How to make a set of puppets?
Why would you need to make a set of puppets? If you’re producing a show, then you no doubt need more than one puppet. You may have a couple of main characters, and perhaps some extras, or background characters. You may be blending human acting, with puppetry. Whatever you’re doing, you might at first feel overwhelmed - how do I make the puppets look similar, whilst also giving each one its own personality?
The following includes some hints on how to do this. First, you might want to read my posts on the basics of puppet design, puppet characters, finding inspiration, and why you might want to use puppets in a performance. I’ll still be here when you get back…
Read them? Ok… let’s get started:
1. Preparations
Presumably, you’re working from a script, or basic plotline, which will give you the list of characters needed and the number of puppets you want to make. So to make things easy on yourself, get out a scrap book, and on the first page, write a list of the characters. Then give yourself about five pages of the scrap book per puppet design - plenty of room to draw sketches, diagrams, scale drawings, or write notes.
2. Choosing the type/s of puppets
The next step will help you decide how to proceed with the designs of each puppet. A few answers to the following is needed: Are all the puppets the same? Ie. Are they the same type of puppets? Are they all marionettes, or perhaps all glove puppets? You may find that some of the puppets need to do things or move differently to others. Does this mean you will have to use a variety of types of puppets? In this case, it is best to choose two (at the most, three) types of puppets to use in the play. For a normal drama, this will help tie the characters together, and make them more easily accepted by the audience. Having fewer types of puppets allows you to create a more believable ‘world’ for the characters to live in; just like in the real world, each species of animal looks alike, so having just rod puppets for example, will make the characters appear as one species.
If, however, you are performing a more fantasy or unrealistic play, you can use a wider range of puppet types - because you may have a whole range of ’species’, like how there are millions of types of beings living underwater, that are fantastical. So you can see, just by choosing a type of puppet to use, you can greatly narrow down what you need to do in order to make a set of puppets.
3. Choosing the ‘race’
Similar to the above step, choosing the ‘race’ of the puppets is all about deciding what the puppet characters look like and do. This however, is more about body and facial features, textures, and materials. For instance, in real life, dogs look like dogs. But there are hundreds of types of dogs, from little poodles to large Great Danes. So just because you’re using one type of puppet doesn’t mean they all have to look the same. You can create different ‘races’, allowing your puppets a wider variety of features and characters.
In my recent show, City Head, I created three different muppet-types, but kept them as the same ‘race’. A great example of having the same type of puppet, but using different ‘races’, is The Muppet Show. Here only one type of puppet is used - the muppet - but as you can see, a whole range of puppets can be found: from the frog, Kermit, to the pig, Miss Piggy, from Beaker to Animal. A whole range of characters are there! Therefore, this step is all about deciding whether or not to make all the puppets similar, or to make them of different ‘races’.
4. An overall theme
One big consideration to making a set of puppets is in the style. Puppets that don’t have a ‘theme’ or overall style will seem incongruous, and make your performance appear amateurish. This does not mean that you should make all the puppets exactly the same, but that there should be some semblance of a theme. For example, I have a play that is quite abstract, and macabre. Therefore, the puppets for it may all be abstract, or they may all look gothic. It suits the themes and style of the play, and ensures the entire list of characters complement the play and the plotline.
Alternatively, imagine if instead, all the characters look like they belong in a children’s play, with bright colours and happy features. While this could be pulled off as ironic, it’s more than likely that the bright colours would jar in the audience’s mind, given the play is macabre. So you see, it’s important to have an overall look and feel to the puppets, even if they are of mixed types and ‘races’. A great example is Farscape, the TV show. Because the show is set in outer space, there is a range of characters, from human, to human with prosthetic makeup and/or animatronic attachments, to full-on animatronic puppets. Each type of puppet also includes a variety of ‘races’. Take a look at their costume and creature designs. Even though the characters are wildly different from each other, they still maintain a theme and particular style.
Creating an overall theme may mean choosing a range of colours, body shapes, facial features or other features, textures, or materials, which will be used across the set of puppets. This helps tie the puppets together, while allowing flexibility and variety for each design. See below for some examples.
5. Start with one design
Whether you’re using a range of puppet types or ‘races’, you should pick one character to start designing with. It’s probably best to work on the main characters first, since they will influence the less important, or background, characters. Using the info provided in the post on puppet characters, decide what you want this first puppet to look like. You will find that deciding what features, textures and materials you use on one puppet will eventually be used across the others. For example, on my muppet-type puppets (linked above), I decided that I didn’t want to use a nose for Doc - the first of the set that I made. Because the puppets were all of the same type and ‘race’, I had to ensure that none of the other puppets had noses as well.
