Painting on raw papier mache

White emulsion paint applied to raw papier mache on the Saleman puppet head. The cracks are caused by the water being absorbed from the emulsion too fast.

The remedy is to sand it and apply another coat. This can be repeated several times, although if you use too many coats, you can end up losing fine detail, as the paint tends to fill in grooves and cracks.

Base coats for the cast

The assembled cast. Well, their heads anyway.

These are drying after having had their fourth base coat of white emulsion. Each coat of paint is lightly sanded to make it smooth. For hard to get at edges you can use wirewool. It is much more flexible for getting into details like eye sockets and nostrils!

Painting faces

I am starting to paint the faces of the puppets. The first thing is to cover the plain brown heads with a base coat of white. I have always used normal domestic white matt emulsion paint for this, which is not only cheap, but does the job.

However I thought I might try acrylic artist paint. This was to see if it was quicker between coats as acrylic dries very fast. It was not a good idea though. Acrylic holds brush stroke lines very visibly, which on a small puppet is a problem. It is also quite rubbery, and so the lines cannot be sanded down effectively between coats.

Skeletons

The small size of the puppets means that even with 2 fingers, instead of 3, it is not easy to get a hand inside without making the body look either too fat, or unduly distorted when working the puppet.

This has meant going back to the idea of using an internal skeleton. Here is the first prototype being built.

Stencil and example body

Here's a stencil and an example stitched from denim cut from it.

Note - the template is asymmetric in this case. This needs to be considered when using material that has a different pattern on each side (e.g. a facing side, and backing side).
If you just cut out two pieces, and stitch together this will mean the face is not showing on one side.
To get round this, after drawing out one piece on your cloth, simply turn the stencil over before drawing out the next piece.
This will give two pieces that will sew 2 together with faces out on both sides. In this case the body uses plain cloth, so it doesn't matter!

Glove puppet pattern - the quick and easy way

Drawing round one's hand is a pretty simple way to get a base pattern to make the body parts!

You then cut out the pattern, and use as a stencil.

Basic costume - version one

A first rough sew of a costume body for Mr Plod (or whatever the policeman may end up being called). This will be the basis for a generic cloth body, over which the proper character costumes can be fitted later.


This shows the stick where the finger would normally be. Using thumb and forefinger makes them a bit lopsided. arms are too big at present, but that can be adjusted in version 2...

judy...

getting there. this the last head to get put together. Costumes next then...

mechanisms

I think that my attempts to use rods and hinges to transfer expression from fingertips to puppet-tips may be overkill.
This drawing shows what may be a simpler way - just using 2 fingers instead of 3.
It still does not address the fact that a finger in the puppet's head gives a huge range of expression, but it does mean a simpler more direct connection between fingers and puppet movement than the rods and hinges probably could.