How To Make A Puppet

Traditionally, Punch and Judy puppets have their heads and hands carved from wood. That is the type which is likely to be booked by film, television and advertising agencies if you seek work in that area. They want the authentic look and sound, even if you are actually only part of the scenery in their production and
not featured.

Their costumes must be crafted with care from quality fabrics which do not show creases readily and are easy to keep clean.
Many operators - including some of the most successful Punch and Judy people - use puppets which are made of a wide variety of materials.

Think about

• What do your intended clients want to see?
• What can you afford?
• What is available?
• What can you make?

Heads
The traditional wooden heads look great but are heavy and relatively difficult to keep steady during the whole show. The most common alternative is to make them from paper mache, a combination of either shredded paper or thin strips of paper and glue.There are some products available which are like paper mache but supplied in powder form – you just add water and stir the mixture steadily for an extended time. That removes a lot of detailed work from your preparation but you will find that the cost of each puppet which you produce that way will be much higher. It depends what you feel your time is worth.

Though paper mache heads are lighter than the wooden heads, the weight of the largest ones can still become noticeable when you are doing a few shows in the same day. To reduce the weight of your paper mache heads, you can make a smaller version of the head with modeling clay. Then, you cover the form with paper mache and then sculpt the features on to it.

When you have the head as you want it, cut down through the mache and the clay separating the front and back of the head in line with the ears.Then, just scoop out the clay and use some more layers of paper mache or glued paper strips over the join to fix the two sections together securely.

These hollow heads are very durable and much easier to use for long periods. Alternatively, you can build the head up by applying layers of paper mache to a thin plastic ball or even a small, inflated balloon. There are several other methods of producing the heads. Some people build the form of their heads from pieces of solid white foam – the sort which is used as packing around electrical appliances.

These heads need to be covered with paper mache or some other durable material because the foam will deteriorate in a fairly short time and cannot withstand any of the almost inevitable knocks which puppets and puppeteers seem to receive on
almost every outing.

Decorating the Heads.
Painting puppet heads and their hands is not beyond the average person but the more talent you have and/or the care you invest in the task, the better the results you’ll get and the more impressed your audiences and potential bookers will be.

I have no skills for this but have learned to do an acceptable job through sheer need and perseverance. Remember that your characters will almost always be viewed from a distance, unless you are performing for television, film or at some functions where the visitors are moving around all the time and come closer than most of your audiences do.

With that sort of booking, your puppets will need the best paint-work and design that you can do or afford to have done. For most other occasions, I believe that most people can produce good work if they invest some time and care. You’ll have to decide whether you want to invest your time or do it the easy way and invest some money to get a more talented person to prepare your puppets for their public appearances.

Painting puppets is a fairly specialized area but you will probably be able to find artists that have at least done a few as experiments, for their own children or during their formal art training.

Remember that details are diffused or even lost at any sort of distance. Really fine details, such as small patterns, can change their effect when they are viewed from several feet away. Eyes only need to be simple patterns with a colored ball as the pupil.

The other important part is the eyebrows – thin, curved shapes for the ladies and heavy or pointed to the center of the nose for the nastier characters among the men. Large eyes are usually more appealing – that’s why they are used
for cartoon characters.

Study the way that cartoonists from Walt Disney onward conveyed emotions with just a few simple lines. Use the techniques for your own work but make sure you never even get close to imitating any commercially copyrighted characters. The results for your bank account and reputation would not be funny.You can apply a protective glaze to your puppet heads. Get advice from the supplier about which ones are best for the type of paint you use.

Hands
Simple flat hands with no separation between the fingers are sufficient for your puppets. Add a tube to the wrist end. This will mean that your puppet’s arms can be longer than if your own finger-tips have to reach the puppet's wrists and, also, this will make it easier for you to manipulate the hands and pick up
objects.

My puppets’ hands are mostly made of Huon Pine, one of this State’s most valuable woods. But don’t fret, we didn’t cut any trees to make them – they were made from very small off-cuts out of a furniture maker’s workshop in return for some fittings which I sourced for him. Any wood will probably do for your puppets’ hands so long as it is strong and as light as possible. Paint them with an appropriate paint and use a sealer so that they are protected from water damage.

You could make the hands from paper mache, shaped and glued to a thin, flat piece of wood or, for characters like witches and ghosts, you can make the hands with long, thin fingers from thin, strong wire which you then cover with shaped and painted paper mache. It’s worth joining the fingertips together with a piece of black-painted wire so that the hand will not catch on anything as you wave them around during your puppet shows.

