Hi everyone!

I don't know much if anything about puppets, and I'm working in a psychology research facility for the summer. One of the projects I'm going to be working on is using puppets for our research. What I need is a hand puppet, ideally with a working mouth, and arms that can be controlled with one hand for picking things up. Does anyone have ideas if that's possible or ones that are already made? I've been using a few templates I found off of the internet to try to make a puppet, but the results have been disastrous to say the least.

I've been searching the internet for puppets to use, and while I found a couple things that might work, money is pretty tight and I don't want to buy anything unless I know it'll be what I'm looking for.

I found this and it's pretty cheap, but I'm not sure if it's exactly what I'm looking for.
http://www.puppetsuperstore.com/shoppingcart/products/Animal_Puppet_Set_of_12-417-1.html

I would really appreciate any help you guys could give me!

Thanks a bunches.

If you would like to make your own there a few free patterns. I have them in my gallery.

http://puppetsandstuff.com/community/index.php?action=gallery&g2_itemId=6012

http://puppetsandstuff.com/community/index.php?action=gallery&g2_itemId=6357

http://puppetsandstuff.com/community/index.php?action=gallery&g2_itemId=4471

http://puppetsandstuff.com/community/index.php?action=gallery&g2_itemId=8918

http://puppetsandstuff.com/community/index.php?action=gallery&g2_itemId=6352

Drawings

http://puppetsandstuff.com/community/index.php?action=gallery&g2_itemId=4575

If you don't want to make one these are reasonably priced

http://www.orientaltrading.com/ui/browse/processRequest.do?demandPrefix=12&sku=58/1007&mode=Searching&erec=6&Ipp=16&No=0&D=puppets&Ntt=puppets&Ntk=all&Dx=mode%2bmatchallpartial&Ntx=mode%2bmatchallpartial&y=0&N=0&requestURI=processProductsCatalog&x=0&sd=Plush+Happy+Kids+Hand+Puppets

Need anymore help just ask...... Welcome to puppets and stuff.

Billy D.

I really advise thinking carefully about how to make a puppet that has the ability to pick things up. If you watch Sesame St, etc. you'll see that when they pick things up by hand it's usually a real person's hand inside a glove. It's extremely difficult to have an inanimate object pick things up when it has no musculature and gravity gets in the way!

It can be done, I'm just saying that it's not as easy as making some stuffed hands and moving the rods.

Something like what's in the photo you posted can be done using a sock puppet design (see Project Puppet's glorified sock puppet pattern for an example) with some arms attached.

Practice makes perfect: freebies can be useful to begin with, but to get good results, you'll just have to make more!

Welcome by the way!

Actually Na the picture that was referenced by ajc24 are a glove hand puppets.  These would actually work very well for picking things up since in essence they are just "gloves" on your hand. The only thing is they do not have moving mouths.  It could be they would work very well for you if you don't really need a moving mouth. 

A similar look could achieved by the Glorified Sock pattern as Na mentioned and you would have a moving mouth but then you give up the ability for the "hands" top pick things up easily.  You can attach rods to the hands and manipulate them that way but it takes to hands (one in the mouth and one on the two rods) to accomplish this and quite a bit of practice. You limited to the weight of things you can pick up for the reasons Na mentioned.

Actually Na the picture that was referenced by ajc24 are a glove hand puppets. 

Isn't that what I said? Sorry, I thought I was clearer, but yes your description is what I was trying to say.

We have a puppet on our team that is called "Handy", he is any kind of glove we can find and he is very handy when our rod arm puppets need an object moved.  He comunicates with hand signals too. It is amazing how much you can do with just a glove. I remember seeing a show on TV not long ago that was all gloves, a whole family, and they added small touches like a bow tie for the dad. I don't remember the name of the show, it was so creative. 

I used to use large human arm puppets with the T arm shirt pattern from One Way Street.  The human arm gloved hand needs a larger headed puppet to look proportional. We used one hand in the puppet's mouth and one for the gloved hand with the other hand bent slightly to the side not moving so that one person could handle one puppet. 

If your puppet was a snake then it would be appropriate for it to pick up objects with it's mouth. We use this green snake (this picture does not do it justice) $21. It has mouth that opens and we stick a wire rod in it's tail to manipulate the tail for pointing.
http://www.thepuppetfactory.com/product/74/1

May be you can use this:

http://serverblog.info/ibercan/product_info.php?cPath=22_134&products_id=66

introduce it  across the elbow, or modify it to use as a rod (then may be gluing L shape pieces to the moveable parts of the forceps, one for the thumb, one for the other four fingers).

I am sorry for the link directing to a Spanish website, I do not know the English name of this device, maybe something similar to aquarium forceps... it is used mainly to manipulate plants in a aquarium keeping your hands dry

Hope it helps

I think it means Interchangeable forceps/scissors....................... primarily used in aquariums to move plants around with out disturbing things. They are also tools in the health field that are similar
Link no longer available.

Yes, Billy, you are right, thanks, but there are some models whose grip is like an alligator mouth, or clothespin, so the should fit better inside a foam hand

Billy, i looked at your rufus body pattern, do you have a pattern for a head that fits on?