Puppet Kaos - where Kelvin Kao plays with puppets and tell random stories

I happened to have read these two articles on the same day: one on designing puppet staging and the other on designing puppets. I guess that’s fate. It made me think about my own work over here on this site.

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.

Comments(4)

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

Comments(4)

Time to wrap up on these shadow puppets related posts!

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

Comment here

If you are looking for a tutorial on how to make a puppet that has a movable mouth and hands that can actually grab things, this tutorial is for you! In this post, I’m going to talk about how to make Bottle Monster, who has a structure similar to that of Sesame Street’s Cookie Monster, Avenue Q’s Trekkie Monster and The Muppet Show’s Rowlf. A lot of these puppets use furry fabric but of course, that’s not a requirement.

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)

Comments(6)

Before I post the tutorial on how to build Bottle Monster, here’s a few tips about glue gun usage, since hot glue is what’s used a lot for these kind of projects.

1. Get a low-temp gun: Hot glue guns come in three varieties: high temperature, low temperature, and dual temperature. High temp guns heat up to 380º F (195º C), and low temp guns heat up to about 250º F (120º C). Now, the low temp gun is more suitable for building puppets, because you’ll most likely be using it on fabrics, paper, or maybe plastic and foam. The high temp guns (and glue) get so hot that they might actual demage the materials you are using. Besides, low temp guns will hurt you less when you accidentally burn yourself. When you are using a dual temp gun, choose the low temp setting.

2. Have cold water nearby: Some might suggest having a bowl or cup of cold water nearby, so when you accidentally got glue on your hands, you can quickly dip your fingers in water to cool it down.

3. If you get glue on your finger, rub it against your thumb: Well, I haven’t seen anyone giving this tip, so it’s totally from my own experience. When you got glue on your finger, your first instinct might not be burning your thumb as well. However, if you rub your finger and thumb together with the glue in between, it will quickly harden. And guess what, it cools down in that process. And you can peel the glue off easily so it stops burning you. I actually found this trick to be more useful than water because it’s faster and you don’t get water all over.

4. Don’t ever touch the nozzle while it’s hot: I learned this the hard way when I burned my thumb on the hot glue gun nozzle. It was actually a careless mistake but it hurt.

5. If you burned yourself, take care of it: This should be pretty standard for any kind of burn: run it under cold water and keep it in cold water for a lil bit. Usually, the glue will not burn much if you use a low temp gun. It’s like getting a piece of food on you when you are cooking. It might hurt for a half second but then it’d be gone. Now, accidentally touching the nozzle would be like accidentally touching the pan/pot when you are cooking… it hurts more. But either way, glue guns aren’t likely to cause any severe damage that would not heal itself given some time.

Anyway, just be careful. And even if you burned yourself, it’s not likely to burn you too bad but it’s still an ouchies experience nevertheless. (What? You mean… “ouchies” is not a word?)

Comments(2)

Want to know how to make one of those furry monster puppets? (Well, or any similar puppets that’s not furry?) In this post, I am going to show you how to make Mac and Cheese, the puppet that you’ve seen in every podcast episode on this site so far. This is what he looks like: (By the way, if you are looking for how to make Mac and Cheese the recipe, click here.)

For the most part, I followed this video by puppeteer/puppet builder Paul Louis, but I’ve also made a few variations on my own based on what’s available to me at the time. For example, he used both glue gun and contact cement for gluing, and I used only my hot glue gun. He used foam to stuff the puppet’s head and I didn’t feel like using it. He used untangled wire hangers for arm rods while I just bought bamboo skewers from the supermarket across the street. So yeah, you should feel free to experiment with different materials too. Here’s a list of materials used by Paul Louis to make his puppet in the video, and the materials I used to make Mac and Cheese:

Now here are the steps. The numbers on the pictures correspond to the steps. Please click on them to see the details. I had to use thumbnails here, or the article will appear way too long. Also, keep in mind that Mac and Cheese was the first of this type of puppet I built so it’s a prototype and I did make mistakes along the way that I would also point out.

