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Making Puppet Kimono Patterns

Perhaps this title should be “Lesson Learned the Hard Way” because the lesson I learned is…you can’t use the same pattern to dress your hand that you use for the rest of your body. That’s the first part of it anyway… the second part would be: always stuff a glove puppet before sizing it. Because my first attempt at a kimono for Momotaro ended up: a) binding up the puppets movement and b) not looking right at the neck.

I was frustrated, as you can well imagine so I went back to the basics. Step one of the Basics is dig through your recycle bin for scrap paper. Then for your second step, you pin it on to the STUFFED puppet body. Third, you go around it and cut it down at places like the shoulders and under the arms. You should end up with something like this:

Then, you clean it up and put it all on a nice blank pattern page:

You cut it out of waste material and sew up the main seam…use a large stitch like this:

Now you put it on the puppet and pin it in to fit. Like this:

Sew that up and cut off excess. Now try it on the puppet and repeat the pinning, sewing and cutting until you get a workable pattern. Once you do…remove all your stitches and there’s a pattern!

Now you try it out with the real material.

I then recycled the pattern material for the green archery guard on the left arm. The hakama you see in the picture above, I didn’t have to do using the pattern method…possibly because straight-ness of a man’s hips and the straight-ness of ones forearms match.

On Americans and Punch & Judy

The question is: “How do your audiences react?” Well…I’ve never had too much trouble with audiences ‘getting’ Punch & Judy. I’ve also never had an offended audience member confront me.

But here are the conditions under which I perform:

• I perform at renaissance faires mostly where people expect to see something from the past. Even though my show is modern with current jokes, if the audience wants, they can excuse the whole thing and justify their watching it by saying it’s historical.
• I perform with the Greenwood Players, some of whom have children, who act as plants in my audience. They know the show and they know what to say and do and they usually help the audiences get excited.
• I warn the audience by announcing my show loudly proclaiming that the show is guaranteed to be violent and contains a hanging—like it’s a good thing. I do see some parents and their sheltered little ones walk on by…but I want them to.
• I coach the audience. I set them up to respond to “That’s the way to do it!” with “Oh no it isn’t!”
• Punch never hits first. (I’m not the only one to do this…the whole premise of the show is that Punch reacts in ways we can’t and sometimes wish we could.)
• I’m female. It’s amazing what I can get away with by being immediately perceived as harmless, teacher like, and some one to be trusted with children. It probably also helps that I have no tattoos or nose rings, and I wear a professional-looking non-revealing costume.
• Also, probably because I am who I am, Judy gets the last laugh (most P&J shows end with some puppet other than Punch getting the last laugh—usually the crocodile).

Do they get it? Yep, with a little coaching, they get it. In reality, this is Bugs Bunny’s predecessor—you can even tell them that—but at the end of the day, it really is just slap stick comedy. Americans get that.

Hands…they’re getting easier

Here’s what I’ve been doing. First I take a toilet paper roll and cut it in half and up the side. I reduce the circle of the tube down so it fits over my thumb and my last two fingers together on my right hand and tape it in place. I flatten the top and add a piece of cardboard cut in a mitten shape. I add a little bulk with masking tape. Then I papier-mâché the whole thing with my standard three layers—not going for any detail at all on the mitten part.

Once that is dry I cover the mitten part with Japanese Paper clay. In the paper clay I create the fingers…all together so they are made on the mitten but completely cover it. I add fleshy parts for the base of the thumb and the bottom of the palm. Next comes another drying period. Watching clay dry is far from stimulating so usually I work on something else for a while. You’ve got to give it a day at least. Ho hum… Now, time to paint. My first layer is gesso to prepare the surface. Then I work a very dark green into the shaded areas and details. Green? Yes, green...Dad showed me this trick. Green is the way he showed me to darken skin tone.

I cover that over with a medium flesh tone…depending on ethnicity of the character a medium flesh tone should be lighter than the final tone. I use the final tone last of all in the shady places and in the details and wrinkles of the hand. Keep in mind that an African character’s palms are significantly lighter on the inside. In that case I would used green plus four skin tones—two for the outside and two for the inside. Lastly I paint in nails for characters in which it is important. Of course I finish out with a matte sealer. My puppets must be a tad weather resistant. Even a matte finish sealer is going to be shiny so I use a firm bristle brush to add texture as the sealer is drying.

