WOW! It turned out so nicely!!!  Thanks for sharing!

dope! cable puppets are rad, i'd like to build one myself. any tips?

dope! cable puppets are rad, i'd like to build one myself. any tips?

I'd be happy to help. I made notes as I went in this thread, though it turned out to mostly be about what didn't work. :P Some basic info to get started would be this:

• Get a good quality airplane pushrod for your cable. Bicycle brake cables just aren't as good. They tend to be much less flexible and have more trouble with twisting. I used a Du-bro 36" flexible pushrod on my prototype, but it ended up being too short. Go with 48", and get a Sullivan Flex pushcable if you can. Make sure it's the FLEX kind, not semi flex or rigid. I got my Du-bro cable from a local Hobby Town, and they special ordered the Sullivan cable for me.
• Use a ball joint for the pivot point. I've seen other methods, but I haven't gotten any of them to work so I can't help with them. :P I'm sure you could buy a ball and socket joint somewhere, but I just make mine. I glue a large wooden bead to the end of my wire armature, cover the bead with a bunch of water balloons, and plaster paper mache over it. When the paper mache and balloons are removed, the balloons have made enough space between the bead and socket to allow smooth movement. I learned this technique from Shawn's video tutorial here.
• Speaking of armatures, you'll want some kind of armature in the puppet's body. It provides stability when the head is moving. I use a simple wire armature, with wires in all four legs and the tail. You could probably just have an armature for the front half of the body though. The main thing is it needs to be steady, so moving the cable doesn't make the whole body move. Having an armature in the legs that connects to the neck provides a nice stable "platform" for the cable to move against.
• The head needs to be fairly solid, so that it won't just twist up when the cable is moved. The usual polyfoam probably won't work. I experimented with it a bit and found it to be too soft. What I did is make a slightly smaller version of the head pattern, and left it open at the back and underside. Then instead of polyfill, I stuffed it with Model Magic Fusion. That made a very lightweight, but solid "skull" that I embedded the cable and ball joint in. There's a picture of it here. One puppet I saw online had a skull made of a polyfoam shell and filled with hot glue. I've also seen polymer clay used, but you have to be careful about the weight. Too heavy and it may be harder to move, or will flop around.
• There needs to be a lot of room in the fabric around the joint to allow movement. That's probably why most handmade puppets have fur around their necks, to hide the "baggy" fabric. My puppet has fur all over his body, and it's fairly short, but it's still enough to disguise the baggy fabric pretty well. My pattern has the head in an extended position, to help insure enough room. The head is attached to the body pretty loosely too.

Here are some cable puppets that inspired me, and in some cases their makers gave me some tips:

Drabbits! I have to start here, because I'm pretty sure these were the first cable puppets of the type.
Woodbabies
Asian-esque dragon
Western dragon, with a lot of articulation. This one has a video, scroll down to the comments.

That's all I've got for now, but I'd be happy to answer any more questions.

Wow! That turned out great! I'm gonna bookmark this for future reference. Thanks for sharing!

As requested, here's a video of the head mechanism without fabric on it.

One thing I forgot to mention in my above notes - because it happened by accident on its own so I forgot - is that for the best range of motion, you need a hinge where the cable connects to the head. In other words, don't anchor the cable to the ball joint or "skull" because you won't be able to go all the way up and down. On this one, the hinge is made by hot gluing the cable end to the fabric attached to the skull. It's stiff enough to not wobble when pushing the head down, and flexible enough to bend when pulling the head up.

This one's using one of the Sullivan pushrods I mentioned. It's harder to twist the cable when there isn't a grip on it, but it does transfer the twist motion better than the Du-bro. I got mine special ordered from Hobby Town, and they were only about 10 cents more than the Du-bro rods. That's a bit cheaper than ordering one online, where the best price I could find for one was $6.

WOW NICE! THANKS! I have been wondering how it would look. That one there looks like it moves pretty nice.

It moves up and down really well, and it has greater range of motion than the prototype. It should twist pretty well once I put a grip on the cable. I think I'm going to wait on the Apoxie Sculpt I ordered and make the grip with that. I really don't trust super glue to hold something like that.

The Apoxie Sculpt is for making feet and horns and such, and I also want to experiment with making a face/head with it, maybe for a Western dragon. And eyelids. Safety eyes look a lot better with eyelids, but it's hard to find the premade kind, and although paper clay is nice, I don't like its texture for final pieces that small.

That's really cool! I'm fascinated.

Get a good quality airplane pushrod for your cable. Bicycle brake cables just aren't as good. They tend to be much less flexible and have more trouble with twisting. I used a Du-bro 36" flexible pushrod on my prototype, but it ended up being too short. Go with 48", and get a Sullivan Flex pushcable if you can. Make sure it's the FLEX kind, not semi flex or rigid. I got my Du-bro cable from a local Hobby Town, and they special ordered the Sullivan cable for me.

Hi Amy,

Although I do agree with this to a degree and perhaps for this application it was the best option, but I have used both airplane push rod cables and bike cables and saying that bike cables "just aren't as good" is a bit too general a statement; and one I don't actually agree with.  For any wiring that requires several bends in the wire I would opt for the airplane push rod cables.  However, I have found that the strength of the bike cable when used in a simple up/down design (the wire is just running up and down), can handle curves in the wire just find.  Think how well they work when run along a bike frame.  The down side to bike cables is that they are heavier, but the upside is that they are much stronger.

I have video of a mask I made with bike cables, and they worked like a charm.  Both types of wires have pros and cons to using them.

You trying to mess with us? Telling us you have a video and then not posting it? just kidding.

I can see where bike cable would be nice depending on the application. For small hand puppets I can see where the airplane cables would be nice since they are so light weight.

Anyway, hows about that video of your mask?!
 

Hi Amy,

Although I do agree with this to a degree and perhaps for this application it was the best option, but I have used both airplane push rod cables and bike cables and saying that bike cables "just aren't as good" is a bit too general a statement; and one I don't actually agree with.  For any wiring that requires several bends in the wire I would opt for the airplane push rod cables.  However, I have found that the strength of the bike cable when used in a simple up/down design (the wire is just running up and down), can handle curves in the wire just find.  Think how well they work when run along a bike frame.  The down side to bike cables is that they are heavier, but the upside is that they are much stronger.

I have video of a mask I made with bike cables, and they worked like a charm.  Both types of wires have pros and cons to using them.