No Foam Puppets

[Infinity Sirius]

As much as I love foam puppets and how wonderfully they are made, does anyone make puppets not from foam and from other objects?

At the moment I'm making a muppet out of a Fun Noddle I found in the garbage and before I made a kiwi bird out of wire, felt, and cloth.

 

[Iokitek]

I'm going to work with latex myself. Latex Foam also seems interresting but I don't know actually. I'm also planning on making a robot puppet out of garbage.

 

[ravagefrackle]

As much as I love foam puppets and how wonderfully they are made, does anyone make puppets not from foam and from other objects?

At the moment I'm making a muppet out of a Fun Noddle I found in the garbage and before I made a kiwi bird out of wire, felt, and cloth.

i think the idea that you can only use foam, comes from so many people wanting to dublicate what the muppets are, but puppets no matter what style are bascily mixed media sculptures, .using different materaisl gives them there charecter, and texture.

i also work with simple glove puppets and marrionettes, and have had great resulst with plastic wood in plaster molds for heads, as well as paper mache covered styrofaom.

 

[Iokitek]

Hmm apparently plastic wood is made out of old junk like milk and soda bottles. So infact you're also building out of garbage then.

Sounds like great stuff. I'll see if I can find it here.

 

[thatonekid]

you can make a puppet out of anything if you use the rubberband mouth and some eyes.

 

[Buck-Beaver]

well plastic wood is a product common in most hardware store here in the USA. It is a wood filler for cracks and gaps .but when you make a plaster mold in two halfs, you can soak them in water, then after they have soaked for a while you can press this "plastic wood " into them, then place them back in the water., the acetone in the compound will evaporate and leave a hard durable shell .this can then be glued to the other half to make a puppet head.

Does this method (soaking in water) work with the "new" plastic wood that been sold in North America the last few years? I've tried using plastic wood but the result was always kind of soft. This fixes that problem I assume?

 

[scarylarrywolf]

I made a bird-like marrionette out of various McDonalds wrapping materials and eating utinsels.

 

[ravagefrackle]

Does this method (soaking in water) work with the "new" plastic wood that been sold in North America the last few years? I've tried using plastic wood but the result was always kind of soft. This fixes that problem I assume?

i havnt had any problems with it, of course it has been a while but it is still the method used at PUPPETWORKS in Brooklyn.i have seen some new stuff on the market,just havnet tryied it yet.

any of course i personally prefer some of the casting materials that are availble at PEARL PAINT , they give great results, and i also like working with silicone molds over plaster. but the old methods are still great too

 

[Buck-Beaver]

I think they had to change the formula for plastic wood several years ago because of health concerns, much as they did with Celastic. I'm told that it's not the same plastic wood on sale now that they used in the 60s/70s/early 80s.

 

[ravagefrackle]

could be, but i have used it as recently as 3 years ago, and it seemed to work fine