NO SEW Puppet Build - Easy to Follow - Make a Puppet Easy

this video is sponsored by skillshare how to make a really cool puppet without any sewing [Music] to the puppets of the world this may sound absurd but this is the [Music] [Music] welcome back adam crutinger here and today we're going to make an entire puppet from beginning to end using no sewing that's right no sewing is required at all to follow along with this project all you're really going to need is a hot glue gun on this channel and at puppetnerd.com i have hundreds of different types of projects on how to make different types of puppets my original tutorial series walks you through the entire process of making a professional puppet but i get a lot of people commenting that they don't know how to sew but they still want to make a puppet that was the inspiration for this project to make a complete puppet from beginning to end without any stitching and if you're watching this video and you do know how to sew maybe this is the video that you would send to your friends to get them started and interested in the puppetry we're also not even going to be using a pattern to put this puppet together i'm going to make it the old-fashioned way by really just building it as i go along anyway let's get started [Music] another inspiration for this beyond just using a hot glue gun to assemble the puppet was to use very simple materials you could find at any local craft store or other scrap materials that are easy to come by for example a piece of a couch cushion this is an old scrap from a couch cushion that a friend gave me and this is the only foam we're going to be using for the puppet also i'm not using any of my fancy fur today this is just a simple cheap fur that i got at joann fabrics and i'm going to do my best to make this work now whenever i'm building a puppet from scratch like this i typically like to start with the mouth plate first and if you're familiar with this channel you know my favorite thing to use are storage bins you can make a lot of mouth plates out of one storage bin and you can use the whole bin too i just happen to have the lid today now to get started i'm going to design the mouth plate first and i'm just going to make a traditional monster so let me just kind of draw one half of the mouth plate around my hand so i can size it correctly so i'm going to kind of go like this and make a shape like that so that i'm going to make that symmetrical in just a minute but let me cut this out there we go i kind of cleaned up the symmetry when i was cutting it out and now for the bottom mouth plate i'm just going to trace the top one now i want this puppet to have a little bit of an under bite so i'm going to make it a little bit smaller there we go now we have our two mouth plates next thing i'm going to do is make the foam head for this puppet now a lot of times i use a pattern for these puppets and you can use the patterns i have lots of free ones on my website as well but today i'm going to carve it out of this block of foam i think for some people carving out a simple shape out of a block of foam like this might be a little bit easier than patterning it out of sheet foam let's give it a try so what i'm going to do is line up the mouse plates i'll kind of put one here and i'll put one here so that that'll kind of be the shape of the top of the head so i'll just trace this out so that'll be my rough shape now the best way to cut this is with an electric knife you see these ladder on thanksgiving and they're pretty cheap and i have a link down in the description to this one cuts through the foam like butter we'll save this for the body later [Music] now once i have this shape roughed out i'm going to smooth it out with some scissors the nice thing about covering this with fur though is they don't have to be that precise with the trimming you do want it as smooth as possible but when you're covering it with fur it can kind of hide any small imperfections whereas if you cover it with fleece it's going to show any tiny little flaw or divot keep that in mind when you're carving this type of foam i think this shape is going to do just fine now the next thing i'm going to do is carve a little bit out inside of the head here that way there's room for my hand to slide in to perform the puppet but i do want to leave an edge for gluing so i'm going to leave about an inch going around just like this and go into the back of the head a little bit too now you could dig in there with scissors but today i'm going to use a razor blade these are persona blades they're the industry standard for cutting foam you don't want to cut too deep just about an inch or so that'll do just fine now that we have that space for our hand cut out let's glue on the mouth plate and use the hot glue and just go around the edge right here just like that now we're going to make the bottom chin i'm going to use the bottom mouth plate and a corner of one of the chunks that i cut off of this head this should be more than enough to make a little chin so i'll just put this on this flat edge here and trace around it and now i'm going to smooth out the shape of this chin now for the top part of the head i had to cut out a big chunk here for the hand to slide into but for the chin we only need room for the thumb so i'm going to put my thumb right in the middle and trace around it i like to be pretty generous in tracing around it having a slightly larger hole for the thumb makes it so that you can use this puppet left handed or right-handed and now i'll trim that out the same way now let's glue the mouthplate on there we go we have a good-looking puppet head coming out now now look at that we're off to a good start next we're going to be draping the fabric for the head now typically if you watch this channel we do a whole pattern-making process but this time i want to tackle it the way someone would probably do making their very first puppet without a pattern it was definitely the way i made my first puppet let's give it a try i'm going to draw a center seam going down along the back of the head that's going to keep us a little bit more organized as we move forward but the next thing i want to do is the inside of the mouth plate fabric and for that i'm just going to use some felt now to attach this you really could use the hot glue gun but i highly recommend that you use a spray adhesive using a spray adhesive is going to make this stick really flatly to the mouth plate if you only use the hot glue gun there's a good chance you could get wrinkles so let me spray this i'm going to spray the mouth plates