My Latest Completed Head

Self centering eyes, Raising eyebrows, Winkers/Blinkers, slot jaw

Being Humble and giving back

Well folks I have decided to build a full size working pro figure for a personal friend of mine. He is going to be leaving his country and going to Guatemala to do some service for the Lord. He will be dealing with a lot of poor adults and children. I was originally going to just build him a head and leave the rest to him, but I want him to have a completed figure by me to take to Guatemala. I hope to see pictures of the trip.

MOTHER MOLD!!!!!!!!

 

Good evening, afternoon, or morning lol. So I have been a bit busy with projects lately. I have been working on project no name and project Charles and now will be taking on project Tommy. I wanted to show you the progress on project Charles. The rubber latex mold and mother mold have been made and completed. It took me about 1 1/2 weeks to complete this, but I wanted to take my time. I will be using Plasti Paste from Smooth-On. Its a urethane plastic that is Trowelable (brushable) which is what I want and need. Stay tuned for updates.

Leather Blinkers

The other day a friend of mine asked me how would you paint leather blinkers. He said you could not paint it with acrylic paint because the paint would either crack not the blinkers would not work. True....to a certain point. What you need is this:

Frabric Paiting Medium aka Textile Medium. You mix this with your skin tone paint and boom! You are in business.

Cancer

Its hard to say goodbye to a close friend when you know he cant hear you. That is what happened to me. My friend Jose Cortez was born 07/26/85 and passed away 01/29/11 from cancer. He fought hard for 3 years until the cancer was just too much for him. Rest in peace my friend. We all miss you.

The Great One

I recentely finished reading the booy by Edgar Bergen called "How to become a ventriloquist" I have to say I enjoyed the book greatly and learned some things. There was one thing that bothered me. Bergen talked about a lot of practice so your lips would not move. So why did his lips move so much?

I have asked this question before and have received a lot of answers. Mr. Jerry Layne told me it was because Bergen got use to being in the radio that he discarded his lip control. Others say he just was not good at lip control. What do you think? I still think he was the great one.

Mirror Practice

Are you practing your vent in front of a mirror? I am one to admit I don't always practice in front of a mirror. I recently purchased a small hand mirror to practice more often. I have to admit that now that I have the mirror I am practicing a lot more. So pick up a mirror and practice your lip control

Home Improvement Dummy

I remember an old episode of Home Improvement where Randy (Tim's Son) was going to perform a ventriloquist act at school. Tim (Tim Allen) makes him a dummy that looked just like him..lol..

Does anyone know who made this figure?

Case/Trunk for my new Lovik Figure

 So check this story out. I had been going to Walmart shopping like I usually do. For about a month I noticed these trunks they had for sale. I thought to myself "What a perfect trunk to keep my new figure in!" I walked over and saw the price. They were priced at $50. Needless to say I quickly changed my mind. I mean no wheels, no padding, and a bit on the heavy side.

Well I continued to shop at Walmart and noticed every time I went the large selection of trunks was dwindling down. The final time I notice them there were only 2 left. The orange one pictured here and a pink one. Both were missing keys and

the pink one was closed and locked. The orange one had a very small and minor crack and the price tags had been removed. I thought to myself it was now or never. So I chose the orange one and took it to the register. I told the chashier about the price tag missing, the small crack and key missing. They were not able to look up the price so they charged me $10 for the trunk!!!! What a great deal!!!!

My NEW Lovik Figure

Alright folks I know I have been talking about my new Lovik figure in my last few videos. So here he is. This is my new custom figure being built by Keith Lovik. He will have raising eyebrows, leather winkers/blinkers, self-centering side to side moving eyes, and of course slot jaw. I am very excited to receive him and when I do its back to doing shows.

Project No Name

So I have completed the head stick for project no name. There is a total of 5 levers. The first two, which are located in the front will control the mouth and eye movement. The three brass levers will control the winkers/blinkers and raising eyebrows.

This project is being created for a friend of mine. The project with only be a completed head. The head will be painted, but will have no hair.

Ventriloquism in Law Enforcement

As I work in Law Enforcement every day I have a lot of interaction with children. I come to realize that the majority of the experiences children share with Police Officers are negative.

Has society created world where childen don't see Police Officers as good guys?

Well I asked myself that question many times and decided something needed to be done. I began to go to the Boys and Girls Club in my patrol area regularly to play games with the children. I then decided I should bring my character Wally and do a show.

I began my doing some shows for days cares and schools. Now I will be doing a show for a retirement home and more schools. All in the area I work. I want children to have positive experiences with Police Officers while at the same time showing them the beautiful art of ventriloquism.

String or Rod?????

I am currently working on a figure head called "Project No Name". I was sketching the mechanics and was thinking of wheather to go with all string, but then thought about rod. I personaly in the past have used a combination of both. Especially with flapping ears. I feel the McElroy styles works better for the ears. What do you think?

Practice

So I was driving at work today and was practicing my B-F-M-P-V. I started thinking how many of us get so caught up about having a nice figure or having the best jokes and forget the meat and potatoes of ventriloquism.

Lets face it! No one likes a vent that has bad lip control and bad manipulation. Does not matter how funny your jokes are or how nice your figure looks. So don't forget to PRACTICE!!!!!!

Welcome to my Blog 2011!!!

First off I would like to welcome you all to my blog. I greatly appreciate the fact that you have taken the time to read or post in my blog. With that being said let me introduce myself.

My name is Israel also known as Izzy. Some of you may have seen my youtube videos (ijuarez13100) online.  I have decided to create this blog to reflect things I have done with ventriloquism as well as anything and everything that has to do with the art.

I have been practicing ventriloquism a.k.a. Vent for approximately 3 years. I have been building figures for approximately 2 years. I became interested in ventriloquism when I saw a commercial on television as a child. The ventriloquist was an LAPD officer with his figure. (I don't know his name). At around 12 years old my parents purchased a Danny Oday for me, which I HATED! He had the string that came out of his neck and I wanted a pro figure.

I grew up too poor to purchase a real figure and recall going to the Hollywood Magic store just to stare at the Jerry Layne figures in the window. Needless to say I gave up on vent because my parents could not afford a figure for me.

As an adult I finally decided to purchase a figure for myself. When I saw how expensive they were I decided I would learn how to make my own. After trial and error I learned many techniques on how to create figures. I also practiced the art daily. I had the opportunity to meet Jerry Layne and go to his shop. To this day he remains a good friend, who literally lives down the street from me..lol..

I hope you enjoy my blog. Thank you

Sincerely,

Izzy