Maybe does not have to actually be beads.  What about small stryo balls that you run a needle through to thread them. Not sure they would come small enough though.

I like covering things in spandex/lycra.  Works as well as t-shirt material but if you use the correct side it can have a bit of sheen to it. Also it paints up really well. The two puppet below are lycra (except the heads which are paperclay.)

Love dinosaurs! That's a great idea to use lycra/spandex. I was thinking of nylon stockings, but spandex sounds better. I've had problems with some paints sticking to Spandex. Did you use any special paint?
I want to be careful with this puppet. I suspect I'll be using it for a lot of green screen shots, so a sheen isn't necessarily a good thing. Hmmm, decisions decisions!

Man I HATE sewing Spandex! Grrrrr....

OK, I take your point, Puppetainer. Any tips on sewing spandex? Warnings, etc? What am I getting into?

Machine sewing is best.  Hand sewing tends to pucker the fabric.  Hot gluing is not good either because the glue shows through.  I like it for puppet cloths because it doesn't fray, so hemming not required.

Julie

Thanks Julie. Well, as luck would have it, I happen to have some light, stretchy non-spandex material in the right color... black. And as I just couldn't face the task of sewing a dozen of these, I simply glued the fabric on with Barge. This worked well for what I want to get out of this puppet. I added some wrinkles as I glued and I'm planning to add more fabric scraps as texture.


I chose black because this character will be shot separately from the rest of the show in it's own environment which is very weird and shadowy. I'm hoping the fabric will take enough paint to achieve a dark and ghostly look? The fabric hasn't inhibited the movement much at all, but it has taken some of the curl out of pieces. I think if they were slightly larger, it wouldn't have been as much of a problem.

You could get some curl back by running a long basting stich down the inside length with a strong black thread that you pulled a little,similar to gathering loosly. If you could find black elastic thread it would be even bouncier.

You can always use the "wrong" side of spandex if you don't want the sheen.

I used Design Master to paint the Dinos. I never took the dive into purchasing an airbrush machine.  Design Master is a floral spray paint. You used to be able to get it in craft stores but it seems to becoming hard to get in them now. More then likely you already know about it but figured I should explain for everyone.  

Yes, I'm familiar with Design Master paints. Michael's seems to be about the only dependable place that stocks them near me.
Snail, I really like your idea of elastic thread and I'll try to get out and track some down today! Maybe I'll pick up some spandex as well, just for testing. Thanks all, for your great ideas!

Sorry, didn't mean to put you off Spandex. I agree with Julie that machine stitching is best but my sewing machine kept "eating" the Spandex whenever I used it to sew with the devil fabric. I tried a variety of fixes but finally just chose to use other fabrics whenever possible.