Puppet version of children's book character

[Melonpool]

Look around for a product called L200. It's a type of denser foam that will hold it's shape better when you cover it with fabric. You can even glue it over the foam you already have in there and then recover the entire beak. The downside is that it's not very flexible, but it won't cave in, either.

 

[aaronmojo]

Last post on this, I swear! Here's the 100% completed Buddy puppet. My business partner (and the guy who wrote the book I illustrated the characters for) absolutely loved it, except his hand was a little too big to fit easily inside the neck. Whoops!

 

[larz]

Great work! Did you base these off of any patterns or was it all from scratch? Nice illustrations, too.

 

[aaronmojo]

Great work! Did you base these off of any patterns or was it all from scratch? Nice illustrations, too.

Thanks!

These guys were all trial and error. The dog's "muzzle" is carved, or sculpted, out of 6 inch thick foam that Joanne Fabric had on sale. Everything else is pieced together out of other "clearance" foam.

The toughest part for me was the eyes. I could find no plastic spoons of the size I wanted, so I ended up using styrofoam eggs, cutting them into slices, and then slathering on wood filler (yeah, I know, but it was all I had available, and I was being cheap). I sanded it down, painted it, sanded, painted, etc. I think they look okay but Buddy's eyes are kind of heavy because of how big they are.

I didn't use patterns. I think I saved some of the patterns - halfway thru the project I tried to trace the foam so I had some record of what I was doing, in case I needed to do it again.

Puppet making is an extremely frustrating but ultimately rewarding experience!