Hello everyone,

My girlfriend Emerald_Rose (http://puppetsandstuff.com/community/index.php?action=profile;u=4454) and I are relatively new to this board and the puppetmaking scene in general but considering her love of all things marionette-like and our combined love making things from scratch, we've decided to delve into the world of puppetmaking!

Our first idea was a perfectly normal one that I'm sure everyone would have landed on when considering their first puppet: We were going to make a Stag Gentleman...

So, I set to sketching out some deer / stag references and a rough concept for us to work with:





Neither of us have any prior puppetmaking experience or even sculpting experience outside of what we learned in nursey with piles of play-doh so, after a little bit of research, we ended up deciding to make his head, hands and feet from milliput, an epoxy clay, and the rest of his body from dowel and tinfoil. Since the majority of his body will eventually be covered in clothes, we weren't too fussed with the general appearance of it.

So, the first thing we did was begin making his gentlemanly head. We started with two tinfoil shapes, a ball for the back of his skull and a more rectangular shape for his nose. We attached the two together with masking tape and began working with the milliput. Having never worked with it before, it was an interesting experience. It seems quite firm in my opinion and needs regular application of water to keep it malleable and it feels like you're really working against the clock. We had some trouble getting everything shaped / joined right but that's mostly down to lack of experience. Eventually, however, we got a fairly decent shape down!





After that we set to making his body from tinfoil. My girlfriend, who I have to say is much better at wrestling tinfoil into a decent shape than I am, managed to make some really good shapes for his torso. My attempt at the hips, thankfully, did not need to be so ambitious. From there, we covered the tinfoil in a layer of newspaper and applied some general craft glue to give it a bit of toughness and attached some eyescrews to the joints and four pieces of dowel to make the arms and legs.



The next step was attaching it all together which took two pairs and pliers and some serious elbow grease to force the eyescrews apart and attach them back together again once joined but we got there in the end.





In the previous photo notice that we're planning on using some dry sticks that we found for antlers. I think it gives him a nice touch.

The next step was to put his eyes in. We tested it out first with some play-doh and then, once we were satisfied, mixed up some milliput and put them in. Having some experience with art, I know first hand how important the eyes can be to a piece when defining a character so needless to say I was majorly worried about irrevocably messing him up but with a bit of fiddling and some guidance from my girl, I think we did a pretty decent job.







Anyway, that's him so far! We'll be updating this as we make more progress with him. Any thoughts, tips, advice or comments will be appreciated

As another little project, my girlfriend is also busy producing this, a "found" puppet made from various sticks that we found on our wanderings. He's missing a head currently, but it's interesting how much character he has already I think!

Can't wait to see the completed projects!!! Welcome!

Nice work!  You have made a fantastic first step into the world of puppetry.  Love your sketches, I am jealous, my two dimensional skills are not as good as my three dimensional skills.

I use a product called Creative Paper Clay to sculpt out with.  It is a paper mache' mush that has volcanic ash added to it.  It is very much like plasticine clay or play-do to work with and air dries.  Don't know if you can get it in the UK but you might find something similar.  I form a skull out of styrofoam then cover that in a layer of regular paper mache' then I use the Paper Clay on top of that to work details.  It is very light weight, sand-able and paint-able.