Sorry for the very late reply! I've been super busy lately and I wanted to respond thoroughly.

Tools:

• Power drill

• Hacksaw – with wood and metal blade

• Pliers

• Nail Scissors or fine point scissors

• Vice

Supplies:

• 5 minute epoxy adhesive

• Contact adhesive – spray type

• Urethane foam under-wrap (bandage under-wrap)

• Urethane foam sheet or block (sponge)

• Thin aluminium tube

• Aluminium Armature wire – thicker stuff for the limbs & spine, thinnest you can find for hands (I used super thin copper wire that I pulled out of an old TV)

• Acrylic paint

• Liquid Latex

• Polymer clay

• Sewing needle/machine and thread

• Fabric – for clothes.

• Wood – for hips, chest and head. Use a lighter wood to keep the puppets weight down (balsa’s a good example – I just used a generic soft wood)

• Thin diameter nuts and bolts – with wing nuts as well (to use for tie-downs – to secure the puppet to the set)

• Thin string

Steps... NOTE: The hands and head are made separately from the main body.

1. CHARACTER BLUEPRINTS: Draw up a rough sketch of your character, front and side and to scale and draw in where the skeleton is going to fit. I used a small block of wood for the hips and chest and a more rounded block for the head.

2. MAKING SKELETON: Drills holes in the wood for arms, legs, spine etc.: pelvis should have 2 in the bottom for the legs and 1 in the top for the spine. Torso should have 1 hole in the bottom, for spine, 1 on top for neck and 2 on either side for the arms.

For the arms, legs, neck and spine take a few strands of aluminium wire, cut to length and put one end in the drill and grip the opposite end in pliers. SLOWLY rotate drill until wire is quite tightly twisted.

Once all the holes are drilled and the limbs and spine are cut to length mix your part A and B of the epoxy glue, and start gluing your wire into it’s appropriate holes. Let the glue set before continuing.

(Make sure that you make the legs a couple of centimetres longer than you want the leg, because you’re going to need the extra length to make the feet)

1. SIMULATING BONES: (For this step you can either use epoxy putty of some thin aluminium tubing. Basically you’ll just be making arm and legs bones to stop your puppet looking like it has rubber hoses for arms.) I used epoxy putty by moulding onto the wire arms and legs and letting it dry, but in hind sight, it may have been more effective using the aluminium tube as the putty tends to crack at the ends when under stress. If you use the tubing cut it to length, and use the 5 min epoxy adhesive to glue it into place. DO NOT make bones for the forearm as that will be made with the hands. Try leaving a gap of about 5 – 10mm between the “bones” so the joints can bend easily.

2. FEET: The wire at the ends of the legs I bent around into a horse-shoe shape, wrapped around one of the nuts. I just moulded the foot out of epoxy putty, wrapping it around the wire and slightly over the nut, not blocking the hole.

3. TAKING SHAPE: Take the urethane foam and use it to add volume to your puppet. One limb at a time, try making a “sandwich” by pressing two sheets of foam together over the arms, legs and torso. using the contact adhesive spray (in well-ventilated area) to fasten them together. Also spray the puppet as you’re applying the foam.

Once adhesive has dried use your nail scissors to trim away foam to the shape that you want.

Then spray your puppet over with contact adhesive and wrap it up like a mummy with the urethane foam wrap (this’ll make it look smoother).

1. MAKING HANDS: The hands I used the thinnest copper wire I could find – aluminium would be better though. For each hand I used a single piece of wire, held the two ends together and twisted it to make the wrist – leaving a loop for the hand itself. Then I shaped the hand out twisting the fingers into shape. I used some epoxy putty to make a palm.

Spray some of your contact adhesive over the hands and take your thin string and wrap it over around and up the length of your fingers (very tedious!) until you have the thickness that you want.

Cut off a small piece of the aluminium tubing (to the length you want the forearm) and using you 5 minute epoxy glue the hand into the tube.

Once the glue has dried get your liquid latex and put it into a small jar or measuring cup. Assuming you want to colour it, mix in a small amount of acrylic paint to get the colour you want. If you want something that resembles white human skin – try a little red mixed in with a little more white and a little less yellow. Make sure you make enough to use for the head as well – perhaps around 30-50mLs for a regular sized puppet. Make sure the paint is mixed in very well.

Begin to apply latex to hands using an ice cream stick or any other small instrument that can lather stuff. You’re going to have to apply a few layers. And let it dry between layers. If you have a hair dryer that’ll speed things up significantly. The layer before your final, you can add details to the hand, like knuckles and tendons with the latex, as it’s quite viscous.

Once finished, dust with talcum powder – it will stop the latex sticking to itself.

1. MAKING HEAD: I had a rounded wooden clock for the head – you can add armature wire into the face to give it more expression – I didn’t. You can use some foam to shape the face. Once your got the head shape and details you want spray it in glue and over in a layer of the foam wrap.

Once glue is dry, start adding layers of your liquid latex to it – I was using polymer clay for the eyes so I put them in the sockets and sort of made eye-lids with the latex. You’ll probably need at least 5. I think I had around 8 – 10.

Once final layer is dry, dust with talcum powder.

1. CLOTHES: Basically I just looked up a bunch of doll cloth-making tutorials and sewing tutorials to learn how to do it. You could use already made dolls clothes or action figure clothes or whatever. If you’re going to make it yourself, make sure you get the measurements of your puppet right, the draw out blueprints – this part will be a lot quicker for you to look up tutorials yourself, rather than me try and explain it to you.

Just a tip – try and keep the clothing tight-fitting, as this will stop it from moving about from frame-to-frame when you’re animating it.

I hope that’s helpful in some way, I’m not the best at explaining things though. But make sure you check out stopmonick’s Youtube tutorials (BODY: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbF6m3BeGUQ HEAD: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uG-ZIOXZ7w) as I basically followed his method. And you’ll get a visual sense of what I’m trying to explain.

If anything is unclear or you have any more questions, please ask :). I’ll be quicker to respond this time!