Puppets and Props

   Puppets and Props is a small company owned and operated by 'Figure Maker' Mike Brose, and his talented wife, Cathy.

   Mike does all the sculpting, mold making, casting, painting, mechanizing, wigging, and other items in connection with making top quality professional ventriloquist figures for performers and hobbyists alike.

   Cathy does a lot of the work on the high quality bodies that we produce for our figures. She is a professional seamstress and has over 30 years experience in sewing and tailoring. Cathy is an artist in her own right and also makes beautiful quilts, wall hangings, table runners and other fine fiber art creations. She is currently working on a dvd series featuring some of her unusual textile techniques.

   Mike had an interest in ventriloquism from an early age (early 1960's), watching some of the ventriloquist greats on TV, like Edgar Bergen, Paul Winchell, Jimmy Nelson and Sherry Lewis. He learned ventriloquism from Paul Winchell's book at age 10, and won first place in a talent contest at age 11! He used to entertain all the neighborhood children, as well as some of the adults.

   At the same time, Mike was extremely fascinated by the ventriloquist figures themselves, how they worked, and yearned to make them himself. He studied all he could about figure making, learning about wood carving (the first figure Mike ever made was out of wood), sculpting, mold making, casting, mechanics, etc. Every year, Mike would try to learn more about this fascinating subject.

   His career path as an adult headed in a different direction however. Mike was top piano tuner-technician for over 3 decades in California. Mike feels that in many ways his time spent with the complex mechanics of fine pianos really helped prepare him later on in his career as a full time figure maker. You can read more about that here.

   All the while he was engaged in his piano service career, Mike always spent his spare time working on building figures and learning as many skills as he could in connection with making high quality figures. He secretly desired to be making his living at building figures. But that wouldn't be for awhile yet.

   In the early 1990's Mike got the idea of making ventriloquist figure kits. Mike was the first to offer high quality urethane cast dummy parts. He was making both kits and finished figures and went full time in 2000. Mike is one of the few full time figure makers who makes his living at this fascinating craft.

   Mike published his 200 page book on figure making in 2001, and this publication is still considered one of the best resources on figure making out there.

   What a lot of people don't know is, there was a period of about 6 or 7 years where Mike struggled with some serious health problems which greatly affected expanding his figure making business. The good news is, Mike is doing fine these days, and there are some exciting new things on the horizon. Stayed tuned to the Puppets and Props Blog, as anything new will be posted there first!

  Mike and his lovely wife Cathy both feel that the best is yet to come! Thanks for your interest in Puppets and Props and what we do here.