Puppet arm question

[Livehandmuppet]

when ever i see bert, or a what not, when they have one arm rod, the other arm is stuck on the side of them. now my question is how do they do that? do they literally stick a pin in the arm and on the side?

sorry if this question makes me stupid

 

[Buck-Beaver]

From what I have read and seen, yes, they just pin the arm in place. There have probably been a number of different methods used over the years. I have seeen puppet wranglers sew arms temporarily in place using loose stitches too.

There are no stupid questions...

 

[AEaston]

In some of my earlier puppets when I only put a rod in one arm I would use wire in the other to pose it however I wished.

 

[mrhogg]

The pin has the benefit of being easily removable, though it can fairly easily fall out of place if there's a lot of movement going on (and if you haven't securely fastened it). The loose-sewing method would be slightly slower, but should be more resilient to moving around, I think (though I haven't yet tried it).

It's a great effect either way, because unless you're looking for it, you hardly notice that only one hand is ever moving.

 

[Jinx]

On one of my puppets I have made a loop of thread which fastens to one of his shirt buttons, and the "other" hand is threaded through the loop. This keeps it more or less in a neutral pose but still allows it to move slightly, keeping it from looking too rigid. It works well for this one puppet of mine.

 

[LamangoNumber2]

Well, I put a saftypin through the puppet's body, then through the underside of the hand, even if it flops alil.