Tails by the Foxfire

Tails by the Foxfire Interviews Zack Buchman of Furry Puppet Studio & Uncute

Tails by the Foxfire recently had the privilege of chatting with Zack Buchman of Furry Puppet Studio: the New York-based creators of the puppets used in Missy Elliott & Pharrell Williams’ WTF music video, as well as characters commissioned for marketing campaigns by Apple Japan, Casper, and more. As a former animator and as a video game fan, Zack Buchman lives and breathes story, and we jumped at the chance to talk creative processes, the games that inspired him (notably, LucasArts’ beloved point-and-click classic, Sam & Max Hit the Road), and the rise of alternative mediums like puppetry and claymation in the video game scene today. Needless to say, it was a very inspiring conversation, and one with plenty of words of wisdom for aspiring creatives! Keep reading to check out what Zack had to say, and learn more about the intersection between puppetry and gaming!

Learn more about Zack Buchman’s puppet creations at Furry Puppet Studio, and his plushie lines at Uncute (makers of the Sam & Max plushies, which I have 100% subscribed to hear about when they’re back in stock)!

Read More About Art & Video Games:
Stardew Valley Festival of Seasons: Sowing Seeds of Hope in the Era of AI
Intimate Music From FINAL FANTASY: A New World Orchestra in Halifax, NS
Dragon Quest VII Reimagined: Behind the Scenes with Producer Takeshi Ichikawa & Director Masato Yagi

The Puppet-Making Process: Finding the Character in the Foam

If you aren’t familiar, Furry Puppet Studio’s breadth of character creations ranges from humans, to animals, to Henson-like beings of pure imagination. When exploring the work of Buchman and crew, I was immediately reminded of my favourite works by Jim Henson (one of Buchman’s inspirations, naturally!) and was immediately charmed by the compelling identity of each piece, some cute, some gritty, some wonderfully unusual, and some even crafted after notable figures like Missy Elliott and Pharrell Williams for the WTF music video.

Tails by the Foxfire (TBF): I’m curious about your process when designing your puppets: do you find that you already have the full character and story in mind when forming the look, or do you find each character develops as you create it?

Zack Buchman (ZB): “It develops. I almost never start with the finished character. What I start with is one question: what does this read as in the first split second you see it? Before anything else I am hunting for the things that make the character. Then it keeps changing as it leaves the page. Sometimes as you carve the foam it wants to go in a different direction. It’s a fun process.”

TBF: What is your favourite part of the creative process that encourages you to keep pursuing traditional artistry in an increasingly high-tech world?

ZB: “There is no undo button. You cut the foam, you set the eye, it can be scary but you live with it. And then the character is in the room with you. It has weight, someone can pick it up, it pushes back. It feels very real, even dramatic in comparison to digital art.”

“There is no undo button. You cut the foam, you set the eye … And then the character is in the room with you.”

Enter Sam & Max: The Role of Pixellated Computer Games in Zack Buchman’s Puppet-Making Process

Despite their many differences, though, Furry Puppet Studio’s creations all have one very important thing in common: the fact that each puppet expresses its character in seconds with carefully curated details. This was no accident, but a necessity to build the connection between a puppet and its audience right away: something inspired by Zack’s time with pixellated video games like Sam & Max Hit the Road by LucasArts. Needless to say, as a lifelong fan of LucasArts (including Monkey Island and Sam & Max), everything Square Enix, and now the endlessly-creative indie gaming scene, I was excited to learn more!

TBF: In previous interviews, you’ve mentioned drawing inspiration from pixellated computer games and relating to the fact that designers were forced to be clever when picking out colours and details to convey a character in such a limited space. Some viewers might base their perceptions of a character on a split-second look, or decide whether or not they like a game just by glancing at its art style!

Which video games (and characters, if there are any you’d like to mention!) would you say have inspired your career the most?

ZB: “The early LucasArts adventure games for sure. “Sam & Max Hit the Road” is one of my all-time favorites. My dad bought it for me as a kid, and almost all the jokes went over my head, but there was so much there that was simply magical. The whole thing was about 10MB and the resolution was 320×200 (!). The character design and the art were so rich and clever.”

TBF: With pixel art games like Square’s HD-2D Dragon Quest Remasters, Octopath Traveller, and even more in the thriving indie gaming scene seeing a big boom in recent years, do you find that video games are a medium that continue to inspire you?

ZB: “More than ever. Pixel art stopped being a limitation and became a choice, and you can feel it. The indie scene especially. I heard an intern built the entire opening of “Day of the Tentacle” on pure passion, because the stakes were low enough to let them. You get those little pockets of brilliance wherever someone has some freedom and no budget, and indie games are full of them.”

“Pixel art stopped being a limitation and became a choice, and you can feel it.”

Words of Wisdom for Aspiring Artists

I’m not sure how many of you know this about me, but I studied Creative Writing at university with the hopes of becoming a novelist. Not a dream that panned out, but a dream that found new life in game reviews and eventually gave rise to Tails by the Foxfire, where I’m happier than ever using my words to share my favourite video game stories and what they mean to me!

