How To Archives - Page 8 of 8 - Puppet Building World

There are many ways to cover a foam puppet. In puppet building, it is important to get a solid foundation, a well-constructed foam head and body and then we need to cover the foam to create character. One of the easiest ways to finish your puppet build is to spray paint the foam. You will not want to use automobile spray paint, but rather you will want to use florist paint. Florist paint is made for painting dried flowers. Design Master spray paint is such a paint. It is perfect for painting over a foam puppet head. This is a painted foam puppet. Using spray paint you will have many color choices you can even feather colors together to create a multi-colored puppet. To make a more Muppet-style puppet you will want to cover your puppet with fleece. There are a wide variety of fleece colors available at fabric stores. you will want a nonpill fleece that has stretch. The stretch will go in one direction. You will need to be aware of this when placing the fleece on your puppet. You always want the stretch to be horizontal on a puppet head. this will prevent the police from sagging. Rockywoods.com has a four-way stretch fleece fabric. I have a sample and it looks really great for draping fleece on an unsymmetrical puppet head. I would not want use it for a puppet neck as the neck would stretch up and down and could create the dreaded giraffe neck. Pastel chalk is great for adding shading and make-up effects to a fleece puppet. Use a grater or sandpaper to create chalk dust, then brush it on with a paint brush. You cannot use chalk for coloring a puppet, but to add shading and bring attention to areas, it is great. A little pink on the cheeks, or maybe a little blue on the eyelids will really bring out the character in your puppet. To set the chalk, spray it with hairspray. The cheaper hairsprays tend to be better for this. Imitation Fur is a common puppet covering when making animals and monsters. In some ways, fur is great because you can use simple sewing stitches and the fur will naturally cover the seams. On the other hand, unlike fleece, fur usually has little or no stretch. Because of this, your patterns will need to be a little more precise. When I first started making puppets my preferred covering for the foam was latex. You can buy Mask Makers latex and cover your puppet with this. The latex is white but you can get any color you want for your puppet by adding in acrylic paint. just mixing the paint until you get the color you want and you are good to go. It is easy to put the latex on the puppet, just brush it on with a foam brush or even a piece of scrap foam. You will want to put on three or four layers to get a good strong finish. You can use the latex to cover puppet heads, puppet hands, puppet feet. It is easy to use and spills clean up easy since they harden into a soft rubber you can peel oh way if it drips. Larry is a latex over foam puppet. Sculpt Or Coat is an amazing product for puppet makers it's used in the construction of scenery and props in the theater. When you cover foam with it, it creates a tough outside coating and has many uses in puppet building. Sculpt Or Coat is a thick paste. It can be used for sculpting but in puppet making, we will mostly use it as a coating. It can be thinned with water if needed, for easy brushing. The great thing with Sculpt Or Coat, is you can mix in acrylic paints to give it color. If you make a foam head that you're not covering with cloth or feathers, just mix a little paint with a little bit of Sculpt Or Coat and you get a nice hard shell like shield over the foam. It goes on white but it will turn clear, if you do not color it. By covering foam pieces you have shaped, you can make horns for a devil or a cow, maybe a turtle shell. You can just go thicker to get that hard shell. Additionally, you can fashion other shapes out of foam and cover them with Antron Fleece or other materials and then coat that with a very thick layer of Sculpt Or Coat. It will dry into a nice, hard glossy shine but it will still be light so it won’t add a lot of weight to your puppet. Another great use for Sculpt Or Coat is to coat the inside of your puppet mouth. After you put together the puppet mouth and you have the finger tubes in place, cover the mouthplate with cloth over the tubes. Use a nice stretchy open weave fabric, maybe a t-shirt, over the mouth plate. The Sculpt Or Coat will soak into the fabric and hold everything together giving you a nice strong mouth that will last a long, long time. Antron or Muppet fleece and sculpture coat are a great combination. You finish out your design in foam covered with the fleece. Get a nice tight fleece covering and then you can add some color and a nice hard shell. Maybe for a bird beak for a chicken or toucan. Make it with foam covered with fleece. Then you cover it with Sculpt Or Coat. You may want to dilute the Sculpt Or Coat with water so it will paint on little bit easier with a bruh. You can add a little acrylic paint in if you need some color, otherwise it will go on white but then it clears. So it's kind of scary at first. You get this white coat on your on your fleece, but it will be dry. When it dries becomes clear. You can even add a second or third coat to make it stronger. You just keep applying coats of Sculpt Or Coat until you get the look you're after. The more coats you add, the more hard and shiny it will be. The fleece makes the foam durable and adds strength to the Sculpt Or Coat. The Sculpt Or Coat will mat down the fleece, adding to the smooth shiny look. Just keep adding until you get that nice look that you want. DeoArt MagiKote If you're making accessories for your puppet out of Styrofoam or poly polystyrene, perhaps you're making eyes out of Styrofoam balls, a great product is DecoArt MagiKote. It will create a hard paintable surface on styrofoam. You may want a carve a nose out of Styrofoam and again you can cover it with the MagiKote and then you can actually paint the styrofoam. When you're making things out of Styrofoam for your puppet, MagiKote is a great cover to allow you to paint it. You can make other props out of Styrofoam. Carve whatever prop you need for your puppet and cover that with the MagiKote. Then you can paint it. Iit's an excellent product for making lightweight accessories for your puppet. You may also want to consider Roscoe FoamCoat. Roscoe FoamCoat is another coating for styrofoam and polyurethane. It provides a hard, hard durable finish that shouldn't chip or crack. Unlike the MagiKote, you can sand the Roscoe FoamCoat to smooth out any rough edges on your puppet. Rosco Foamcoat You can also use Roscoe FoamCoat on paper mache if you want to make something out of paper mache that you can't make out of foam. So Roscoe FoamCoat is another excellent product. You just paint it on and you're ready to go. Another product that works like Roscoe FoamCoat Is All Purpose Foam Coat from the “Hot Wire Foam Factory." It will also go on with a brush and you can sand it and then paint it. So you can go with Roscoe FoamCoat or you can go with All PurposeFoam Coat. Both are excellent products for covering foam for your puppet. For an inexpensive and quick covering for your puppet, you can cover your foam puppet with muslin strips. Dip muslin strips in glue and cover the puppet head or other prop with the muslin strips. When the strips dry, it will create a very hard outer shell. This can be painted. You can also, if you want, change the texture with the strips, adding wrinkles or otherwise building character into your puppet. I hope this article has helped you and started the fires of your imagination. You can find links to the products mentioned in the article on my RESOURCE PAGE. Please subscribe to our newsletter to get notices of new articles and videos when they are posted. We will never sell your information. When you subscribe, I will also send you my free report, "Puppet Building For Fun & Profit." The author, Dennis having some fun with latex and fur puppets.