I'm going to be making a sock puppet for work that needs to look like a person we use for training videos (the asian man in the main frame) and I just found this forum and was wondering if anyone has any tips on how I can do that?

I'm guessing black yarn for hair (not sure how to make it "stand-up" other than making it short...do I sew it through the sock?) and I can probably sew his shirt together without too much trouble, but I'm not sure what else can be done to make the sock look more like the real person...

Thanks for any tips!!

Well a sock puppet is kind of hard to "customize" for a specific person. You have a good start on the idea for the hair.  About the only other thing you could do is reflect the almond shape of the eyes.

Cool...would I do that just by getting oval buttons, or is there a better way to do that? I've been searching for 'asian sock puppets' but haven't found much...

I did find a great post on this site about making eyes from plastic spoons that I'll play around with...

I also found this site (http://tigercandyarts.com/phofcuor.html ) that makes custom sock puppets and am contacting them about what they would charge to do something like this. Their Bruce Harvey sock is pretty cool...I'd like to do something along those lines, but am not sure how to go about it.

Thanks!!

The spoon eyes could work or you could do like they did over at Tigercandy Arts and paint them on with fabric paint.  They have some pretty nice puppets over there.... I would say that it would be worth paying them for one unless you are really handy at crafts and want the challenge. 

Yeah, after looking through this site (and many others), I'm going to play around with this over the weekend (and have my kids make their own puppets too) and see what I come up with, but I'll be interested to hear back from Tigercandy...I'm pretty "crafty" in general, but haven't ever tried my hand at puppets!

I'm going to go get some black yarn for the hair and did some looking around to see what might work for his style of hair and wondered if you had any suggestions??

Thanks!!

I think yarn will probably do well, but something you might want to at least look at is a Noodle Roonie. The are like big fuzzy pipe cleaners.

http://www.craftsetc.com/store/item.aspx?dep=50&cat=5&subcat=35&IsOnSale=0&IsFeatured=0&IsNew=0&ItemId=100729

 If it is cut  and shaped right on the top of the sock puppet it might look more like this gentlemen's hair. I was able to get one for a future puppet project at hobby lobby.

I know it's been a couple hours since the last post for this, but maybe I'm not too late for my input to be of use.
Because of the style of hair he has, I have some suggestions. If black yarn is used, unravel it once it's been secured. Then use glossy Mod Podge or maybe even glossy clear spray paint to style the hair.
Now onto some suggestions for the face. If you have any socks that are close to his skin tone, use them. Or you could dye the socks yourself. If you have no plans of washing the puppet, you could do so using diluted acrylic paint.
For getting features, I suggest using 2 socks or one large sock that you can cut some scraps from. Make ears and a nose from this. If you want a closer looking nose to his, you could shape it using anything from play dough to paper mache or foam.

Hope some of these ideas help.

I was actually going to suggest going to your local fabric store and getting black faux fur for the hair.  If it's too long you could trim it down (give the puppet a hair cut! )  and to get it to stand straight up, use hairspray.

About the eyes, perhaps cutting shapes from craft foam?  Or, many craft places sell bags with assorted shapes and sizes of precut craft foam, I think I've seen almond, or tear drop shaped pieces before.

I would also say to sew down the mouth opening to make it narrower, as this gentleman has somewhat of a smaller mouth.

Hope that helps!

Try www.projectpuppet.com The sock serie

You can use fleece for the hair.  Here are some examples of fleece hair on boys.  Same style different colors.  Tutorials are for the same style hair only longer.  Just cut your fleece square shorter.
he how-to photos



Can't figure out how to get those extra words out of the post. Haha