How to make puppet noses

As with the post on making puppet eyes, there are a number of different ways to make noses for puppets. Puppet noses on sale here.

AKA how to make foam noses for puppets

What to use?

With wooden puppets, it may just be a matter of carving a protuberance from the wood; with foam or muppet-type puppets, you can do the same thing (if using a foam block), and the same with airdry clay or papier mache puppets. With papier mache or clay, you can build up the head first, and then add more to create a nose; with wood or foam carving you do the opposite, in that you remove what you don’t want, leaving wood or foam as a nose.

But what about noses you attach to the puppet? One idea is to use teddy bear noses, or craft some from clay. You can also get a small piece of block foam and carve a shape, and then cover it with fabric. You can also cover a polystyrene ball, use a marble, bottle caps, buttons, beads, pom poms, pipecleaners, or even a small toy! Clown red noses for example, or those from fake glasses. You could even cast a nose using rubber latex or silicone, or even vacuum forming.

Instead of using the above, you can also do the non-nose nose… That is, you can use a piece of fabric of a different texture or colour, cut to an oval or whatever shape you want, and attach it to the puppet’s head. You could use fleece, fur, vinyl, leather, felt, etc. In the case of my cow puppet, that’s exactly what I did, using cotton fabric as nostrils against the fleece of the cow’s head and snout.

Let’s go back a step to carving block foam. Let’s say you want to make a pig snout for your puppet. How would you do it? Well, this is where block foam is great for noses. Make a normal round head, and then carve a snout separately. Then you can cover the snout in fabric or paint it, etc, and attach it to the head. So much easier than having to worry about making a head with the nose already shaped into it, and it also makes it easier to cover the head and nose separately. Exactly this is done over at Project Puppet, where they have a free tutorial on how to make a pig snout. Here you can see an example of adding a nose for a chimpanzee. And a great look at making noses for a bear; you can see the transition between two nose designs. What about making a horn? You can use this method and get a foam tube and insert a piece of wire inside, to make it poseable.

Here’s a great short tip about carving block foam for noses; there’s also a handy diagram for nose shape ideas.

Hey, here’s a tutorial on how to make a nose using sheet foam (Scott or reticulated foam); it also includes notes on positioning and attaching the nose.

How to attach the nose?

As with placement of eyes, you’ll want to temporarily pin the nose in place until you are sure of where it should go and how it appears when next to eyes, ears, and other facial features.

You can use contact cement, Foam Glue or Elmer’s Glue (PVA), or you can handsew the nose to the fabric or face of the puppet. More on glues for foam puppets can be found here. With the above link, you can see how the designer mentions using doll joints to attach the nose. You could even use velcro, so you can change the character design on a whim!

More ideas

Noses don’t just have to be shapes that you see on Bert and Ernie - they can be done other ways. Using a ‘nip and tuck’ method (see this post for an example of nip and tuck methodology), you can create a nose that has nostrils, wrinkles, or other things. Add a small bump or wart on the nose for a great witch’s nose; get some fur or wool and make nose hair or whiskers… Alternatively, with animal puppets, you could stitch a line down the face, as with cats, etc - this method is most often used with finger puppets, etc… Don’t forget, you don’t even have to have a nose - even on a realistic human puppet!… Also, remember to keep scrap foam, because you never know when it might be useful for a nose.

For some good videos, you’ll want to check out Expert Village, eHow, and Youtube.

Want more? Help build a puppet!