Rod Puppet Workshop

The workshop was taught by puppeteer / puppet-builder Greg Ballora and was an LAGOP event. (That’s the Los Angeles Guild of Puppetry. No, I am not in the Grand Old Party and I doubt any political party would put on a puppetry workshop.) The puppet would have a head that nods and turns so the head could move and tilt in very expressive ways, and the arms were controlled using rods. The head and body were foam covered in papier-mâché and the main skeleton was made of wood.

The instructor was energetic and loved joking around in very sarcastic ways, which made the class fun, but also it was a lot of fun for me to do many things that I haven’t done for a while. For example, I have not used a band saw since middle school so that brought back memories. Ditto with the press drill. I also got to use Celluclay, which was finely ground recycled paper with glue in it, sort of an instant papier-mâché (just add water). I also got to sand down a dowel. Now, I rarely got to work with big power tools like these. I haven’t done any wood work for quite a while; papier-mâché and foam-carving were totally new to me. The half-finished stuff didn’t look good but I had fun making it. I learn by trial and error and I’ve definitely committed errors this time.

The picture here was just the internal structure for the head attached to the spine. Unfortunately, we ran out of time and I don’t have a space for doing wood work so I wasn’t able to really finish it (like making the arms) on my own, unless I can find a wood shop that’s for rent by the hour in the area. Doing that stuff in my room on a carpeted floor is simply a little silly. But hey, I did learn a few things about making string joints and I got to play with new materials and tools. These are all knowledge and skills that I can apply to other puppets I am building, even if I never do finish this one.

Muppet-style Puppet Workshop

And then there’s the Muppet-style puppet workshop taught by puppeteer / puppet-builder Michael Earl. The students in this class were mostly people that had taken his TV puppetry workshop before (Click here to see my posts about those workshops). In fact, two of the students this time (Heidi and Bruce) were in the same TV puppetry class with me last time so it was good to see them again.

The puppets we were building were just like the one we used in the TV puppetry class. Since I’ve been using those puppets for ten weeks, I was pretty familiar with how the puppets were structured. In fact, I sort of attempted to build one myself so most of what was covered in class didn’t surprise me. However, the most valuable stuff was always the little things that made big differences.

For example, I made the puppet with fur fabric and ping pong balls. However, I had a hard time gluing the eyes (two perfect spheres) onto the head correctly, because the area in contact was small. In the class, I was taught how to trim some foam before setting the eyes. That information alone was worth the price, to me anyway. And I had no idea which kind of foam would be the right consistency so it was soft enough to give the mouth a flexible shape, but hard enough to keep the edges from sagging. Also I had a hard time cutting foam at a good angle so they would be easier to glue. Michael showed us how to bevel the foam for that purpose and that helped a lot. And then there were some tips on how to cut fur fabric using the right tools so we don’t have fur falling around everywhere. And then there’s the way to glue the mouth plate so there were no wrinkly patterns… You see? It was all in the details. They really made a difference and I wouldn’t have learned them if I didn’t take the class.

Everybody in the class was either already familiar with crafting and sewing or excited to dive in anyway. It was a great atmosphere making puppets together. And of course, when the puppets were done, puppet improv ensued. Puppets somehow just have a tendency to start talking to each other and many hilarious scenes just happened right on the spot.

A Pleasant Surprise

But of course, one of the coolest thing about the class was: I met Patricia Ja Lee! You know, the Pink Ranger from my favorite Power Rangers series, Power Rangers in Space. I know, I know. Somehow I am writing about Power Rangers again.

When I first walked into the studio, Michael (the teacher), Bruce (my former classmate) and two girls I didn’t know were sitting around the table. I said hi to the people I knew and exchange names with the people I didn’t know. I sat down to talk to Bruce since I haven’t seen him in a while, but I was wondering why that Asian girl really reminded me of someone. And it was not so much the face, but rather, the facial expressions and mannerism. I know a bunch of Asian people so I wouldn’t be surprised if she looked like one of my friends, but if I didn’t figure out which one, it would probably bug me all day. But more and more I started to feel like I’ve seen her on TV.

Then Michael asked her if she’s done any motion capture stuff lately. Then it hit me: wait a second, isn’t that Patricia Ja Lee? Last year when Jason David Frank announced that he was training for UFC, my sister and I looked up what the former Power Rangers were doing now, and I sort of remembered Patricia was doing voiceover and motion capture stuff, so I looked again. And that’s when I truly woke up.

