Add the lower leg and triple knot and finally finish with the foot. Add the thighs and tie a knot at the knee, making sure that the joints can be easily bent. Repeat the same process for the shoulders and bottom of torso, triple knotting the wool to secure at each entrance like in the picture below. Pull the thread taut and use a dot of glue from the gun to secure it even more. If so, make a triple knot at the top, so it’s secure. Feed the thread through the head once more and see if it looks like its sitting right. Remove the thread from the head and tie a triple knot just under the mark you made. Gauge where the head will sit on the neck and make a mark on the wool at the top of the head like in the picture below. Feed the thread through the hole you made earlier at the top of the head. Wrap a long piece of doubled over wool, around a small twisted piece of wire and feed it through the neck. With all our bits and bobs done it’s time to attach all the body parts together. Alternatively, I have just cut out an old vest, sewn a rough hem and pulled the thread to pucker it and attached with the glue gun.ġ1. Glue the finished skirt to the bottom of the puppets torso with a glue gun. Feed a string of wool through one hem and pucker the skirt. Make hems at both the top and the bottom of the fabric. Get a piece of scrap fabric and pucker up around the base of the torso to determine how much fabric you will need. Make sure you leave access to the hole at the top of the head.ġ0. I used 18 strands to make two long plait in total. There are loads of different styles you can play around with using the wool. Now we need to create the hair for our puppet. Step 8 – Paper mache marionette facial featuresĩ. Roll two plastercine balls to make the chest (As big or as small as you like!) Make a hole through the side of the neck, just below the shoulders and at the bottom of the body. Slightly bend the body so the back has a slight arch. Create the rest of the torso around the neck. Make sure the foil is compressed tightly so it is sturdy. Start with the neck which needs to be fairly long as half of it will not be on show when attached to the head. We are aiming for a shape like in the picture below. The head is modelled around the plastic ball, and the structure of the body consists of tin foil, plastercine and coins.Ģ. The first thing we need to do is construct the marionettes body parts…which are the head, the torso, the 4 arm pieces, 4 leg pieces, hands and feet. Ribbons/buttons/appliqués for decoration*ġ. Small soft play ball (like in the pack of 100 you can buy) White/beige wool for stringing body together Most of them you will probably lying around the house anyway.
Don’t be put off by the long list of materials too. I searched high and low as I wanted to make a marionette for my daughter at Christmas. Make a beautiful peasant girl, an Arabic belly dancer, a handsome prince or an evil witch….maybe even all of them if you have the time! As far as I know, there isn’t another tutorial like this on the web at the moment.
A completed paper mache marionette with strings