I designed and painted the images for the retro puppet theater Puppet in the Pantry. Founders Brian and Hanson envisioned a puppet theater with a vintage sideshow. The first thing we did was decide to put their dog Daisy and my dog Bingo's portraits dressed as clowns on the antique doors for the front. The space was tall and narrow, so I designed a scroll pattern to frame the portraits and painted it in gold metallic. We used this gold ornamentation on the other pieces to tie it all together.
They worked with a carpenter, who created a wooden die cut for the front of the theater. Brian and Hanson sell vintage toys and wanted me to add some toy soldiers, and since Brian used to be a Broadway dancer he wanted a comedy and tragedy mask as well. The basic shape of the curtains and footlights were already die cut, so I came up with some dramatic drapery to give it depth.
For the sides of the theater, they wanted to use my Mr. Peanut and Mr. Softee portraits as old theater posters. I gave the portraits yellowed, ragged edges and faded them a bit in Photoshop to age them. Then I added in old-fashioned hand-shaped arrows pointing to the stage door and the ticket booth.