Main Project, Plan B, Week 2

                                                       Puppet Fabrication for Set 1

I am surprised that I did not hear of Nick Hilligoss before. When searching for puppet making tutorials I usually looked at Adam Savage's visits to studios like Aardman or Edu Puertos' videos.

I was looking for a simple technique to make the puppets again, at home and a lot of the tutorials did not offer it. Either because of the use of hard to source/expensive materials or tools. Many of the tutorials are just way beyond my level of experience and would be asking for a disaster.

Using the in-scale drawings of the puppets as a guidance

Making all three armatures at once, saving time and materials. Different thicknesses of aluminum wire are in different colours.

Balsawood filling to keep it lightweight for the head and nose. wire for the mouth as done by Nick Hilligoss. The reason for the use of two main pieces is to leave space for the neck wire in the middle.

Sculpting heads with an epoxy putty

Sculpting bones with an epoxy putty

Prepping head and hands for the latex layers, unfortunately, blue bandage is the only one I could find. Its properties are that it sticks well together so there is no need for glue or other ways of bonding.

Prepping acrylic-gouache to mix with liquid latex. Testing the paint against my skin tone. See through container is good to know when the paint is mixed in completely.

Applying the latex onto the puppet head while the eyes are in the sockets to be able to imitate eyelids.

In the meanwhile, the mouth position and eyebrows needed adjusting on the little girl puppet's head.

Mixing more different paint with latex to paint the mouth and detail on the face. Pure paint would come off, therefore a mix with latex to hold well on the latex.

Using baby powder so that the latex is not sticky and shiny.

Latex hand before adding detail

Adding detail to the hand with differently coloured latex

Puppet ready for bulking out and adding clothes. The hands are not removable so it will be tricky. I did not want to use the bead technique again to allow more detailed wrist movement.

Pieces of balsawood, stained with water based dye ready for an assembly of the bed

My best fabric is at University so I am trying to paint this fabric to get similar feel to it.

Puppet bulked out with some sticky bandage and cotton wool.

Beads painted with glass paint (very glossy and thick)

Hair coloured with permanent marker. The superglue seems to dissolve it so I have to be careful to not get it all over the puppet's head as I have nothing else to dye the garden rope hair with.

Painting garden rope with acrylic gouache paint. It is diluted to avoid sticking the rope together too much.

Testing the fabric that I used on the first make of this puppet.

I am no longer sure that I want to use it as the puppet did come out rather serious. So I am rethinking this and testing more colourful fabric and dungaree trousers to make the puppet appear more friendly.

I should point out that the first set of puppets had the costumes done majorly with hot glue gun (not so good but saves time) whereas now I am hand stitching it. It is actualy easier than I imagined, at least at the level I am making it at.

Cute little dungarees, it worked out really well. The clothes stand on the puppet really nicely. The only thing I would change is the scale of the pattern on the shirt to be smaller. But I do not have a source of other fabrics since charity shops are closed.

Adding the hair using superglue. This is before the haircut.

What went well:

• First time using latex on the puppet. 
• The head and face as well as the hands movement met my expectations. 

What could be improved: 

• The puppet's head is heavy. It is not a huge issue, the puppet does not need to walk and the back and leg wire is strong one. 
• The hair, gluing it down was problematic, it is an area for improvement. 
• The fingers could be done more precisely in the future