“Wait, you are the Pink Ranger, right?” I said.
“Haha, yeah, that was a long time ago.”

How cool is that? Out of the blue (or pink), I met the star of one of my favorite show. That was like, one of the coolest thing that has ever happened to me. When we first came to the United States, we watched a bunch of kids programs because they were easier to understand and teach important English words like “sabre”, “morph”, and “megazord”. Ok, who am I kidding? There’s no denying that I enjoy some kids programs and people in spandex fighting people in rubber suits amused me to no end. But yeah, I loved Power Rangers in Space so this was totally cool.

Was she a nice person? Well, she was volunteering to sew stuff for people that didn’t know how to sew, and was trying to fix a malfunctioning sewing machine, though I didn’t know if she eventually succeed. That’s something a Power Ranger would do, right? Let’s just say that she did not ruin the show for me. Haha. But of course, now that I’ve met her, she’s not just Cassie Chan, but Patricia Ja Lee.

And here’s a picture of the everyone and the puppets. The class was scheduled to go till 5pm but some of us stayed longer. At the end, all the people that had real cameras had already left (my theory was that they had to hurry to go take pictures of the sunset, or something) so enjoy this tiny blurry picture from a camera phone.

To start learning puppeteering, it will be helpful to have a puppet to practice with. You can either make one, or purchase one.

Making a puppet

I built some puppets to use for practice based on the How to Make Puppets video series by Paul Louis Muller on eHow. I followed the method he covered in the videos for the most part, with a few modifications of my own. You can also find my own tutorials on this website for building a monster puppet with arm rods, a monster puppet with glove hands, and a sheep puppet. One thing I do want to point out that wasn’t really mentioned in the video was that rubber cement might be toxic (depending on what chemicals the manufacturer used) until dry, so you need have good ventilation and safety precautions in place. I prefer to just use hot glue, though it might not be as sturdy.

I’ve been making puppets just with fabric, cardboard, and poly-fil. If you are interested in building puppets out of foam, there are patterns out there that you can buy as well. Many people have purchased the Project Puppet patterns and build good looking puppets out of them. You can also purchase patterns from School of Puppetry. What’s good about this one is that there are videos demonstrating the puppet-building process, so you can follow along.

As for materials, I like getting them from Jo-Ann Fabric and Craft Stores, because they carry a good selection of fabrics, which many craft stores don’t, and there is one in my area. I mostly just buy fabric there and get other random items (such as ping-pong balls, index cards, bamboo skewers) elsewhere.

Purchasing a Puppet

I am not particularly familiar with this aspect, since I build my own puppets. But eBay and Etsy should be good places to look. I was planning to buy a monster puppet from puppet builder Stacey Gordon of Puppet Pie, but her house got flooded. I am going to wait for her to unpack her stuff but I do like her puppets and want to purchase one from her.

Learning to Manipulate

Also on eHow is this video series on puppet manipulation. You can learn the basics from watching the video and just from your own trial and error. I also like the exercises and video demonstrations on puppeteer / instructor Amy Harder’s Puppetry Lab website. It’s really no longer updated, but there are goodies in the archive. I particularly like the videos because Amy shows interesting techniques in her enthusiastic ways.

Of course, the best way to learn is still from classes where you interact with an instructor face-to-face. That’s something no amount of video-watching can really replicate. With classes, you will be able to see things from different angles, and you will have a instructor giving you tips as you practice. If you are in the Los Angeles area, I highly recommend Michael Earl’s TV Puppetry Workshop. You can also see my notes here to get an idea on what’s covered in class.

For those of you that’s starting to learn about this topic, I hope this is useful. Feel free to leave a comment or email me if there are other questions.

While I’ve built several puppets before, what’s different this time is that I am following a pattern this time and doing a lot more hand-stitching rather than using a combination of sewing machine and hot glue. I like the way that it came out. It was a little crooked, I thought, and the fact that I was holding the puppet head in one hand and taking a picture using the other didn’t help either. But I got to practice my stitches and attempt a different way of building a puppet head and that’s all that mattered.

The pattern was supplied in the course material. I printed it out, cut out the different pieces, and then traced them onto a piece of fabric.