While pursuing fiction, I often found I struggled to authentically express myself because I was so wrapped up in what my art was ‘supposed to be’: a sticking point I attribute in part to pursuing writing in an academic setting, because it handed me a rulebook at a time when I was still understanding my voice. Don’t get me wrong: the course was helpful because it helped me identify my creative toolkit and understand the ‘why’s and ‘how’s of wordcrafting, but it also fed into my mistaken belief that I had to suppress myself because readers might like me better that way; it introduced me to an internal schoolyard bully who stomped into my sandbox, kicked over my sandcastle, and told me, ‘You’re playing wrong!’ and ‘Nobody cares about this!’

Zack, on the other hand, is a creative who didn’t go the academic route and instead learned by doing, so I was particularly interested in his creative experience and whether this internal critic is also present for him. I was also curious about the days where a puppet won’t co-operate (as projects not going to plan is something I think we can all relate to, no matter our craft!) and Zack was more than happy to share a few words of wisdom:

TBF: Your work with Furry Puppet Studio is honestly such a joy to see in an age where it feels like AI and purely computer-generated effects have taken over. Where many creators lose heart when impostor syndrome raises its voice, I’d love it if you could share some wisdom for any aspiring artists joining us today.

What would you say to encourage other artists who feel that they ‘aren’t good enough’, or that there isn’t space for their passion project?

ZB: “I can really relate to it because I often feel that I’m not good enough. And I love surrounding myself with people who are more talented and smarter than me. Almost everything I love was made inside a limit and there’s some fun in the challenge. As for passion projects, you decide that you do it for you and you can make all the space for it. It makes things simpler.”

TBF: Do you feel that choosing to be a self-made artist who didn’t go to college has helped you keep a firm grasp on your creative identity? For me, I feel that getting a degree in Creative Writing actually hindered my creativity when pursuing fiction, because I find myself checklisting whether I’m ‘arting correctly’.

ZB: “Both, honestly. Part of me wishes I had gone. People pick up skills in school that I had to find the hard way, if at all. But I also never learned the “right” way to do it, so I never had that voice telling me I was doing it wrong.”

TBF: Have you ever given up on a puppet that wouldn’t co-operate with a design, or do you prefer to trust the process and persevere when things don’t go to plan?

ZB: “I almost never scrap one. A puppet that fights me is usually telling me that something is missing, and if I listen it ends up better than what I drew. We carve the heads by hand, and at some point the foam in your hands can start arguing with the sketch on the wall. I try to mediate. Some of our best characters refused to be what they were initially meant to be.”

There’s an amount of beauty in that last answer in particular, I think; something that I relate to on a personal level, and that took me too many years to learn: that the very best version of me couldn’t exist until I stopped trying to force myself to be someone else.

“Some of our best characters refused to be what they were initially meant to be.”

The Rise of Claymation & Puppetry in the Video Game Space

In recent years, we’ve seen game developers becoming bolder and venturing outside the box when designing their worlds: from claymation in The Midnight Walk, to dolls in Dragon Quest VII Reimagined, and even puppets in games like Felt That: Boxing, video games are distinguishing themselves as an evolving medium folding in traditional art forms to create something truly unique. Video game concerts (like Final Fantasy: A New World & Stardew Valley: Festival of Seasons) are even becoming more common, celebrating our favourite soundtracks with beautifully-arranged orchestras! With that in mind, it felt only natural to ask a video game loving puppet designer his thoughts on the topic:

TBF: I was really interested to learn that the recent remake of Dragon Quest VII used real wooden & cloth dolls as a foundation for the game’s character models. We have also seen claymation & stop motion used for games like The Midnight Walk. Jim Henson’s Muppets have even become a yearly fixture of the annual Game Awards show! With traditional art and puppetry on the rise in the gaming space, and Furry Puppet Studio’s impressive resume of incredible collaborations like Missy Elliott, Nike, CNN, and Apple Japan, has Furry Puppet Studio considered breaking into the gaming space?

ZB: “I would jump at it. The line is thinner than people think. A puppet is an object we bring to life by performing it live, and so is a VR avatar, or a rig, or a player on the end of a controller. We have already turned Sam & Max into physical toys with Uncute, so we crossed that bridge backwards. A hand-built, slightly imperfect character in a game sounds like my kind of problem.”

I’d love to see it! Fingers crossed a developer hoping to incorporate puppets into their video game project will give Furry Puppet Studio a call!

Where to Find Zack Buchman’s Work

You can find Zack Buchman’s puppet work at Furry Puppet Studio and unique plushies like Sam & Max, Blobby & Friends, and more at Uncute. We’d like to say a big thank you to Zack Buchman for taking the time to talk with us! It’s been an absolute pleasure chatting with you by the foxfire and we can’t wait to see what’s next for Furry Puppet Studio!

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