Amateur's guide to making a stop-motion puppet on a budget.

(if you notice any factual or grammatical errors let me know)

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READ THIS BEFORE ANYTHING ELSE

Despite the title i'm hesitant to call this a tutorial, it's more of just me documenting my journey on making this doll. I will be updating this page bit by bit as i make the puppet, it's enviorment and it's animation. I know I would have loved to find something like this online before i started making the doll haha. Feel free to follow along and send me what you made by the end! (I'll attach an email after i actually finish this guide a bit).

The reason this page exists is because we have a "puppet animation" class this year in college!! I got really excited because of this, but I realised just how little i know about puppet making. I haven't seen a tonn of resources on this, especially those that don't envolve a lot of money. It feels like this whole shabang doesn't get talked about enough. And so I set out to be the change I want to see in the world by making this page. ALSO I JUST ENJOY MAKING WEBPAGES LOL

STEP ONE. DESIGNING

Show all of your character design skills!! You should have a life-size sketch of your future puppet from at least 3 angles. I'm aiming for an about 22-23cm (9 inch) doll, so my sketch fits on a A3 paper.

Tip! Think about weight distribution first and don't make the feet so forward facing lol.

STEP TWO. THE STRUCTURE.

Materials:

  1. Floral wire(x6)
  2. Tape
  3. Cold welding glue for metall
  4. Gloves
  5. Small pieces of steel/metal plates(x2)

WIRE. I used floral wire, cuz it was provided to us by our teacher, but it's pretty good anyway(and also heckin cheap!!!)Aluminum wire is best avoided due to its fragility. Copper wire is quite good and has the right width. Steel wire is definitely the most durable and strong, but it can be difficult to move the doll's body parts during animation.

TAPE. Pretty much any tape will do,it doesn't really matter. I used plain paper tape.

COLD WELDING. Not sure how exactly this is called in english, but it's that hard stick with a layer of metal powder on top and epoxy resin inside(see pictures for reference). You can use the cheapest kind, any fancy properties that come with the pricier stuff don't matter. Keep in mind though, that different brands varie in ease of use. I found that "Ремтека"(the red one) cold weld, unlike is much smoother and softer than "Алмаz".

GLOVES. Theoretially you can ignore this one, but i would highly recomend getting gloves just to be safe!!(and also cold weld is extremely hard to wash out of hands, so be warned) Any gloves will do, but on according to my classmates cold weld sticks the least to polyethylene gloves.

STEEL/METAL PLATES. These are gonna be used for the feet, to weight them down, so the puppet can stand. So when i say small i mean small. You can probably cut these out of old cans. In my case they will also act as magnets for the detachable roller blades.

What to do

1. First grab 6 pieces of floral wire(or however many pieces of wire of your choice) and weave them all together.(Use the help of a friend or pliers if needed). Then arrange a carcass for the body like in the picture, following your previuosly made sketch(!!!). Start by making a loop for one foot and move to the hip, then make a loop in place of a neck and move to the other foot, make a loop there too.

2. Use leftover (or twist 3 additional floral wires) to make arms seperately. make little loops in place of hands.

3. Tape down the hips, so they don't move around as much. Then tape the arms to the body where you want them to be.

4. Put on your gloves and open the cold welding glue. Cut a small piece and make sure to mix it up real good, so it becomes one smooth substance. Place it down on the skeleton like in the picture, so puppets joints can move correctly

Don't lay the cold weld glue to thick. The doll's mass will be gaind with foam!

4. IF YOU WANT MOVABLE FINGERS: cut a wire to 4 little parts. Fold them in half and put them through those loops on the arms. Get some cold weld glue and place it on the hands, to secure the wire.

It's better for fingers to be longer than what you would expect, so they can bend properly and look nice like that.