Hello there, I'm new here! I'm 15 and I have made 2 puppets, with each one I'm slowly getting better at making puppets. My 3rd puppet is to be a monster, I actually have the designs on Deviantart.com so I can link you to the designs.

My questions are; Is it possible to create a puppet to look like this? Like, is it possible to make a puppet look fat like in my design? And is it possible to get  hair like that on a puppet?

My apologies, I think I asked too many questions, heheh. I would really appreciate the advice!

Here is the link to my design: http://samdesamd.deviantart.com/art/Monster-Puppet-Design-117880536

Welcome, Monster!

You didn't ask too many questions, and I hope you can show us some pictures of your first two puppets. I don't see any reason why a puppet couldn't be made to look like your drawing (great drawing, btw). Fatness is easy to accomplish. It's all a matter of how you are going to construct your puppet. Many here (myself included) glue pieces of foam rubber together to create the shape we want, then cover that with fleece. How you cut the foam will determine the shape of the finished product.

There are lots of kinds of fake fur available, though sometimes you really have to hunt. That would probably be one of the easiest ways to have that hair that you have hanging over your monster's eyes. (I assume there are eyes under there, somewhere )

There will be others chiming in soon who will probably be better able than I to describe a process of shaping your foam into what you are looking for.

But again, Welcome! We're glad you have you here with us.

Sure you can have a monster puppet with a belly like that!   From your drawing it almost looks like maybe you are planing on having two people inside the puppet with their heads as the "shoulders".  I like that approach.  In this case you might want to make the body out of boning and canvas fabric. A term that costumers would use for this would be "building a cage".  Hoop skirts use boning to hold out fabric in a bell shape.  I am just throwing some general terms at you that you can research so that you can move forward with your design. I have also seen the cage built out of reticulated foam that has an open fabric on each side that is sewn together. Then on the inside of the suit you can use boning or heavy refrigerator  tubing to hold the cage in the shape you want.

Over your cage you would put the fur covering.  If you keep these two things separate it is easier to clean.

Greetings and welcome.

Yeah, the shape is definitely possible. The actual size you make it should determine part of how you go about making the body. I can see that thing being quite bulky and heavy if done wrong.

I look at things differently than some people, so I may have different suggestions/solutions than other people. If you want to make it large, but not too heavy I would suggest making some sort of armature to build the body on and use a tube inside the body for your arm to be inside.

The methods I'd use for making an armature to do this on would be to get a bottle or something and then make the basic shape and size of the body over it using paper mache or something else. Then I'd make the body over it using foam or whatever material you want the body made from. This method would allow you to get the shape you want without too much trial and error as well as not requiring multiple layers of foam for creating the stomach.

I agree.  It can be done.  I've never made anything that big myself but if I had that project on my plate, I'd make a polyfoam structure for that body and reinforced it with boning.  For that fantastic hair I'd order some very long fun fur from Mendel's.

Hello to Puppets and Stuff!

I really like your drawing skill .....great job and you seem to have done some research on the inside of puppets as well as the outside.  Of course you can make this drawing into a puppet.....some suggestions and thoughts to think about when creating your puppet.......

From experience the smaller the puppet the easier it is to control and manipulate.....I am not saying that you have to make it tiny just in a fair proportion to what you are planning to use it for.  What type of environment will this be used for mainly......TV/camera work?  Theater/stage work?  Parades/fairs/festivals?  This will help with whether it is necessary to make it larger than life for two people to fit inside or if making it like a Ernie style where you fit into the hands like a glove style puppet while one of you control the head.  Just keep in mind that the smaller the puppet you will have better control over it......to big can sometimes makes things awkward and challenging to manipulate.

For the hair I see ostrich feathers to give it some flow and extra movement to the head........you can get some great lengths in ostrich feathers.

Hope this helps.......

Daryl H

Thanks for everyone's advice! There's a lot of types to creating this kind of puppet that I never knew about!

The puppet would be mainly used for camera work, for example there is a small doodle in my picture of the monster sitting (although, rather casually) at a desk with a piece of paper in his hand. My original idea was to have this puppet to be an interviewer of sorts or something similar, heheh. A fairly upfront and blunt monster that tries to be sophisticated by having a tie!

Shortly, I should have pictures of my other puppets that I can show you. Admittedly, they aren't the best in the world (especially the first, I had a lot of problems with him!) but I did put my heart into them. SO..yeah, thankyou everyone!

I love the way how does your character look like on the paper in profile (a drawing at the bottom of your picture). Have you started with that puppet yet?

Hair for your puppet might be made of a human wig - you will just need to cut the fringe out of a wig or even use it whole.
Do you suppose you will cover your Monster puppet all in fur? I think it would look great in a long-hair fur!

Admittedly, they aren't the best in the world (especially the first, I had a lot of problems with him!) but I did put my heart into them.

And that's the point! When I was building my version of Jeff Dunham's Peanut puppet I had a lot of problems as well --- I had no pattern, I had to do everything by trial and error and as you mentioned - I did put all my heart into this puppet and I do love him so much, haha.

Keep working, we're waiting for the first results!

For nice shaggy hair like in your picture I'd use what's called "Eyelash Yarn." I've used it on a few of my puppets and it looks awesome! You sort of get a shaggy dog look from it.

great concept drawing! Though I'm not familiar with eyelash yarn, (so I can't comment,) I think a human wig or Feathers are your best bet for hair, the wig would be robust but you'd have another learning curve in really styling it properly. Feathers move beautifully, exaggerating your movements and making such a large puppet "read" well. Feathers are fairly delicate though and your puppet will need to be handled with a LOT of care.
For a puppet that size, you might want to explore making it single user by watching something a couple of Henson creations use. Big Bird and Bear in the big blue house both use the operators right hand straight up, and a live action left hand in the puppet. The characters right hand is on a "wire" (probably monofilament or heavy fishing line) joined to the left hand by a small pulley on the chest of the suit. This means that when the operator moves his hand up and down, the other moves the opposite way in quite a balanced way.
The fact that you can draw that well, to me, suggests that you can visualise new concepts well and probably "problem solve" quite well. Perfect skills for a puppet builder!
I look forward to seeing clips of this guy on You Tube!
Scoob