About

Cost: $ $ $ $ $

Difficulty: • • • • •

Time: 3h00

South Asian Puppet!
Puppets are cute, funny, and they're all around the world! it's really interesting to see that almost every culture has the concept of puppetry, though they vary widely. When I saw the puppet contest I decided to make traditional south Asian (Indian sub-continent) puppets.

Posted by Muhaiminah Faiz from Sylhet, Sylhet Division, Bangladesh • Published 2nd December 2014 • See Muhaiminah Faiz's 194 projects »

Tags

Print • Embed

Shannan G. added Diy Fun Puppet Craft to Frida Kahlo Inspired Room 10 Jun 12:23
Kimya J. favorited Diy Fun Puppet Craft 25 May 23:43
Tierra T. favorited Diy Fun Puppet Craft 10 Nov 17:51
Muhaiminah Faiz replied to a comment on her project Diy Fun Puppet Craft 15 Dec 03:27
Mark Montano commented on Diy Fun Puppet Craft 14 Dec 19:51
Mark Montano favorited Diy Fun Puppet Craft 14 Dec 19:51
Alissa B. favorited Diy Fun Puppet Craft 02 Dec 22:15
Muhaiminah Faiz published her project Diy Fun Puppet Craft 02 Dec 13:14

Step 1
Draw the body parts of the puppets on paper. The legs of these puppets are usually straight but the hands are angled at 90o -120o and the body shapes are usual. Height of the puppets should be around 8-10 inches (adult puppet) and less than 6 inches for the child puppet. Make a template for the body parts and cut them out. Use them to make the fabric cutouts.
Step 2
The number of fabric cutouts for each puppets are:
4 for the legs,
4 for the hands,
2 for the upper body.
Step 3
When you have the fabric cutouts ready for making the puppets, sew 2 similar pieces together keeping one side open and fill it with waste fabrics or cottons. Sew all the body parts together (make sure the hands are flexible, so that you can make them move easily with the string or wire).
Step 4
When you're done making the puppets body, the next thing is to make their clothes, accessories, hair, face etc. The picture in this step shows how to make the blouse for the bride.
Step 5
The bride : red blouse, red petticoat (like a skirt), red saree, small beaded necklace, bangles. You can take help from the internet about dressing the puppet in a saree, simply search for 'how to wear a saree'.
Step 6
Use black threads to make the hair. Attach the hair using black needle and thread. You can set the hair as you want, but I think braids look beautiful!
Step 7
Little girl : a red top, yellow skirt and a yellow scarf (all these together are known as ghagra dress), small beaded necklace.
Step 8
The groom: a kurta, a pajama, traditional hat, a rumal (hanker-chief).
Step 9
This is the traditional hat for the groom. You can use 1 inch wide ribbon to make it.
Step 10
Draw the faces with pencil first and then use poster colors with small paint brush (5/0 and 10/0's) over the pencil outlines. Eyes of these puppets are usually basic lens shaped, big and black, the lips are red. You can add more details if you want.
Step 11
Tie a string on the puppets head (for keeping the body in balance) and two strings on both hands (hand movement is important).
Use one hand to control the string attached to the head and other hand to control the hands. If you're an expert I think you can control all the strings with one hand!. You can use wire instead of strings as well. Enjoy!