The Stitches In the last post, I mentioned that I was practicing different stitches. I tried to work all the different stitches in. The ears were sewn using locking whipstitches. The back of the head was joined together using a baseball stitch. Although I knew that I should have flipped it inside out and do the stitch on the other side, I went ahead and did it anyway, because I wanted to see how it would turn out. And that turned out to be… not such a great idea. But hey, there’s a reason why I attempted this at the back instead of front of the puppet. Most of the other seams are joined together using the ladder stitch (my new favorite). The top of the head piece was joined together using a whipstitch because it was the fastest, and I am allow to do more of a sloppy job because it will be covered by the hair at the end anyway.

The Mouth Piece From experience, the mouth piece is the most tricky part of the puppet, and that’s the case this time as well. One reason was that it required me to line up the mouth board with the rest of the head precisely. And the other reason was that I did not leave enough seam allowance and had to sew through the vinyl (which is more difficult to sew through) sometimes. The vinyl mouth board has an interesting effect, though I am not sure if it was intentional. When I was sewing the mouth board to the rest of the head, I realized that there was no “lip”. But the fabric curled in after I pulled the ladder stitch seam tight, while the vinyl correctly stayed in place. I probably didn’t pull on the stitches evenly though, and the mouth came out a little crooked, I thought. Then again, I don’t remember ever making any mouth boards that’s not slightly asymmetrical. It usually isn’t noticeable anyway.

The Decorations The eyes are three layers. They are a piece of felt on top of a piece of white sheet foam over a piece of black sheet foam. They are not totally 3D, but not totally 2D either. The hair is fun fur. The front is glued in place, while the middle and back were attached using several small stitches. I want to allow the maximum flexibility and movement of the hair, so as long as it doesn’t fall off, I am not going to do too many things to keep it in place.

That was a fun project, but of course, the most fun part is seeing everybody’s pictures. Although we are all building from the same pattern, many of the puppet heads build are quite unique. My favorite is still the smiling dog built by a classmate. It makes me smile too.

And also, you know what’s a really good resource for learning this stuff? YouTube. Text descriptions and pictures are good, but watching demonstrations (provided that they are filmed well) helps even more.

Whipstitch: This is simple enough. Just a bunch of loops. It’s pretty basic. It reminds me of the way a spiral notebook is bound together. A good example can be found on YouTube here, although this one doesn’t really require that much explanation.

Locking whipstitch: I actually could not find a good example video for this one, but since I’ve done it in my elementary school craft class, I already know it. Strangely enough, many of the crafting skills I currently have were learned in elementary school in Taiwan. They seriously made children try a lot of things like pencil figure drawing, basic sewing and stuffing projects with felt, water-color, embossing a sheet of soft metal, carving your own stamp, making and decorating frisbees out of cardboard, decorating cans with straws, working with playdough/paperclay, etc. “Kids, bring your knives to school tomorrow so we can carve some wood to make prints” is something you will never hear in American elementary schools.

Baseball stitch: Although the instructor Andrew recommended baseball stitch and ladder stitch for puppet-building, I wasn’t quite sure about it. This is the kind of stitch that’s also used for baseballs (hence the name), but wouldn’t that leave big seams? After trying it out though, I like it. The seams are quite hidden if it’s done right and it seems to join together the fabrics and hold it pretty well. I like this video on YouTube. She’s actually demonstrating the baseball stitch using a knitting needle and yarn as opposed to the regular needle and thread. This makes things a lot more visible, because sometimes needle and thread just doesn’t show very well in web videos because of the video quality, or because the view is easily blocked by the person’s hands.

Ladder stitch: At first I wasn’t quite understanding this one. Though I am told that this stitch is almost invisible, I had some doubts. The pictures I am seeing about this stitch look like there would be a bunch of horizontal stitches visible on the top. So that makes ladder stitch not that different from whipstitch. But later I studied it a little more closely and realized that as long as I pull the stitches tight, the stitches really do disappear! This quickly became my favorite stitch. This video is a good example of the stitch, and this page is what I was looking at when I had the realization of needing to pull the stitches tight.

I am now practicing these stitches on a fleece puppet head that I am currently sewing together. I am almost done, and will post pictures soon early this week!

You + Me + Puppets = Yay!

Stacey Gordon is a puppet builder (among other things) that make many quirky things like toilet paper finger puppets. Many of them are finger puppets made of felt. They are colorful and interesting looking. She’s probably the most entertaining to watch on this list as she is pretty silly on camera (and quite possibly in real life too).

