Fulfilling a conversation started on Theatre Australia, I have made a marionette on a budget. Actually, I just made a marionette - and it turned out to be cheap to make. (You can also click on the pics for larger views!)

Materials:

• $10 teddy bear from Spotlight (medium size)
• A spool of strong cream cotton
• Some spare lengths of dowel
• PVA
• Some spare black cotton ‘ribbon’
• Sewing needle
• Some spare (picture frame hanging) eye hooks and [ shaped hooks
• Spare metal ring for key chains
• = total cost of $10! (Obviously I’m not counting scrap materials I already had)

Since this was my first marionette, I decided to focus on the stringing part, because that’s what confuses me the most. … No, actually I just had nothing to do with the bear, and thought it would make a good marionette. But it turned out to be a good way to figure out how to string things.

What I made was a ‘trick’ marionette, where the limbs and head of the puppet can ‘detach’ from the body. Luckily, the limbs and head of the teddy bear were all sewn strategically in the right places to the body, so all I had to do was unpick the seams. Next I removed the stuffing from inside the body, limbs and head.

I got a long piece of my cotton thread, and sewed it to the inside of each limb (the centre of the soul of the foot, the ‘palm’ of the hand). Each foot is sewn thusly, and each resulting long string was threaded through the leg hole/where the leg was attached. The thread then runs up the body and through the shoulder, through the shoulder to the control.

The control is just two pieces of dowel, sewn together to form a cross shape. The horizontal bar has two eye hooks (either side of the vertical bar), to which the leg strings are attached. The strings are taut when the marionette is standing, but when you tilt the cross down (the control is an ‘upright’, to tilt it down the whole control becomes horizontal, or parallel with the ground), gravity allows the arms and legs to look as though they detach… (see pics)

For the arms, I did a similar thing: sewed the cotton inside the hand, running the string through the arm to the arm hole, through the arm hole to the shoulder, through the shoulder to the control.

The head was a little trickier. In order to get the head to look like it separates from the body, it needs to have two sets of strings. One string runs from inside the body - sewn to the ass, really - up through the center of the body, then through the center of the head, out through the top of the head and to the control. This string runs through an eye hook on the vertical bar, and then attachs to an open (eye) hook further above on the vertical bar. All this does is keep the head on the body when not detached.

Another string is then sewn to the top of the head, just near where the other string runs through. This string is run through the bottom eye hook on the vertical bar, and then the end of it attached to a small metal ring. The metal ring rests on the open eye hook. What this does is allow you to pick up the metal ring, unhook it, and as you lift the string the head lifts up ‘detaching’ from the body.

Once everything was stringed up, I replaced the stuffing (as much of it as I could anyway), making sure to keep the strings in the centre of the limbs/head/body at all times. This is where the PVA comes in; I wasn’t sure the stuffing would stay put when moving the marionette around constantly, so I glued the stuffing where it leaked out of each limb/head/body hole… it turns out this may have been a bad idea, as the strings (though untouched by glue) tend to glide less smoothly when in tilt mode. This makes the detachment of the limbs less obvious overall.

Here’s a basic animation of what the marionette looks like, with all limbs/head/body together, and then coming apart:

And a pic of the head coming off:

Anyway, the last thing I did was to get two [ shaped picture hanging hooks - I wanted to use some snap-on jewellers’ clips, but couldn’t find any - bend them into a sort of G shape, and clip them to the eye hooks on the horizontal bar. I then got a length of thread, and sewed one end to the outside of the paw, and attached the other end to the clip. This made for a simple stringing for proper arm movement, like gesturing, etc.

I know I was supposed to add a hook to the control, in order to hang the marionette up when not in use, but I was at a loss as to what to use without expending too much effort. So I just got some black ribbon and knotted each end on to the horizontal bar - making a loop shape. I also didn’t have a gallows, or make one, so I just used this to hang the whole thing from my bedroom door. It made stringing the marionette much easier.

See the diagram of the control (click on image for larger view):

All in all, I’m probably not 100% happy with what I made… The glue putting me off the most (it seemed logical at the time)… However, for my first marionette, I think it went pretty well. I also know understand the stringing process much better, and have a greater concept of how to string things in terms of weight, gravity, and manipulation.

My only concern now is will the thread hold out… it’s not all that strong! But there you have it - a puppet on a budget!

… And on a slightly different build, I made a teddy bear shadow… thing… I don’t know what to call it. (click on image for larger view!)

See more pics here (there’s also a light installed which creates a cool disco effect) and here. Be sure to check out the FAQ for a tutorial on how to make your own teddy bear marionette.

Want more? Help build a puppet!

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