Costumes
All costumes should, preferably, be sewn. I know a few people that glue some of the costumes for their puppets. This is probably faster and may be cheaper than paying a skilled seamstress, but my own experiments with some of the glues available in either liquid or powder form convinced me that traditional sewing gave results that were much better.

Select a strong material like drill or gabardine. The actual amount of material for a costume will obviously vary according to the size of the puppet, your own hand and arm, as well as the particular way you construct your puppets. Your next decision is how your puppet’s body will be designed. Many puppets have their arms sticking out from the sides of the main part of the costume.

That’s the simplest way.  The cheap puppets in the toy stores have that sort of costume but so do many professional puppets. It works alright for the professional puppets but there is almost always an outer costume (waistcoat or dress), all of the parts are carefully cut and matched and the performer practices with each puppet sufficiently so that the effect of the unrealistic design and the bunching of the costume around the puppet's hands is minimized.

I had the arms of my puppets’ costumes made separately. Then, slits were cut in the front of the costumes for the arms to be sewn into. This made for a tidier look and removed the problem of the main costume getting in the way of the puppet’s hands grasping and picking up sticks, pots and other accessories or when, say, Punch and Judy have a quick cuddle.

But the puppets which were part of the original set that I bought, that have not been remodeled and redressed (the Ghost and Polly), have their arms as part of the basic costume and they are almost as easy to work as the other puppets. The reaction from audiences is not different for either style of puppet design.

Many puppeteers make their puppets to fit the size of their own hands but I added tubes to the puppets’ wrists so that the arms are longer than they could otherwise be. So, my puppets costumes are larger than they would be if I had kept the arms shorter so that my fingers actually reached into their wrists. I did this to make them more visible to larger crowds.

Holding the Puppets
There is another factor with the arms. There are three common ways of holding and manipulating glove puppets;

1] Use your thumb and second finger in the arms of the puppet and your first finger to move the head.

2] Use your thumb and little finger in the arms of the  puppet and your first finger to move the head. Fold your second and third
fingers in to your palm. They can be flexed out from your palm to make it look as if the puppet (a man or an animal such as a bear)
has a large stomach.

3] (The method I use). Fix a thick stick in to the neck of the puppet and wrap your fingers around the stick. Use your thumb and second finger in the arms of the puppet. This method lets me use larger heads than I could support on my bare fingers.

Yes, that’s my Policeman out of uniform. But, it’s alright! He’s overdue for a new paintjob and it looks as if he’s looking forward to it!

Decide the method which is best for you to use, and then draw a rough outline of the expected size of your puppet’s body. The body should be just short of the length of your forearm. Measure the width and the height. You can make the arms part of the main sleeve pattern or do as I did with my main puppets; cut them out from a separate piece of cloth and then sew them in place, either on the sides or the front of the main sleeve.

You’ll use a piece of material which is twice that width for the main body so that the sleeve will be one piece to minimize cutting and sewing. The costume will be narrower near the shoulders than it is near the bottom. That lets you pull the costume up around the puppet’s head when you pack it away to protect both the head and the Draw your pattern on a piece of thin paper, allowing a bit extra for a seam on all edges.

Many professionals add a polished cotton lining inside the main costume sleeve which makes it a bit easier to slip your arm in and out. When you have prepared the main sleeve for the puppet, you start on the other pieces of the costume which are different for each character. Each of the men will have two stuffed legs which you sew onto the front of the main sleeve, just below the character’s waistline.

Some puppeteers make the legs of Mr. Punch hollow and set the open ends into the front of his costume, like his arms. Then, they use the fingers of their other hand to make the legs kick when Mr. Punch sits on the edge of the playboard. I haven’t added this feature to any of my Punch characters because it seemed too involved for the small amount of additional fun to be had from that bit of animation. But, I did work out a simple way to get the kick effect without using both hands for the one character, (that is important because I do most of my shows by myself) or even having hollow legs on the puppet.

The technique involves a piece of bent wire being pushed through the stick which supported Punch’s head at the level of the top of his legs. Then, the two ends were bent forward and sewn into the top half inch of the legs. I could get a nice kick by just nudging the wire with my little finger. The one drawback was that the presence of the wire restricted the movement of the lower part of the puppet’s body.