Figure maker
Albert Alfaro
Imaginarium Galleries
A sculptor of fantasy puppets who came to ventriloquist figures late and has been among the foremost builders of hard figures for a decade or more.
Alfaro has been sculpting and designing fantasy puppets for over thirty years — dragons, griffins, fairies, woodland creatures — and in the early 1970s invented and patented the first original animated moving pet. He has designed for Fortune 500 companies and for the movie industry.
Imaginarium figures are unique pieces sold only through his own gallery, in sizes from 15-inch characters to full-size 44-inch figures. Willinger rates his progression as having brought him level with Tim Selberg, whose work Alfaro himself collects. Jimmy Vee's first-hand record has him living and not currently building.
The figure here was a donation to the Ventriloquist Central Collection made at the 2010 Vent Haven ConVENTion.
The mechanics
Direct linkage in brass throughout, which makes the controls unusually smooth. Skin-tone finishes, custom-made wigs, and real dentures in many of the figures — which the site says no other builder was doing at the time.
Status Living, no longer building recorded first-hand by Jimmy Vee, which outranks any web source — maker websites in this field routinely outlive the maker
The figures
8 photographs across 1 cataloged object. Each object is one entry in the register — where a character name covers two physical figures, they stay two entries, because the character outlives the object more often than the record admits.
Donation to 8 photographs
- Size
- 15"; 44"
- Dates given
- 2010
Recorded owner Ventriloquist Central Collection as stated on the source page when it was written — not current ownership
