Puppet Fabrication

I gained a bit of experience from an Experimental Animation class I took about a year ago where I built a puppet for a 30 second film. Fortunately, I was able to use the knowledge I learned in that class to build nicer and more durable puppets for my senior film.

I started by sculpting the heads of my characters using Super Sculpey Firm and I later baked them. The plan was to make a silicone mold in order to cast their heads in plastic. I anticipated that the possibility of me one day dropping my puppets on the floor would be relatively high so I figured that plastic would be the safest way to go. I also made a detachable wig for both characters and I cast those in plastic as well. I made sure to leave an empty eye socket since I planned on making my own eyeballs in the future. Also, I originally intended to use mouth replacements but that process required too much time so I ended up having to use a digital approach in the end.

I added a bit of color to my plastic mixture before casting the heads and it left me with the skin tone desired. Both characters have clay eyebrows for easy animating! :)

After sanding down as many of imperfections as possible, I used chalk pastel to add a bit of blush to the skin. I felt that it would fade away too quickly and with my hands it'd get a bit muddy so I ended up using really watered down acrylic paint to add some color and it worked much better.

I made the eyeballs by rolling a tiny ball of white epoxy putty and I later painted the pupil on. It took forever to sand them into a nice shape and they unfortunately were never able to completely rotate around the socket smoothly.

While I worked on the heads I managed to get my aunt who works in sewing to help me custom make my puppets clothing. She somehow managed to do it and I am so very thankful for her help because they came out beautiful!! I used the traditional wire armature approach to build the puppets body and I gave it shape and volume using foam. Thankfully my aunt was able to get the clothes fitted properly.

I thought that I would run into problems animating later on if I used the see through shawl I originally designed for my female character so I asked my aunt to make a brown cloak instead. It came out beautiful but I felt that it ultimately looked too overpowering on her and it took away from that gentle and feminine feel. I requested for her to pursue the original design instead while I continued my progress. I really wanted to follow the hair punching on silicone heads approach but I was already on week 3 of the semester and I was running out of time so I quickly used clay even though I wasn't completely satisfied.

Some classmates suggested for me to try needle felting to build a wig but I wasn't able to find some in stores and placing an order online would take too long. Fortunately, I found some thin yarn and was able to build a nice wig out of it for both of my characters. It took a few weeks to complete but it was definitely work it! While I built my wigs my aunt managed to make the shawl I requested and in my opinion it worked much better and looked closer to my original design!

By the way, I mixed a few Sculpey clay colors to match the skin tone and used it on her chest and arms and his hands. I crafted some boots for both characters following my original design as closely as possible. I used some leather which I bought from Michaels and I used a rubber jewelry thread I found at the store for her shoelaces.

Well here is the finished product! I worked hard on my puppets and although they didn't come out exactly like my design I'm pretty proud of them. I learned so much from this experience and I know that with practice I will get better! Hope you like them and have enjoyed reading my process.

DISCLAIMER: Please excuse the mess it was absolutely impossible to maintain a clean table.

Aileen