HOW IS A PURPLE ROCK PUPPET MADE? By Rolande Duprey, chief
puppet maker and clean-up artist. Most puppets begin as an idea.
Since there are no cameras inside a person's head, sorry, no
photo of the idea! The idea defines how a puppet will be made.
Will it be a marionette? Then it will need detailed drawings of
the different moving parts. Will it be a hand puppet? Then it
will need a drawing of the head of the character. Then, a
drawing is made. It might be a simple pencil drawing: Or a
complicated drawing: But whatever it is, the idea takes shape on
the page. Some questions you need to ask yourself when you first
start building a puppet are: What kind of puppet will it be? How
big does it need to be? How many moving parts will it have? What
colors should I use? Then, to begin making the actual (three
dimensional) puppet, a sculpture is made. Sometimes it is out of
clay, and then a mold is made. For more information on how to
make a head using a plaster mold, please click here. Sometimes
it is made out of foam