There are lots of ways of making puppet heads, but this is the Papier Mache way, using an orange as a base.
This is not for unsupervised children, because you use a hot oven and a sharp safety knife.
Materials Needed For Your Papier Mache Puppet Head
- Orange
- Newspaper
- Tissue Paper
- Wallpaper Paste
- White Glue
- Exacto Knife or Razor Blade
- Cardstock
- Masking Tape
- Paint, yarn and other items to decorate your puppet
You can use white glue and water for your paper mache, but I find wallpaper paste works better. I use a clear wallpaper paste. Roman Pro-838 is an excellent choice. You can add a little water if you find it too thick, but I use it straight from the bucket.
It is great for paper macheh because it doesn’t smell and it’s not like a flour glue, which mice can come along and eat. It doesn’t go bad and it sits very hard indeed.
That’s one thing I need. The orange is another and the last is little bits of newspaper about the size of a postage stamp up to twice the size of the postage stampr.
Smear the glue on the orange, stick the paper on and then smear the glue over the top. And I keep doing that pressingly wet newspaper down and overlapping piece on piece to build up this thick layer of glue in newspaper all over the orange.
Not just one layer but about 10 layers thick. It gets a bit boring, but you know you’re going to get a great puppet at the end of it.
Once you’ve done that the head is placed in the oven for 30 minutes at 300 degrees.
When you’ve done that, it cooks away and of course gets hot. The outside dries, the inside gets hot and shrinks.
This results in a very dry paper mache piece. It will be very hard and crisp, but inside the orange, will have shrunk.
If you shake it, you can hear it rattling around it. Now youu have to liberate that orange.
With an Exacto knife or razor blade, cut around the equator of the head.
It cuts quite cleanly. It’s good hard stuff and you cut almost all the way around but you leave a little hinge at the back.
It will open like a clam and out comes the orange.
The orange is absolutely no good to anyone. Don’t try and eat it, compost it or throw it away.
What is left is a nice crisp ball of paper mache. close it up again. The hinge helps you align it.
Take more of your wallpaper paste and smear it around the crack and put on extra bits of paper and that will seal the whole thing off. This will leave you with a hollow ball of paper mache.
The seam should be covered about three or four pieces of paper thick at least. Otherwise the puppet won’t be very strong for the things that you have to do later.
Cover the seam over and when it’s finished, put it back in the oven and let it dry.
Well while the puppet head is drying in the oven, cut a 3″x 4″ piece of cardstock. Roll it around your finger to make a 3″ tall tube your finger will slide into easily. This will be the puppet’s neck.
Wrap masking tape around it several times. What you end up with is a nice hard cardboard tube and that’s going to be the neck which we put into the puppet head.
Remove your puppet head from the oven. It will be a nice and crisp ball but hollow this time, no orange inside it.
Mark on its surface, a six-pointed cross, by this I mean 3 intersecting lines, about the size of your forefinger. Being very careful, use the Exacto knife or razor blade to cut along those lines.
That’s going to be where the neck goes in. You notice the paper mache is crisp enough to allow you to cut it without distorting the whole ball. If it does distort, it isn’t thick enough.
You will have six little triangle petals. Bend those petals outwards. It should create a hole just the right size to let you put the cardboard tube in.
Now you have to fix it there and you do that by using strips of newspaper and lots of glue.
Smear the whole neck with glue first and then glue strips of newspaper to the neck.
Use long thin strips and wrap them around and around and around tying the whole thing onto the head.
Wrap it around, sticking it to the head around the neck several times and back onto the head. Don’t hesitate to use lots and lots and lots of glue and lots and lots and lots of paper around and around and around and back onto the head.
After you do that,once again you dry it in the oven.
Now you start building the features. Use bits of ordinary tissue soaked in your wallpaper paste. Let it soak until it develops a mushy, clay-like texture you can shape.
You can shape a nose, a chin, eyebrows, cheeks or any other feature you want to add. Place them on your head. That is to say, on your puppet head.
The features won’t stick real well like this. You will need to place ordinary bits of tissue over them. This is just pieces of dry toilet or facial tissue laid over the wet features.
Form a smooth skin. Then brush your wallpaper paster or thinned white glue over the tissue to bind the whole thing together. Don’t hesitated to use quite a bit of glue.
It’s very thin. It’s absorbent and the more you can do the better sort of smooth finish you’ll have on your puppet. Just make sure that all those bits and pieces are molded properly underneath.
When you’re done with that back it goes into the oven for the last time. It’s got nose, eyebrows, his chin, the works.
Last thing you have to do is to take some masking tape and wrap it around the bottom of the neck.
About 3/4″ wide, although a little wider or narrower won’t hurt. Wrap it around and around to make a ridge there. This is what stops the clothes from falling off.
You can now paint your head. Add a little yarn or fur, maybe feathers, for hair. You might use pushpins or beads for eyes, or pupils. Add a little hat if you wish.
Place a bandana or square of cloth over your middle finger. Place your finger in the puppet neck and you have a simple puppet.
Be sure to subscribe to my newsletter. I will soon be adding an article on making clothing for this puppet and you don’t want to miss it, I hope.