Stiq Puppets Live

Daryl from Stiq Puppets shows puppet building techniques in detail in his podcast. I am starting from the beginning and I am still catching up. I am not that far into it yet, but I am already picking up useful information like how to use a fishing line to hang a puppet’s arm. I haven’t seen all the episodes yet, but a quick glance tells me that I will be learning even more, such as how to install a detachable arm rod, which a lot of people are doing in different ways with their own pros and cons. If you want to learn more techniques, don’t miss this one.

Hoggworks Podcast

Puppet builder Brian Hogg of Hoggsworks Studios has also been live streaming his puppet building live. He’s the man behind DotBoom and Ask Papaltine and builds really good looking puppets (see website). I was also impressed with the attention he gave to the puppets’ torsos, as some puppet builders would just use generic shapes.

Puppets and Stuff Live

I actually haven’t got time to check this one out yet, but Puppets and Stuff is a forum where many people share their experiences on puppet building, so it may have very good information as well.

It’s fun to see things being made, and if I can pick up a thing or two while I am at it, that’s even better! I am excited to see all these podcasts popping up on the internet.

Ah, it’s about time. I’ve always wanted to purchase and learn to use a sewing machine at some point, and I finally did just that. And here it is, my new Singer Tradition Portable Sewing Machine – 2250!

If you’ve seen my new video, Start a Band, you would notice that there are four brand new puppets. They are all made using this new sewing machine. And for the four old puppets… Mac and Cheese was a prototype so he’s entirely hand sewn. Why did that to myself? Because he’s a prototype and I wanted to know how long it would take if I did that. And the answer is, my hand sewing was about 12 times slower than the machine. I figured that I’d never finish the puppets before the show if I didn’t sew with a machine.

So I got my good friend Janet to help me make the puppets. She did all the sewing (for the most part, that’s making the shape, the “bag”) and I did all other stuff with glue. That’s how Bottle Monster, Bobby, and Moostifer were constructed. But I don’t want to bug her over and over (though I know she’d gladly do it anyway), and also, the fact that she moved to New York didn’t help either. But hey, I’ve always wanted to learn to use the sewing machine anyway.

After extensive research… actually, no. I just decided to buy it because it was on sale at Target. I took it home, and started watching the DVD that came with it. It was short and only covered the basics, but that’s all I needed. It took me a little bit to learn to thread the bobbing and the rest of the machine. But once that’s done (after many trials and errors and rewinding the DVD), the rest is not bad at all. After some test runs on some scrap fabric for practice, I started sewing the puppets without any problem. The threads did tangle up quite a few times during practice, but that was because I kept forgetting to set the presser foot down. (The presser foot is this thing around the needle that holds the fabric in place while you sew so things don’t jump around.) And also I had trouble making sharper turns until I figured out (by accident) that I should lift the presser foot up, turn the fabric and then put the presser foot down again. It wasn’t until later that I realized it was called pivoting.

But yeah, I am fairly comfortable using the machine now. When I told my sister about this, she said, “I never thought you’d own a sewing machine before I do.” So far I think this cheap machine works pretty well for my purpose. Besides, it’s endorsed by Martha Stewart, so it must be bad-ass, right?

Related Posts
Music Video: Start a Band
How to make Mac and Cheese (moving mouth monster puppet with rod hands)
How to make Bottle Monster (moving mouth monster puppet with glove hands)
How to make Bobby (moving mouth sheep puppet with rod hands)

In Naomi‘s article Basic Set Design for Puppet Shows, she talks about the materials, sizes, and structures of puppet stages. I think the most important thing is to get the scale right, especially matching the size of the set pieces to the puppets so they look like they belong in the same world. I’ve actually been thinking about switching to small puppets because it would be easier for me to build set pieces. Of course, the current size is good for filming on location and interacting with humans (which I haven’t done that much).

Of course, the material is important too. Last time we did a show, we used a piece of cardboard standing up. I am not sure why it didn’t fly away.

And then there’s this article It Just Felt Right (get it? felt?) on the National Post (via PuppetVision Blog). Rick Lyon, who is the puppeteer and puppet builder for Avenue Q, was interviewed about the design of the puppets. What I found the most interesting was all the conscious efforts made to really make Kate Monster and Lucy the Slut exact opposites. The colors and the shapes are both there to reflect the character’s personalities, which are opposites. I didn’t really pay attention to these details, but thinking back, yep, those details did serve the show well.

