Question About Braided Hair

[D'Snowth]

I'm building a proto-type for a new character of mine, who has braided hair (two braid to be exact, one on each side of her head), but I've never done this before, and I was wanting to know which would be a better way to approach this - would it be better for me to make the braids separate from the rest of her hair, or would it work just as well to go ahead and give her a full head of hair and then braid that?

Also, because I have no clue about how girl hair works, would braiding it, in anyway, make the hair appear a little shorter than it really is? It looks to me like it would, but again, I'm not a girl and I don't have long hair, so I would know if I should make the hair a little longer than it should be in account of the braids.

 

[Gelfling Girl]

Ok, just braided part of my hair, and it seems to be a bit longer than the rest.

 

[Jinx]

When I need to do braids I usually use yarn for hair. I cut a bunch of strands at least long enough to go from the bottom of one braid, up and over the head and down to the bottom of the opposite braid. I stitch these strands to a strip of fabric that matches the puppet's skin color. This makes it easier to manage, and creates a center "part" in the hair as well.

Once fastened to the puppet's head, I then braid the yarn hair. I never really know for sure how long I want them to be so I make very long hair. Once I've braided anough to get the length I want, I rubber band the end of the braid and then trim off the excess.

This is a quick and easy way to do it.

 

[D'Snowth]

Lol, I was actually planning on using yarn for hair too.

You know Jinx, that actually does sound like a very effective way to approach this, though one thing that make it difficult for me is that she is also going to have (or I'd like for her to hair) a parting in her hair right down the middle.

One more thing I meant to ask too - she's also going to have relatively curly bangs... would yarn get ruined in one of those steam curlers?

 

[muppets2]

yea it would probably fall apart

 

[D'Snowth]

Gee, wonder how I should go about trying to give the bangs some curl to them?

 

[Gelfling Girl]

Do you think those plastic hair curlers would work?

 

[D'Snowth]

I'm not sure, but I could give it a try...

But I'll worry about that part later, right now the main issue is the braids, lol.

I swear, I'm simply not as good at building puppets as I am performing them, but my mom's insisting I give it a shot for this character, lol.

 

[Scooterthegofer]

It's a trade-off... but it's an escapable trade-off. Good luck!

 

[D'Snowth]

Thanks, lol.

The yarn'll be easy to obtain, that's for sure, I'm just worried I won't be able to get my hands on the other necessary materials... I don't know why, but the Jo-Ann's in my town has next to nothing whenever I look for fabric.