1. Draw out a pattern: Draw a head and a body. (If you are wondering why I sort of traced my palm and fingers in the face part, it’s because it’s a good measurement for how big that circle should be. If you’ve ever asked other people or been asked the trick question “Is your hand bigger than your face?”, you know.)
2. Cut out the pattern: You will have an easier time tracing it onto the fabric that way.
3. Trace the pattern onto the folded fabric: I used a permanent marker. There are fabric markers that you can buy at fabric/craft stores as well. If a regular pen works for you, go ahead and use that too. Notice that the fabric has to be folded, so you can sew the two layers together.
4. Sew along the line: In the video he used a sewing machine. However, since I don’t have one, and this is a prototype I am using to learn every single detail, I did this part by hand. I used back-stitches. They are time-consuming but very sturdy.
5. Cut around the stitches and flip it inside out: Be careful not to cut the actual stitches. It’s fine to leave some fabric outside the stitched border since you are flipping it inside out anyway. You should now have sort of a bag that you can put your hand in.

6. Cut a slit across the head/face part: Along the middle line is probably the best to allow the most mouth movement and flexibilities. If you cut this slit too high or too low, you will have difficulties opening and closing the mouth.
7. Make a mouth board using cardboard and fabric: In the video, a juice carton was used. I used a tissue paper box. I’ve also used other boxes on other puppets so any cardboard would do. Make sure you fold it in the middle so it’s like a mouth. Next, cover it with a piece of black fabric (felt, T-shirt, or even sheet foam) and glue the cardboard and the fabric together. In the video, contact cement was used, but I just used my trusty glue gun. Cut the fabric according to the shape of the cardboard and now the mouth board is done.
8. Stick the mouth board into the slit and glue them together around the edge: For the mouth and slit to fit each other, the diameter of the mouth board should be approximately 2/3 of the length of the slit. Of course, that’s only an estimate. You should probably try to stick the cardboard into the slit before you glue on the fabric, because then you can go back and make more changes to the cardboard to find the ideal size and shape.
9. Make a little bag and stuff it with polyfill. Slide into the puppet’s head above the mouth board. In the video, foam was used. Since I don’t have foam, I made a bag by folding a piece of fabric over and gluing the edges. I then put the polyfill in from the opening and just fold over the extra fabrics at the opening. I didn’t seal it because I might want to adjust the shape and size again later. Slide this bag into the head above the mouth board. Don’t worry, it won’t fall out because the mouth board is there. Squeeze things around to get the head shape you want. If it’s too much or too little stuffing, take the bag out again to adjust the amount of polyfill in there.

10. Make the arms: Like the body, it’s just a piece of fabric folded over, sewn together, cut out, and flipping over. Stuff the arms with polyfill. Note that I really should put the arm rods in first (steps 11 and 12) but since this was my prototype, I didn’t do that right. Actually, it depends. If your rod is installed into the palm, you should put in the rod before you stuff the arm. However, if the rod is installed on the outside, you should install the rods later. Stuffing the arms give the arms some shape, but don’t stuff too much because you still want the arms to be flexible. Squeeze the middle part and then bend it back and forth a few times. This pushes the polyfill to either the upper or lower arm, hence creating a two part arm with a joint in between.
11. Make arm rods: I used the sharp end of the skewer to penetrate the middle zigzag layer of the cardboard (but not all the way through). Pull the skewer out, put some glue on the tip and insert it again. This time the cardboard and skewer will stick together.
12. Open up the wrist to stick the arm rod in: I cut open the puppet’s wrist to put in the arm rod made from a bamboo skewer. The skewer should come out the bottom of the palm. The cardboard will make sure the arm rod is fixed in place. Close up the wrist again. Note that if I had done this in the right order, I would’ve installed the rod before I stuffed the arm. If I did that, then I didn’t need to open up the wrist again.
13. Glue on the eyes and arms: In the video he used ping-pong balls, which created more 3-D eyes. I didn’t have ping-pong balls at the moment, and I wanted to see what it would be like if I just drew eyes on an index card and cut them out. So I did that and glued the eyes to the head. The arms can be glued on or sewn on. I tried to glue and then sew, but it’s mostly glued because later I realized that it’s very hard to sew through that layer of glue with the needles I have. So they were just glued on and I’ve been puppeteering it for a while now and it didn’t seem to be falling off… that’s a good thing. By this step, the puppet is pretty much done.
14. Glue the tongue into the mouth: That red tongue is made from a piece of felt. You would have used something else or just skip this step. (For example, Bottle Monster doesn’t have a tongue like this.)

So there you go. That’s how you make Mac and Cheese. I hope this article is helpful if you are trying to build your own puppet at home.

Comments(3)