Skip's hair!
Chuck: "In order to make the hair for my puppet, who is now named Skip, I found a stuffed gorilla at Goodwill for $.99."
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The color, texture and length of the gorilla's fur was exactly what I was looking for. And best of all... it was cheap!
Video: Scalping the Gorilla!
I had to do some cutting and trimming to get the right look. I experimented with several pieces.
Pretty cute, eh?
What a mess!
The gorilla gave his life for a noble purpose.
And that purpose is to make Skip adorable!
Veronica handled the glue for me. After my previous battles with the glue gun, I wasn't about to attempt to use it with one hand inside a puppet!
Emily was really thrilled when she saw the completed (and nearly completed) puppets! Introducing them to her was the best part!
Video: Clowning around with Emily!
Our next objectives will be to finish off Veronica's puppet and to find some clothes that will fit better! If you have any tips for creating female puppet hair, please let us know!
The way I've been doing female puppet hair is to wrap yarn around a large book 30-100 times, cut it so I have strands that are 18-24" long, and then just run it through the sewing machine. I leave the boot up, set it to zigzag, and then run it back and forth a few times till it holds together. If you're not working from a sewing machine you can get a vaguely similar outcome with hot glue if you just lay the yarn out flat and run a bead or two of the hot glue across the middle and maybe push a piece of yarn into the glue (going perpendicular to the rest of the strands), though that way you'll probably want to layer it a bit to get enough of it to stick together.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing to consider is the marabou (think I'm spelling that right) which comes in 1-3 foot long sections at the craft store and can give a nice poofy look.
Oh, I've also taken the long strands of yarn and braided them before and then just stitched the whole long braid onto the puppet head (maybe use some wire to give it strength).
Good tips, thanks!
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