Development : Building a new Deborah puppet with some Mark puppet

After some practice and making my little puppet head decided I wanted to recreate my puppet into a nicer looking one and a bit bigger.

So started the process again with using sponge to shape and make the head but with better defining shape and making it more like a human shaped head.

Since this is meant to be a female puppet I wanted to try to add some subtle features to the shape to make it look more feminine compared to Mark's male one. So I added little bits of sponge to make cheek bones.

I had some trouble with trying to decide material to suite my hair style and ended up deciding on a wig instead so I could trim and style the the hair similar to my own.

Then started to hot glue on some fleece for the skin and used a slightly lighter pink colour to make it more feminine and to play around with colour in puppets. Cause a lot of puppets usually can get away with really bizarre colours especially for skin tones.

I also had to make some eyes and not liking making the previous eyes so detailed with pupil and white around them decided to make some simple eyes out of Fimo. You bake this clay in the oven for a while which also gave time for the glue to settle on my puppet head.

I then started to work on the mouth of the puppet which was made with a rubber oven mitt which proved to be kinda tricky to place fabric on. Since it was rubber it moved around so much because it was flexible and empty but eventually got there by sewing through the rubber. The inside of the red mouth was made of felt.

For the eyes I then painted them with acrylic green paint to match my eyes colour to add a more cartoon female effect added fake eyelashes onto them with some glue. Used some UHU glue which can be great for crafting most materials and fixing things in your house.

I did some quick tests in Photoshop to help place the eyes on the puppets face before finally gluing them on for good. The wig also just pulled over the shape of the head like an actual wig would do on a human so it just sits snugly on the puppet which leaves possibilities for changing hair styles. Also used my glasses to help adjust where eye's would be.

I then added a neck with some more fleece onto the head with the hot glue gun.

Next was the body and was basing the body off of something that's recognisable for me as a person which is a hoodie I've been wearing around the art school a lot. Mark's puppet also has a hoodie body based on the University of Dundee official hoodie. He tried out some life size clothes at first and to try out body structures. He even did try out some chicken wire to create a type of rib cage to put under the clothes. I suggested using some sponge and just shaping it like the head and using a coat hanger for some help as well.

We have been using kids clothes as an alternative since adult clothes are a lot bigger. To make a template I got a real picture of my fox hoodie and took it into Photoshop to be able to make the fox picture.

This was to practice and have something to use as a guide before using materials to create or paint the fox logo onto the hoodie.

To also start making a shape for the body I got more sponge and some plastic bottles to create shoulders/chest and some shapes for the arms.

A coat hanger helped with some adjustments for shoulder width but it ended up needing more adjustment and trimming down the sponge for the final shape in the end.

The hot glue gun was also used to put it all together and some more sponge to help shape and fill out the sides of the body for more definition. Also had to shape it in a way that I could have space to reach my hand up inside and up into the head. To make the Fox logo felt was then used to make each layer based on it's color and the template was used to help shape each layer.

More hot glue gun to the rescue to put it all gently together and also to stick on the logo to the hoodie as well as stick inside the sponge for the body.

I think it worked out positive for the body all that's left to do is some tweeking of the shape and get the neck attached to the hoodie. I got help from Mark with the structure of the inside of the puppet and he had a go at using transfer paper to put the logo on his hoodie. As well as making limb structures for the arms and attempt's at making legs if we went that far.

Me and Mark will also consider about making hands as the next stage of building the puppets but we don't want to overdo them keeping the charm and simplicity. We will try to do some practice with performing with the puppets and I'll be editing some sound pieces for us to explore and use for skits.