one at Guzu Gallery’s “Icons of Horror” art show with my Ash costume and was featured in Gore Noir Magazine’s coverage of the show.
Above are some of the highlights over the past few years. I didn’t really think of myself as a cosplayer, because I don’t use a lot of elaborate wigs or makeup. But I’ve come to embrace that title and am currently working on an official Cosplayn Jane website which will hopefully roll out in a few months. I’ve got an exciting collaboration project in talks right now, but that’ll have to wait before I can make any official announcements.
Until then, if you want to follow my costumed antics more closely, follow me here:
Instagram: tessamorrison
OR
Facebook: Cosplayn Jane
So after my Ellen Ripley puppet finished up her time at the Gallery 1988 West “30 Years Later” Exhibit, she went to Creature Features Gallery for a CHOGRIN curated ALIEN inspired art show called “LV-426.”
This year is the 30th anniversary for the ALIEN franchise and April 26th was dubbed ALIEN day after the name of the clandestine planet that the team of the NOSTROMO land on, LV-426.
For this show I beefed Ripley up a bit and she now has her flamethrower. I’m just going to keep adding on things until she has the full yellow forklift mech suit. It’ll be so F’ing sweet.
This is the second show I’ve been in at Gallery 1988! I’m pretty stoked on it. The theme this time is “30 Years Later,” an art show based upon films from 1986. It was a hard call, as there were a lot of amazing films on that list, however in the end I went with ALIENS and created an Ellen Ripley puppet. She is an adorable little badass xenomorph expert.
Titled “Who’s Snow White?” a line uttered by another badass female character, Vasquez. Little Ripley has her asymmetrical watch, sweet red and white high top Reeboks from the future, and ammunition laden suspenders. Her t-shirt was stained with tea to give her the sweat-stained battle damage look. Her hair is made of a furry yarn that has great volume and texture to it.
The art show is at Gallery 1988 WEST is March 26, 2016 on Friday from 7-10. The show is on display though April 9th. If you are in Los Angeles, hit it up! Ripley will be for sale through Gallery 1988’s store.
Gallery 1988’s Flyer for the show.
If you’re into puppets, I got some more cute commissions that will be underway here soon. So keep your eyes peeled for more felty goodness.
You can check out more of my work at https://www.behance.net/tessamorrison
I’ve been fervently working on a piece for this show which opens Friday, February 26, 2016. More as things develop. I have to finish the piece by tomorrow. Tonight is going to be another all nighter…..
Well, here he is. My piece for “Fame That Toon!” is none other than the Shogun of Sorrow, AKUUUUU! Hopefully I won’t be tossed into a post-apocalyptic future where HIS EVIL IS LAW! 60+ hours of cutting, sewing, and hot gluing later I have a 4-foot tall fiber art replica of everyone’s favorite shape-shifting warlock.
Here’s more details on the show.
Pieces will eventually be for sale at the show and on their site here.
My Hyrulian puppet is back out on the art show circuit, this time Link is going to Los Angeles to be in Hero Complex Gallery’s “The Legend of Zelda 30th Anniversary Art Celebration!”
Link will be for sale on Hero Complex Gallery’s website and at the opening which is February 26, 2016, at 7:00. If you are in Los Angeles you should check out the show! I have another show the same night in Austin at Guzu Gallery. more on that to come. (Interested in commissioning me to do a custom puppet? Feel free to contact me to get a quote! Serious inquiries only please.)
Other Worlds Austin is a genre film group focusing on sci-fi that hosts movie premieres throughout the year. I briefly mentioned Other Worlds Austin in my Strange Kids Club interview with the director of LISTENING. Founded by former Austin Film Festival worker, Bears Fonte in 2014, Other Worlds Austin has hosted several World, U.S, and Texas Premieres. Within the past year I’ve attended their showings of Call Girl of Cthulu, The Midnight Swim, Listening, and Uncanny. Other Worlds Austin (OWA) does a great job scouting for new, talented filmmakers and helping them to share their work with the scifi community. One of their 2014 festival films, Timelapse, is actually now available on Netflix.
Other Worlds Austin just wrapped their second annual sci-fi film festival earlier this December. It may be too late to participate this year, but you can attend or even submit your film to them next year! Purchasing a festival badge got you access to all the films and into the free sponsored 2015: A Brunch Odyssey, where you suck down mimosas and eat breakfast with the film makers, actors, and event organizers.
