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On this page of the Puppets and Pandemonium web site we will try to demonstrate some of the processes we use to construct our puppets. We work with a whole range of different materials, some of it is scrap and junk that otherwise would be destined for landfill. Foam from old Sofas is a particularly abundant resource, as is polystyrene packaging and both (with a bit of practice) can be easily carved into detailed shapes. We also make moulds so the part can be cast from Latex or Silicon. One of the real bonuses of this technique is that exact duplicates are possible because the casting can be repeated as many times as required.
Red Riding Hoody;
The following pictures detail the basic stages involved in the building of our Red Riding hood Puppet.
The head is made from an old sofa cushion that was trimmed to shape with scissors and then covered with fabric which was hand stitched into place and then painted. The hands are stitched together on a machine from two pieces of cloth ( an extra two pieces for each thumb) and then the seams were trimmed and they were flipped around so the seams were hidden. A wire framework was made to fit so the fingers can hold on to things and afterwards they were stuffed with wadding. A manipulation rod was inserted from the elbow and the hands were painted and given fake fingernails.
Puppet Wizard;
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First some foam (old sofa cusion) was clipped into a rough shape of a head from the jaw upwards.
A groove was carved into the bottom to fit in a super size washing clip in place. A rod was taped to the big clip. |
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Glue the big clip in place (glue gun is ideal) with the handles pointing backwards, and the rod attached to the top handle.
This will allow the lower handle to opperate the bottom jaw without the top head moving around. |
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A bottom jaw was clipped from foam also with a groove in it just big enough to fit the bottom half of the big clip. This was then glue gunned into place |
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We finished clipping the final facial features. The inside of the mouth was lined with felt which was glue gunned into place. |
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Ping Pong balls were trimmed into shape to make eyes and we started to add some colour with a mixture of acrylic paint and latex. Several layers were used by the end and we speeded up the drying process with a hairdryer. |
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Shoulders and forearms were clipped from foam, the arms then cut along the length of them and hollowed out enough to house recycled plastic wendyhouse tubes (to strengthen the arms) which were glued into place.The arms were then connected to the shoulders using old rubber tubing and a loop of the same stuff to connect the shoulders to the head. |
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The framework of each hand was then made from a fairsized electrical crocodile clip which allows the thumb to grip and the didgets shaped from fairly thick wire. |
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These hand frameworks were then wrapped in rubber elastic and then dipped several times in a mixture of acrylic paint and latex, using the same drying process as above. |
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A wizards cloak was then made from a recycled plastic garden sack, which was cut into shape with siscors and the main sewing done on a machine but the arms were stitched into place by hand already on the puppet. |
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The outfit was then finished by hand using scraps of fabric, the hand were pushed in at the wrists into the arms plastic tubing and more rubber tubing was cut and glued into place to make hair. We finished painting the face with many more layers of latex and acrylic. |
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