Nov
12
No Really You Can Make Your Own
Filed Under Costumes, Supplies\Shops
A lot of clowns when they first start out get in a mood to buy, buy, buy. This unfortunately leads to a lot of purchases left unused in the garage and a lot of money spent on equipment before it can actually be used. One thing that can be used to remedy this spending spiral is to build\make more of your own props.
What’s that you say, “Building my own props/costumes will take to much time and cost more money.” That is incorrect. Most prop builders and costumers are taking a skill that can be done by anyone and created a niche for themselves by marketing towards clowns. What you can do is learn to make your own costumes and props.
Sewing is relatively easy to do and while making a whole costume would require a sewing machine, modifying cloths for a tramp type character is easy to do with a needle and some thread. Plus the beauty of sewing your own patches onto your costume is that it gives it the down home look of a tramp sewing on the road.
If you are interested in sewing a full costume for yourself make sure you are prepared to learn to sew. Take a class at a craft store or community college to learn the basics and you should be ready. Finding patterns for clown costumes is easy, just find a regular pattern that you like, by a couple sizes to big and sew it in a fabric of your choosing. This will give you infinitely more choices then buying an off the rack costume and it will save you hundreds of dollars on a custom costume.
Typically clown shoes are another major expense for a professional clown look, but at $200 plus for a nice pair it can be a huge expense for a new business. What I would suggest is to find shoes at a thrift store that fit you character and modify them accordingly. Another option if it fits you character is to by some canvas shoes and paint or decorate them to fit more with your costume.
There are a lot of everyday clown props are easy to make and always turn out better then purchased ones. Most of them are either substitutions of everyday objects decorated to fit your clown. There are a few that you can make from scratch.
If you are a juggling clown you know that juggling clubs are about $25-$40 a piece, a cheaper and funnier alternative is a plunger, a rubber chicken with a dowel in its mouth and a spatchula. All of these things are easy to find, well you might have to order a rubber chicken, and can be decorated with duct or plastic tape. These three objects can be juggled just like clubs and tend to make people laugh before you even start juggling. Other juggling props such as bean bags and cigar boxes can be made with just a little sewing or general woodshop knowledge.
If you are a ventriloquist clown you have probably looked all around for the world for the perfect puppet. All you have been able to find are copies of puppets that other entertainers the world over use. The only problem with those puppets is that they all look the same and getting a custom puppet increases the cost from $150 up to $500 and typically a lot more.
What you need to do is build yourself a sock puppet or better yet a foam puppet. Both of these puppets can be made by anyone and while you first attempt may not turn out perfect it will be more fitting to your clown character then any purchased puppet. Also as you get better at fabricating them your puppets will only get better.
These are just a few of the clown items that you can make on your own. There are many more and the resources for learning to make them are all over the Internet. Just search around and you will find places where you can make your own puppets as well as being able to look at sewing patterns online without having to go to the fabric store.
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