Come to think of it, I’ve always known (before I even bought the fabrics) that Mac and Cheese and Bobby would be light colors and Bottle Monsters and Moostifer would be darker colors in contrast.

What surprised me was that each of the Avenue Q puppet takes at least 100 hours of labor to build. But after I read about the details, yeah, it makes sense. Their materials are custom-dyed. After the foam structure was made, the outside was decorated and the inside was lined with another piece of fabric. Also the mouth boards are wood instead of ordinary cardboard. With those things and other details not mentioned here, no wonder those puppets take so long to make. And of course, the quality is really good as a result.

Ah, details, details. That’s what seperates the great from the mediocre.

Baaaaah, Behhhh. In this tutorial, we’ll talk about how to build Bobby, a moving mouth sheep puppet with arm rods. Bobby is based on the prototype Mac and Cheese which we’ve talked about how to build earlier. It is structurally very similar except with more decorations. The major difference is that the mouth is built seperately and then attached to the outside instead of inserted inside. This tutorial is therefore going to focus on the things that’s different from the prototype.

Here’s a list of materials used, followed by the steps:

1. Build the basic structure: Like how we built Mac and Cheese and Bottle Monster, you want to fold the fabric over, trace the pattern, sew it up, and flip it over. For more detailed instructions please look at step 1-5 of the How to build Mac and Cheese tutorial.

2. Build the mouth: First we need to cut cardboard into the shape of a mouth board (pic 2a), and then we glue felt on it so it doesn’t look like a piece of cardboard. In the last two puppets we used black fabric for the mouth. This time I thought I would try red felt for a change.

And now it’s time for the exterior portion of the mouth. In pic 2b, you can see that I started gluing some fabric to make the jaw. In pic 2c, you can see the jaw is done. In pic 2d, the upper part is also done. Notice that you are only gluing the edges of the fabric. You want to have space between the fabric and the cardboard. You are creating pockets so that you can put your hand inside to manipulate the mouth. Also it makes the mouth look more three dimensional. The mouth part is done by now. Sure, it doesn’t look like a sheep yet, but already you have a mouth to play with!

3. Glue jaw to the bottom of the face: In the previous two tutorials, we cut a slit across the head/face portion of the basic structure and then put in the mouth. This time, we have not only the mouth but also the face to put in. So we cut out a circle instead of just a slit. Now you want to glue the the jaw to the lower portion of the circle. There should be space between the upper portion of the circle and the upper portion of the mouth, because we still need to put in the rest of the face, such as eyes.

4. Put in the upper half of the face: This will be the flat part of the face (unlike the mouth, which is the protruding part). First cut out a piece somewhat larger than the area you are covering (pic 4a). And then glue the top of the fabric to the top portion of the circle cut out (pic 4b). And once you are done, glue the side to the side of the circle, and the bottom of the fabric to the top of the mouth. By now, the basic structure, the mouth we made earlier, and this new piece of fabric we put in to be the mouth should all be connected. Then we put in the eyes. Now we basically the head done (pic 4d).

For the last two puppets I draw eyes on index cards and then cut them out. This time I decided to try something different. In pic 4c you see these plastic craft/stuffed animal eyes that you can purchase at craft stores. The way you install it is simple. First drill a hole wherever you want the eye installed. Stick the screw looking part (the black piece in this picture) into the hole, and hold the washer looking part (the white piece) behind the hole so the two pieces fit together, sandwiching the fabric (which is the face) in between. Please make sure you already planned out where the eyes are going to go, because once these things are installed, it’s very hard to get them off without breaking things.

5. Put in the ears: First cut out the ear shape out of the fur babric (pic 5a). And then you can glue on a smaller piece that’s not furry to create the inside of the ear (pic 5b). Of course, this is not required but this gives the puppet more personality (or sheeponality). Before I installed the ears, I first decided to pinch parts of the back of the head (pic 5c) and sew them together. This is to make the head smaller. In the last two puppets, the head space is shared by some polyfil and the mouth board. However, with this puppet, the mouth protrudes and doesn’t take up head space. That’s why I am making the head smaller. And then you can glue on the ears. When you are done, you have something like pic 5d. And all that’s left to do is put on the arms.

