This isn’t a very easy question to answer. There are a number of ways to create a puppet, any of which will suit you; and none of which are wrong. In fact, you will find that designing a puppet can come from a number of different directions, even if you choose to start with one of the following:

Pictures of humans and animals

Many of the puppets you make may be of human or animal in design. Taking pictures from magazines, old photos, and books, will help you decide what bodies and facial features should look like. You can also use them to pick and match features that suit your puppet’s character. This of course, can and should be extended to other real-world objects, like houses, trees, and other such things.

Photo hosting sites

If you have a basic character or look that you know you want, but don’t know where to start, photo hosting sites and artist websites are a great place to get inspired. (Don’t copy from the artwork, just use it as inspiration) Places like Flickr and Deviant Art have some great images, both photos and artwork, which can be used for the basis of a character or puppet design. If you are making monster or fantasy creatures, then you will not only find useful inspiration, but also pictures of germs or single-cell creatures, which can be a great basis for unusual or out-of-this-world ideas. Obviously, if you do want to copy from a piece of art, make sure it is available under Creative Commons to be used/modified.

Other puppets

While you should never copy someone else’s work, you will find a great deal of inspiration and ideas in other people’s designs. How many puppet makers now spend their lives learning and making muppet-types? More importantly, if you take a look at someone else’s puppet, you will be able to see how that person made the puppet; you will be able to take a closer and more informed look at the techniques used, the materials, and the concepts behind the design. As a fellow puppet maker, you should be able to see another puppet and immediately recognise the basics of the building techniques, if not all of the techniques used. And if you don’t understand how your puppet, or a puppet’s mechanics, works, then finding photos of other puppets will help you learn. Additionally, there are plenty of sellers out there who offer puppet patterns, some of which even come for free. By using a pattern/instructional you can begin to develop ideas for yourself, based on the building techniques you’ve just learned. I do not condone replicas and am not suggesting that other puppets should be copied. I merely mean that by using other puppets as inspiration, you can often learn the basics and/or improve your skills.

The script

Naturally, anything you design must fit into the script, or performance, that the puppet will be used in. I find that I can’t create a puppet easily just for fun - I need to have some reason for using it to be able to make it. This is perhaps, because puppets are designed to have methods of operation, tricks, things that they can do to make them interesting; and that because I have no particular ideas of what the puppet would be used for, I find it difficult to invent reasons. And so personally, I prefer to base my designs on what they will do in performance, whether it be for film, TV or theatre. Taking a look at the script, you will be able to learn: what the puppet needs to do, the gender, age and social status of the puppet, as well as a range of emotions that the puppet needs to express.

Improvisation

Don’t understimate the power of improv, even when building a puppet. Ever sat and fiddled with a piece of paper while you were bored? Ever doodled? Extend that outwards: find a piece of scrap material, and just start building! Don’t know how you want to make a particular part of a puppet - grab some material, and make a bunch of prototypes. Then use the best prototype to base the real thing off of. Improvisation is an especially fun way of testing out new materials, tools or techniques.

Other thoughts

Recently I started building a puppet. I knew how I was going to make the head - a muppet-type head - and quickly whipped up the mouth and a three-piece foam head. But I got stuck making the bottom jaw out of foam. The first one I made I stuffed up. The second time around, I changed what I was going to do, having thought of a better way to make the jaw - turns out I was wrong. Then I decided not to make a jaw at all, instead just covering the bottom of the mouth with some material. It worked perfectly for the character, and looked ten times better than my other two attempts!

If you ever get stuck, or find you are having trouble - don’t push yourself into continuing on. Take a nice long break, leave the room, do something else. When you come back, you will be more relaxed, and will more than likely have given yourself room to think, and will discover a solution to your problem.

This is an especially good idea when you have finished making a part of the puppet. You will find that paying such close attention to the details, and to a small part of what you are doing, you will become somewhat blinded to the overall look of the puppet. Something that doesn’t quite look right may be obvious to you - walk out of the room. Take a toilet or snack break. When you come back into the room, you will see the puppet with clarity again; and your mistakes may not seem so obvious.

Most importantly - don’t feel restrained by the above. As I said, there’s no right or wrong method, and inspiration will hit you in any number of ways. If you find one way isn’t working, or no longer works, try another one. Sometimes inspiration isn’t just found by changing what you’re looking at, but by changing the method of building, or the materials used. Don’t feel that your puppet must look or work like a particular puppet type or puppet you’ve seen.

I think I’ve covered everything, but if not, leave your thoughts in the comments for this post.

Puppet patterns available at my online store!

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