Opening night’s feature BOY 7 (Dir. by Ozgur Yildirim), was a German dystopian film based on a Dutch book. It starts with a boy waking up in the subway with no memory, a killer headache, and the police chasing him. I can’t really go into it too much without giving it away, but I’ve heard it compared to Run Lola Run.
BOY 7 screenshot
This year at the OWA Film Festival they awarded the “The Mary Shelley Award ” to Carrie Carre, the director/writer of Embers. During the Q & A we found out Carrie Carre really did her homework for her film about a viral outbreak that causes severe memory loss to Earth’s entire population. She did research on case studies about short-term and long-term memory loss and the parts of the brain associated with each. This post-apocalyptic film posits that taking away someone’s memories leaves them with their essence or true nature. It also touches on other side-effects, such as not being able to experience guilt due to not being able to remember what you did.
No Men Beyond This Point screenshot.
T.I.M. screenshot
2015 OWA Festival photobooth. Things might have gotten silly.
There were Q & A’s with the directors and actors from the films, Other Worlds Austin swag (t-shirts, posters, hats, etc.), and a photo booth with props and a different green screen back drop for each day of the festival. The 2015 Other Worlds Austin Film Festival was amazing! There was laughter, tears, robots, zombies, vampires, aliens, viral outbreaks, astronauts, explosions, and space kittens. I highly recommend this festival and it’s only going to get bigger. So start making plans to check out Other Worlds Austin 2016! I know I am.
Guzu Gallery’s “High Scores,” a video game themed art show, was the official pre-party for Classic Game Fest. On display from July 24, 2015 – August 31, 2015, High Scores features over 30 artists, including myself. For this show I fabricated a hand-and-rod puppet of everyone’s favorite adventurer, Link! He comes with his shield and can even stand on his own. If you’re interested in purchasing him, he will be for sale eventually here.
After finishing him, it became obvious that a play date was in order. So Eric Samaniego, Wright Sulek, and myself made the above promo spot for High Scores. Eric voiced and puppeteered Link, I helped puppeteer, and Wright filmed, operated the boom mic, and gave us directions. We had a blast and it all came together very organically. I wrote the script on a Tuesday, finished the puppet and printed the backdrop on Wednesday, we filmed it on Thursday, and Wright had the edited video finished by that Sunday. This experience has made it all the more apparent I need to work in film.
Flyer for “High Scores” art show.
This piece was made for the Chogrin curated “Guillermo Del Toro: In Service of Monsters” exhibit at Gallery 1988. I love Guillermo Del Toro’s work and Chogrin curated the 25th Anniversary of Hellboy Art Show a few years back, which looked amazing. I really wanted to be a part of it and I might of cried a little when I missed out on it. So I started composing an email to Chogrin to ask to be in his next show, and then out of the freaking blue he emailed me first!! I hadn’t even sent my draft to him! Crazytown. I found out that the gallery owner at Gallery 1988 is a fan of my work and sent him my info. Yay, networking!
The show was Sept. 11, 2015 at Gallery 1988 in Los Angeles. I flew out to the show and stayed with some friends and my brother. I brought some Hellboy comics for Mike Mignola to sign, because he had a piece in the show, unfortunately he couldn’t make it out for personal reasons. HOWEVER, there was one special guest who showed up, Guillermo Del Toro!!! I got to meet the man himself, and he was so sweet. I didn’t get to talk to him much, but I told him I was an artist in the show and he was super sweet, “Oh really? Want to get a picture together in front of your piece?” Durrrrrrr..::brain melts:::…yes…please? They had a cake of the strange metal scarab apparatus from CHRONOS. The inside was red velvet cake! Nom!
The man himself. And me…cheesin’ so hard.
Originally I was going to create the Hellboy with the full horns and the flaming crown, but the technique I choose lent itself to his filed down horns way more. The technique I used for this piece is similar to the Dr. Doom piece I did a few years back. They are made up of little sushi rolls of fabric tiled like a mosaic. It’s a distinct look I came up with one day when I was trying to make some fabric beads.
Dr. Doom Fiber Portrait
Here is my piece for “Le couleur de l’etrangete” An Art Show Tribute to the Films of Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet at Spoke Art Gallery. The show’s title means “the color of strange.” My fiber art piece is titled “Parapluie” meaning umbrella. Amelie was probably the most popular film to do a piece for this show. I wish I had time to make another piece…I probably would have done something for Alien Resurrection. : D
This show runs May 9th-30th 2015 at 816 Sutter Street San Francisco, CA.
Pieces will be for sale on the site at: http://store.spoke-art.com/
tessa.yvonne.morrison. 