6. Make the arms and rods: First make the arms. The arms are just two tubes made from two strips of fabric folded over and sewn together. Sew or glue these two tubes onto the main body of the puppet and stuff in some polyfill to give it some volume (muscles, if you will). Pic 6a wasn’t quite clear so you’ll have to use your imagination.

And then you want to drill a hole towards the end of the arm (near where the hand/hoof will be). This is for the rod to go through (pic 6b). Then we make the arm rod. I glued a piece of cardboard on top of a bamboo skewer so the rod would stay in place (pic 6c). Then you want to put the rod through the hole we’ve just drilled (pic 6d). And finally we take a piece of fabric to seal the arm tube. This has two purposes. One is to give it the hand/hoof look. And another was to seal that piece of cardboard in so our rod doesn’t slide out of the tube. And now you are done!

Oh wait, one more step. The head might be a little empty at this point, and when you touch the top of the head, it just sinks in. All you have to do is make a little pouch/bag, put some polyfill in it, and stick it into the head. I don’t even seal it, because sometimes I would like to take the bag out to adjust the amount and shape.

And that’s how you build Bobby!

More puppet building tutorials:
How to make a moving mouth puppet with arm rods (Mac and Cheese)
How to make a moving mouth puppet with glove hands (Bottle Monster)

List of videos Bobby has appeared in so far:
Episode 12: Daylight Saving
Episode 11: The Truth Behind Halloween
Episode 10: Silent Sneeze
Episode 9: Wordcraft
Episode 8: Nobody’s Watching
Video Special: Obscure UCLA Facts You Did Not Know
Episode 6: Dance, Dance, Dance
Episode 5: Amazing Grass

In Episode 14: Tofu, Mac and Cheese and Bottle Monster talk about how Soy Milk is made. There’s a dramatization of the whole history and I was originally going to do it using flash animations. Later I decide that it would take me too long. So what’s the alternative? I was going to do paper cutouts and then move them around as puppets, and then an idea hit me: why don’t I do shadow puppets instead? That was definitely an exciting idea for me.

I decide to do this in the style of Chinese shadow puppets. You need three things, essentially. You need a screen, some puppets, and a light source. I already have a lamp (duh) so now all I need is a screen and some puppets.

The Screen:

In Chinese shadow puppetry, the screen is traditionally a thinned layer of animal skin. I guess back then that was the best material they can find. Nowadays it’s probably some synthetic material. Either way, it needs to be semi-transparent. It should be transparent enough to show the shadows and opaque enough so the sticks, rods, and puppeteers controlling the puppets are not showing. Originally I was considering using tracing paper but I couldn’t find any in my local pharmacy. I just decided to go with a piece of paper towel. That’s probably the best choice at my place that’s the right degree of transparency.

Instead of a fancy stage, I was just going to make some kind of frame out of cardboard. After all, this is going to be on video, not in front of a crowd. And then I realized that I should just tape that paper towel between two lamps (apparently I have quite a few lamps in my room due to all the filming I do). Shine a light (or two) behind it and that’s our screen. So, was paper towel a good choice? Yes and no. It was the right degree of transparency I want. It was the right size. It was easy to obtain, and it even has an interesting texture to it. But there is a problem: The puppets tend to get stuck in it. In that case, maybe other kind of paper that offers a smooth surface would’ve been a better choice. The puppets probably would’ve moved a little more if I wasn’t having trouble unsticking them, particularly with the shot in which an arrow or spear was flying across the scene.

I didn’t really try this out, but I think tracing paper would’ve been a much better choice. If that was too transparent, you can always layer it with a piece of paper towel. Maybe printing paper would work, too, but I didn’t try.

The Puppets:

Again, traditionally they are made of leather due to the lack of other durable materials. Since I don’t have leather and I’m not about to go buy any, I use what I use all the time: index cards. I seriously use index cards for everything. I use them to write to-do lists that I carry around in my pocket. I use them to write down directions when I go somewhere. I use them for puppets’ eyes. And then now I am using them to make shadow puppets.

First you want to draw your design on the index card. I use a permanent marker. Now you want your design to be connected and in one piece. Look at this following picture. The face on the left has all the parts connected so it’s one piece. The one on the right is not a good design, because once you cut out all the white parts, the eyes and mouth will fall out.

And a blank face is just not flattering in any way.

Once you have the design, carefully cut out all the white parts with an Xacto knife. I bought mine at a local pharmacy.

