Today we’re gonna be looking at puppet props.The world of props is just limitless. But we’re going to narrow it down in this short article and look at a couple of things that you can use a couple of methods that you can use for props.
One of the first things that I look for when I look for a prop for my puppets is really a child’s toy. Children’s toys are great, whether little soft preschool toys or play food play tools anything like that, they work great as props.
One of the ways to use them is to use paint sticks. These stir sticks that you get for free when you buy paint.
If you paint ’em black, they tend to disappear, and you put some Velcro on ’em and you can adhere them to just about anything. And so now my puppet can hold my prop.
And a little tip about this. I always put my stiff part onto the prop stick that I’m gonna be using for a variety of props. And then I put all that leftover stuff on all of my toys and and whatnot. And it works great for a variety of things.
Children’s toys are great for props. You can even use a rubber band to attach a prop to the puppet’s hand. And it looks like they’re holding it.
Children’s toy musical instruments, toy food, etc. make great puppet props.
When you’re behind a stage it works great to have the puppet’s arm down, and just use the paint stick with prop, like a separate puppet, but it will look like your puppet is holing it.
Another great thing for props for puppets are real items, and it works the same way. Real objects, if they’re small enough and light enough work great,
Another great source for prop items I’ve found are dog toys. You find ’em at pet stores, and they work great for puppet props. And they’re gonna last a long time because they’re, they’re made to be chewed on. So these are great as well.
You can find a lot of things that resemble real items. But they’re made pretend. Halloween props are made of light plastic, but made to look real. And it is great for puppet skits and puppet props because it looks, it looks real. It looks like a heavy item, but it’s really very, very light. It’s easy to manipulate with a puppet arm rod or to use for set pieces.
And so if you look for you know, around Halloween, you can find stuff like this. But you can also find stuff you just kind of Google plastic chains or plastic hammers. You’d be surprised what you find.
You can find other items, probably more for costuming, like jewelry and glasse. You can put a variety of things on puppets as well.
Probably my all time favorite thing to use for puppet props is You can find pictures of just about anything that you can turn into a prop.
One year I printed out pictures of the front and back of a cell phone, mounted them on foam core board and made a cell phone for my puppet. It was really light and I was able to attach it securely just using tape.
You can even use your phone and take a picture of an object and then print ’em off. You can also use printed items like that for set pieces. And so there’s just a variety of things that you can do with printed images. And when you can’t print them, you can draw ’em yourself.
That’s a quick rundown on puppet props. If you’ve got some questions about some things or you want to me to show you how to do some things just drop that down in the comments and I will put together some how-to things for puppet props and some upcoming episodes.