Read Part One here.

AKA How to make a ‘realistic puppet’. Also NOT known as humans acting like puppets; this is NOT about Halloween costumes.

So many people do searches on making human puppets, or ‘realistic’ puppets, that I just can’t resist writing more about it. There are a few things that are important to note:

A puppet is not going to be ‘realistic’, no matter how much you try. Unless you are using animatronics (heck, even those people out there building humanistic robots are having trouble getting them to look ‘realistic’) or something similar, it’s still going to look like a puppet. Why? Because:

a) A puppet is made out of non-flesh materials. Special effects makeup and prosthetics go a long way towards making a human look like an ape (as in Planet of the Apes), but those same concepts can hardly apply to foam, antron fleece and a bit of glue. If we’re talking about animatronics, then yes, it’s quite likely you can get something looking ‘realistic’… Obviously, different puppet types lend themselves better to realism than others: marionettes for instance, can be quite realistic looking, whereas sock puppets probably won’t. But then we move on to further concepts that hinder this a little more…

b) A puppet used onstage is going to require some caricaturishness. Why? The same reason the Greeks used overly-exaggerated masks in early theatre. People at the back of the theatre don’t see the level of detail that people at the front see. It’s therefore necessary to make certain features of the puppet ‘highlighted’, whether it be enlarged or made smaller, in order to get the best effects. Making everything as detailed as possible, or as symmetrical, etc, may work for puppets seen in close-ups on TV or by very small audiences, but in a large theatre, exaggerated features actually appear quite normal-sized, because of distance and sightlines.

c) Following on from this, puppet makers may find it necessary to exaggerate certain features in order to make the character of the puppet easily accessible across language barriers or other difficulties. For instance, if I were to make a woman who is a boisterous opera singer, the best way to get this character across visually is to make her a large-figured lady, with perhaps small ankles and tiny feet. In this way, the character of the puppet is universally understood.

d) There are many other stylistic reasons to ignore ‘realism’ in puppetry. Puppets, for the most part, are excellent to use in plays where to use a human actor would not be as visually interesting. Puppets, as mentioned in this post, can be used to express ideas that are more abstract. Therefore, style and content of the script (blacklight puppetry for instance) may not be best served used realistic puppets. In fact, half the fun of puppetry is getting to do stuff that is visually unique to the craft. 

Having said all of this, there are also plenty of reasons why you might want to use realism. Using puppets side by side with actors for instance… Personally, I think why bother - if you need realism that badly, use actors. Puppetry is so much more fun when you’re not being realistic at all!

Part Three is here.

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