Careful not to cut yourself. And if you don’t want to damage your table, put some newspapers in between the index card and the table. (That’s a well-known trick to Taiwanese students who had crafts classes in elementary school. I don’t know if American kids do this since we seem to be more scared of kids cutting themselves or others in class over here.)

And then you want to attach the paper cut out to a stick/rod. I use bamboo skewers… same thing I used for arm rods for the other puppets. In this picture, the paper fastener go through a hole on the paper cut-out and then I tape the paper fastener to the bamboo skewer. Later I decided that these paper fasteners look a little too big, and the purpose for using them is to make the puppets more flexible for motions, but that was kinda lost when they are stuck in the paper towel. I started to leave small tabs on top of the cut-outs so I can just fold that little tab over and tape it to the bamboo skewer. Normally I would probably use a glue gun but someone borrowed it at that moment.

So that’s it. Put the lights behind the screen and then put the puppets in between. Now let the show start!

Related posts:
Episode 14: Tofu
Shadow Puppets: The Best Anti-depressant
Chinese Shadow Puppets

Note that Bottle Monster is a variation of my prototype Mac and Cheese. I will not go as much into details as I did in the tutorial on how to build Mac and Cheese (a moving mouth puppet with arm rods), so I strongly recommend you to take a look at that post if you haven’t. First, the materials:

Now, the steps: (The pictures match the number of steps. Click to enlarge.)

1) Draw your pattern onto the fabric: First draw your pattern onto the non-furry side of the fabric if you are using furry fabric because you will be flipping this inside out later. You want to first fold this piece of fabric in half, and then sew along the line you drew. And then cut it out (be careful, don’t cut the lines you’ve just sewn). At this point you should have some kind of giant bag made of fabric. Now flip it inside out. This would be the basic structure of the puppet.

Note that I have two types of patterns here. The one on top is the most straight forward way of doing it. Once you sew it and cut it, you pretty much already have the head, the body and the hands. However, if you didn’t buy enough fabric (I didn’t), then you can do it like the one at the bottom. The basic structure will lack the hands and you’ll make up for that by making two furry gloves that you will sew to the main structure when they are done. This is a little more work but it’s the way to go when you don’t have big enough fabric.

Also, make sure that you draw the hands way bigger than your actual hands. Why? This is because your fingers have some volume. If you just trace your hand instead of drawing it bigger, your fingers will not fit in the gloves when they are made. Also, in the process of sewing things and flipping it inside out, you lose some room too. So make sure you draw the gloves way bigger than your hand.

2) Make the mouth board: I cut out a piece of cardboard from the cereal box shown in the picture. (By the way, my ex-apartment-mate Scott said it’s very good cereal. I never tried it though.) And then cover this cardboard with a black piece of fabric. You can use felt or sheet foam if you want, but I just used a black T-shirt that I got from Rite-Aid for 2 bucks.

3) Cut a slit across the face to put the mouth board in: For maximum flexibility of the mouth, cut this slit about equal distance to the top and bottom of the face. Use some trials and errors to determine how wide this slit and how big the mouthboard should be. Before you actually glue them together, you can always make changes.

4) Glue the mouthboard in: Glue the mouthboard in. If you had done some experimenting in the previous step, the edge of the mouthboard should fit the edge of the open slit fairly well.

5) Put on the eyes: I drew these eyes on an index card, cut them out, and then glue them to the puppet. You can decorate it some more but I chose to keep it simple.

So that’s how you make a moving mouth puppet with glove hands! Now how do we operate this new puppet?

When this kind of puppet appear on TV, it’s usually operated by two puppeteers. One person will use his/her right hand to control the puppet’s mouth, and his/her left hand to control the puppets left hand, while another puppeteer uses his/her right hand to control the puppet’s right hand. But when you only have one puppeteer, you can go without the right hand. In fact, if you’ve noticed in our podcast, Bottle Monster almost never uses his right hand and I often put him on the right side of the screen as a result. What’s awesome about this kind of puppet is that his hands can actually hold things and have flexible gestures. That’s why in my podcasts, he’s usually the one holding a piece of paper reading questions from viewers.

Speaking of which, if you have a question for Mac and Cheese, Bottle Monster, Bobby and Moostifer to answer in our podcast, send an email to puppetkaos@gmail.com! Don’t be shy!

Related post:
How to make a moving mouth puppet with arm rods (Mac and Cheese)