PAUL
Puppet Fabrication
Paul is a hand puppet, made primarily from foam with a fleece and feather covering. His hands and feet are cast in latex and have wire armatures for posing. His head includes eye mechanisms for blinking, and his arms are controlled with steel arm rods.
The Process
Template Making
After designing the puppet in a sketchbook, the general shapes were made using templates.
The process is as follows:
The main forms are sculpted in oil based clay over wire and foil skeletons.
The sculptures are then covered in masking tape, using small pieces to capture the forms accurately.
The masking tape is then cut and removed from the sculptures, with darts added to allow the 3D form to be laid flat.
These masking tape pieces become the initial templates, they are copied onto paper and scaled up using a photocopier. In this case the head was constructed at 1:1 so scaling was only needed on the body and legs.
The templates are now ready to be transferred to the foam and fleece.
The finished foam body pieces, glued and pinned together.
The feet, legs and hands were sculpted in clay and then cast in plaster. Yellow tinted latex was brushed into the moulds in layers to create the final parts, which include wire armatures for posing.
The puppet at this stage includes:
Foam head, body, neck and legs reinforced with a plastic and wooden skeleton
Dyed nylon fleece pelt
Plastic mouth plate with fabric covering
Plastic eyes with a blinking mechanism
Wooden and wire wings with foam padding
Moulded latex feet
The final stage was to add feather trim in thin rows. This was a lengthy process using several different colours to create a realistically blended effect.
Paul is finished!