However, you don’t have to use exactly the same features, materials or textures across all of them. You should use a combination though, as this will help tie the puppets together as one ‘race’. Another example: recently, I was asked to make a set of puppets, all of the same type. Each character would however, be its own ‘race’, as the puppets would be animals, each one different from the other. To ensure that the puppets are of the same style, I used the same building technique (muppet-type) for them, but added different facial features and used different body/head shapes so that they appeared in their respective animal forms.
Additionally, I used a particular set of materials - terry cloth, fleece, and felt - in a limited range of colours to cover the foam with. I ensured that I used the same hues across all of the puppets: one was mainly black and white, so if another of the characters had any black or white on it, I would use the same materials as the first. If I had a nose on one which was brown, then that same brown material would be used again on another in the set if required. In other words: using a small variety of materials, colours, facial features, and textures will assist you in creating a set of puppets that have similar themes and styles. Designing the first puppet - whether it’s for one puppet type or ‘race’, or for many - can help you decide what you want the set of puppets to feel like, and designing the rest will come easier.
5. Designing the rest
The other puppets should be quick to do now, but obviously, you want to ensure that each puppet has its own character, but stays within the theme or style that you’ve begun creating in the fourth step. Here’s where you can really be creative: there’s no hard and fast rule to creating a set of puppets, and though to begin with you should stick within the styles and ‘races’ that you’ve created above, you can push the envelop.
The first obvious way you can do that is to take your first design and apply it to the next character. But this next character may be of a different gender, or age, than the first. So here you can consider what differences in appearance there are between the different puppets. If gender is a factor, then you should figure out what the female and male looks like, and what differences there are. If age is a factor, then decide how the ‘races’ look when they are younger, versus when they are older. Does the material sag? Does the material tighten? Do the characters gain weight? Etc. Ensuring that each puppet has its own character (ie. its own main feature that makes it different to the rest) is a great way of exploring different versions of the same puppet type and ‘race’ - a greedy character can be designed within the same style and theme as a brave one, but can still appear differently to each other, based on the kinds of emotional features that you give them in the design.
Another approach is to change the clothing, facial features, hair or accessories that you give the characters. A simple costume change can greatly affect the way in which a puppet looks, and can allow a wide variety of characters, will still employing a similar theme, ‘race’ or style to your set of puppets.
Lastly, and perhaps more difficultly, you can take your set of puppets - whether or not they are of the same type and ‘race’ - and find a way to break the rules. For example, with my muppet-types in City Head (linked above), I decided not to include noses as a facial feature. I could have broken this rule by giving one of the puppets a nose: perhaps Jeff, since Doc and Amy were related (Amy is Doc’s daughter) and they should look similar. Jeff’s character also pulls this off, as he is ill, and his nose could have been red or sore looking. Though it might appear incongruous to the audience at first, if done correctly it can be pulled off. Furthermore, the fun of puppetry is to break the rules of realism, and so long as it suits the puppet’s character, you can get away with a lot of things. Additionally, it can sometimes heighten the fascination of the audience towards your puppets. If you choose to use this approach, you should do it with care and attention. Try not to simply break the rules for the fun of it, but do it with reason and ensure it complements not just this particular puppet, but the overall set of puppets, as well as the play itself.
As a side note, if you do break the rules, you may find that it changes the perspective of the puppet designs; you may discover that the feature that you change suits the other puppets just as well, and this actually becomes your new rule or overall design. It’s ok to play, and to change how things are made, because that is the nature of design!
A great tip is to make each puppet stand alone: that is to say, that you can take the puppet away from the entire set, and it will be just as interesting, stylised, expressive, and have an emotional connection with the audience, than if it were amongst the others. It should be able to be taken out of its own context, and be just as fascinating to audiences. That way, the set of puppets will be even more dynamic when put together on stage.
6. Final designs
Go back over all of your designs, and double check that you’re happy with all of it. Make any changes that you need to make, and try and refine the style, ‘race’ or feel to the puppets. Though when you’re building you will still have plenty of opportunity to change things, it does get harder, because you may have to change things across the whole set of puppets. This is especially true of building techniques, as you may discover that when making the first of the set, you need to change the way you’re building something. This is why it’s good to make a prototype, and then proceed to the real thing. Whichever way you tackle it, it’s always best to go over the designs one last time, just to double check.
7. Begin building!
Like I said, there’s no real rules to making a set of puppets, and the above may seem really ambiguous at first. But if you sit down and really think through each of the puppets, and design them with an overall theme or style in mind, you shouldn’t go too far wrong!
Have some thoughts on this topic? Feel free to leave a comment!
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