I've just made myself a simple mouth moving puppet, Taffy. I slightly altered the design used in the tutorial from (what I think is) this site to make her look like a cat. I plan to use her to host a little review show. I wanted her to be expressive to I used velcro with her eyes instead of gluing them on which lets me move and rotate them to emulate certain expressions. I want to include eyebrows attached with dulled pins so that I can shift them up and down, but I've not mastered the mechanics for that yet. The last part I want to figure out is the ears. I'd like to be able to move them to make her more catlike, however I don't quite know how to do it. There is no wig for her so using velcro is out of the question since it will look rather ugly. I'm also afraid using only the rough side of the velcro will ruin the fleece and that the ears might fall off a lot. This is fine for recording, but it'd be embarrassing for Taffy during a live performance. She's going to be very animated during live performances since I won't really be able to change her expression often (as part of the gag she will often have to ask me to do it for her.) So would moving her ears about her head be possible? I've no problem sewing the ears in, but if I can get adorable cat expressions I'd love to.

While I'm at it, I'm thinking of adding a tail, but since she has no lower half other than my elbow it might get in the way.

If you are not going to use a mechanical movement in the ears perhaps you wire them so you can bend them in different directions.
Welcome to Puppets and Stuff.

Billy d.

I don't know how much time you have to accomplish this or how much work you're willing to put into it. But, I saw this video on youtube awhile back for a hand mechanism. You could use this aproach as a basis for design and simplify it to move the ear.

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https://youtu.be/http://www.youtube.com/v/keo25BhgKas&hl=en_US&fs=1&

I don't really have the supplies or ingenuity for a mech (should have probably specified that.) This is my very first puppet and she's made pretty much of fleece and foam. Hell, I couldn't even work the sewing machine and stitched her up by hand.

The use of wires isn't too bad an idea, but I don't think that it will provide all the mobility I'm hoping for. I will probably use some wires for the tail if I include it so that it will be bendable.

Depending on how big I'll make the ears I could use snaps to give them a way to pivot in place. Then I could add the wires to bend them as well.

Oh yeah, and happy to be here.

Snaps are most likely your best bet and would be low tech and pretty easy.  I kind of like that idea. The other idea would be to use a key chain connector. Sorry I don't know the "real" name of them. Daryl has shown these on his Blog TV channel and used them to attach arms.
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https://youtu.be/xdu2d4Etqg8

Detachable Key Rings and Bushings

http://www.thefind.com/sports/info-detachable-key-ring


Billy D.

The detachable key rings may be a tad too clunky and heavy. I will remember them for any future puppets though because it's pretty genius. Thanks for the help and I'll make a quick vid of the puppet and what all I did to make her when I'm done.

Maybe doll/bear arm joints would work. Or armitures. Both are available here:

http://www.crscraft.com/products/vProduct2.asp?pid=Joint&L1=1&L2=8&L3=0&L4=0&V2=1&V3=0&V4=0&cat=doll+supplies&sub=Fasteners&class=

Thought you would enjoy this one! In the second video she just uses nylon string to bend them down.

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https://youtu.be/uOxAOhzD_T0



Billy D.

How to make moving cat ears 1 thur 5 video............................. nylon fishing line again.