So there you have it. Hope you find these instructions handy.

New Show in Process

[Originally Posted to Yahoo! 360 on February 19]


I've been reluctant to make a blog post due to the closure of Yahoo! 360 and our upcoming migration to the new Universal profile. That's just silly. The longer I wait for it to happen the more and more puppetry news slips by. I am not interested in leaving Yahoo. I've made my decision so all that's left is to wait for the new...but that doesn't mean I shouldn't use the old, right?
I've got great news, too. I have been approached by the president of the Aki Matsuri at BCC. They asked me to help out and after a dinner with them we came up with a puppet show plan. I've seen other puppet shows at the Aki Matsuri...they were put on by the Japanese Language school and as you can guess--done entirely in Japanese. But the goal of the Aki Matsuri is to present the Japanese culture to the public--educational in point of fact. They have Taiko and Ikebana lessons you can take. They even go so far as to offer teacher classes on how to present the Japanese culture in the class room. Every presentation in the main room--if done in Japanese--always has a translator. So we thought...why not make the wonderful folk tales from Japan also accessible?
My plan at this time is to do Momotaro with hand puppets--not bunraku style puppets. I'm not that crazy. Three puppeteers to a puppet? I'd never get it off the ground. Besides Thistle Theatre does a lovely Momotaro with American Table Top puppets(which is as close as we get to bunraku here).
I choose Momotaro because I know it best...there's a song involved and there's food as well. I plan to use the stage pictured here. I found the book at the puppetry festival and I've been meaning to get it. The stage built on photography stands is great for me. My Dad was a photographer so I can recycle his stands. I also have my best friend's old curtains to recycle--navy blue.
This is all great stuff but really, I need to write the script. I'm dragging my feet on it though, not my favorite thing to do, you see. Wanna help me out? Read the wiki page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Momotaro
I'm thinking of doing the older version of the story where the old couple are given youth and another chance to start a family...considered not PC. But I can't figure out why. There's no need to show the mechanics of starting a family. Rapunzel begins with a craving that her mother has for a cabbage that leads to her having Rapunzel (which she must give to the witch for payment). Starting a family is found in many stories. Look at Sleeping beauty or Rumpelstiltskin for example. Plus the moral of the story would end up being don't put off children until it's too late...look what a wonderful child they had when magic gave them another chance. Hmm...to whom is such a moral aimed do you think?
On the puppetry side of the issue, I get to make two transforming puppets. Fun!
On the other hand, the PC version is the one that's been around since the Meiji era and is the expected version. I wonder if the sexless springing from the Peach is as required as a lost glass slipper is in Cinderella? Your opinions are welcome. What do you think?

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Thought I'd share a tip. CD holders make great stands for making puppet heads.

Pictured here are the Grandmother, Grandfather and young Momotaro for my Japanese puppet show. It's slowly moving forward. Very slowly...but what can I do? I build shows just because I want to. There's no money or deadlines resting on my speed. Nothing forces me to hurry up.

Plus I get distracted a lot. There are many projects half finished on my plate. My New Year's Resolution is to be a finisher this year--to start getting things done. To reduce my list rather than increasing it.

Wish me Luck!

Hands Up

I took you up through the Papier-mache step in the previous post. From that point, the hands don't differ from the head. I added details with paperclay, painted them, added fun-foam fingernails and put a sealing coat over the whole thing. Here's the result:







So...now we have my boy in all his naked glory:







Next is costuming...wanna see that too?

A Step Back

I didn't go over the body. Boy am I rushing ahead of myself! Look, there I go...





There is a trick to this, which I learned at the Puppet Rampage...the back of one's hand needs more space than the front. Who knew? Thus...the body has three parts:







Which then comes together so:







All in all, a roomier style.



But here's a trick of my own...some puppeteers use wires, but I find boning to be much better:







Why? Because it does the same job as a wire but it is lighter and much easier to pack.



Yes...he needs hair:







All the pictures I found always show the red oni with hair at least on the back of the head with the bald samerai forehead. This really does set him apart from the western devil. A good thing to be sure!