Puppet Making, Part 5: Arms, Legs & Tail!
Oh my word. I was AWFUL about taking photos during this part! I don't know if I was just distracted or in a hurry to finish. Knowing me, it was a little, or rather a lot of BOTH! Forgive me for this slightly scattered post. I will soon be on such a roll... that... holy cow. I just forgot what I was going to say. I need to stop thinking when I type!
These are the "How To" posts from when I made my puppet, "Bean" a few years ago. I unearthed them on my computer and decided to share. You can find all of my previous steps of puppet making at the end of this post!
The arms, legs and tail were all basically long rectangles that I sewed up length wise. The legs flared a little bit at the bottom, but that was it. Pretty basic, really, so I guess that's why I didn't think to take pictures.
After they were stuffed, I had to tuck the ends of the fabric in and pin it to hopefully make it so that when I stitched the feet up, they weren't all lumpy!
We tried various things for eyes and ended up using round styrofoam balls. In hindsight, I wished I had looked harder to find real "eyes" like they make for dolls and stuff, because the styrofoam didn't hold up well. When I do this again, I will definitely use something meant for the project. I was always having to touch the eyes up with sharpie.
We used a wire hanger to slide inside the tail. We tried other wire, but it was SO heavy. And the hanger actually bends easier, too. It made it nice to be able to form the tail however we needed it for a scene, so it wasn't just randomly hanging down all the time.
I used some of this rolled up like a pinwheel and hot glued the edges to slide into the arm and leg "sleeves" for a little bit of padding, and to help them stay a little more firm/in shape.
Ta Da!!!
You can find more information in my previous posts
Next week we'll touch on some of the other aspects of the creation of a puppet show... and then I'll post a video or two that @knightengale rescued from an old computer for me!
art and flair courtesy of @PegasusPhysics
I attended a puppet workshop when I was in Jr. High.
It was pretty cool!
I got to make my own puppet and participated in a show.
My puppet was a background singer in a performance of The Lion Sleeps Tonight for the play at the end of the whole deal.
Oh that sounds like FUN! I wish I'd had something cool like that back in school.
BTW, I'm going to have that song in my head now!!!
I'm thinking that it might be fun to hold a puppet making workshop. I am going to have to think on this one!