too now when i go to put these down i don't want these to meet up perfectly at the edge i want to leave about an inch or a half inch of space between the mouth plates that'll give your mouth a little bit more flexibility and it'll be much easier to operate so i'll stick this side down like that fold this over and then i'll line this up right here like that now after that's attached i'm just going to trim around this mouth now look at that wow next we're going to start to cover it with fur now what you want to do is make the fabric lie down flat on the front of the face kind of like this you can tell this is the front of the head here and there's no wrinkles next thing i have the center back line here i'm going to put a line of glue right next to that line going all the way down to the bottom and i'm going to lay the fabric right on top of that now the hot glue takes a minute or so to dry so i'm going to hold it to make sure it doesn't lift up once that's dry i'm going to make sure again that this is all flat along the front of the face and i'm going to line up the other half of the fabric as close to the back as i can now when i make my next glue line i'm going to make it on the other side of that line i'm going to leave a small gap so i can clean up that seam a little later so i'm going to leave about an inch of space or so all right now that that's all dry i'm going to give this a little bit of a trim but i want to leave again about an inch or so so that i can fold this over and i may even slightly roll it over to help hide the seam so let me just trim this just like that so you can see that seam there and if i just gently roll it like a little hemline and fold it over you can't even really see that seam which is nice so let me just go up to the top of the head if you go up to the top of the head here you notice there's a lot of extra fabric here so what i'm going to do is just kind of pinch that together and trim it off and it kind of curved around to the front of the head if you can see that so what i'm going to do is glue this flap down and then roll that seam just like i'm going to do on the back so i'm going to glue that all together now all right as you can see i still have all this fabric still hanging down like a ghost although all the glue on the top of this head is dry the next thing i want to do is cut open the front of the mouth plate so i'm going to turn it over just like this and just kind of open the mouth and i guess what i'll do is i'll use a sharpie and just draw a line exactly where the top of this mouth ends so now you can see that line inside there i'm going to trim slightly above that line that way i can roll it over and glue it to the inside of the mouth you could use scissors or the razor blade for this the razor blade will create less of a mess all right now you can see all that now i'm going to start gluing it to the inside of the mouth i'm going to start on the side here put a little line of glue around the rim then i'll start holding it down let me give it a little snip in the front here there we can overlap it alright now that i have that covered i'm going to try to cover the bottom of the jaw too typically these puppets when we make them professionally we have a separate piece for the neck but because of the way that i'm kind of draping this and gluing it as i go along i'm going to kind of try to see if i can create a neck out of the hanging fabric here that'll keep me from needing another glued seam so what i'm going to do is pull this fabric up till it is flat on the chin and that seems pretty flat there let me look on the inside yeah i'm going to make another center line on this jaw i think that's going to help a lot again now i have a good spot to glue to so let me pull this up lay it as flat as i can and i'm going to start gluing it right next to that line just like we did on the back of the head now soon i'm going to get all this extra fabric out of the way once the rest of the head is covered we're not going to need all this extra yardage until we get into making the body all right now let me draw that lip line again on the inside of the fur so i'm going to just trace it down along i'm only doing it on that one side you can see the line right there now i'm gonna cut right next to this glue line here there we go now we have this half of the puppet covered and we just have to do that side so let me do the same thing trying to lay it as flat as possible over here i'll do a line of glue there and pull it flat now i'm going to repeat that same process on the other side [Music] now make sure to roll this edge so that we kind of hide the seam on the chin too and there we have the head is pretty much put together looks like i wasn't able to salvage the neck though that's okay i'm just going to cut it off into a nice little circle so that we have a nice entrance hole now it's perfect now that i have the head i want to jump right into making the foam body so i'm going to take some more couch foam here i'm going to lay this head right on top because i want the body to be slightly larger than the head so i'm just going to trace around this head for a basic shape and that's going to be a good size but the next thing i want to do is create the entrance hole so i'm going to draw a circle for the entrance hole as well you typically want this to be at least a four inch hole i'm going to cut out the inside hole first i'm going to get started off with the razor blade and then switch into the electric knife that's perfect now i'm going to cut around the outside of this line all right now that this is cut out these edges are so square i'm going to start to round it out a little bit more there we go now i'm going to smooth it all out with scissors just like before all right i think this is smooth enough for now now i'm going to get into covering it with the fur so i'm going to lay the fur out just like this and i'm going to start off by gluing a line right down the center right here i'll lay it on just like that and i'll cut this strip off so i have less to wrestle and now almost like wrapping a present i'm going to make a line of glue going along this outer edge [Music] now once that's dry i'm going to cut some slits in the top of this fabric from the top edge to about almost halfway down that's going to create little darts that i can fold into the inside of this hole [Music] and there we go there's a nice covered body for our puppet all right as you can see we are definitely getting there the next step we're going to create a fur tube going from the head down to the body now let me measure about how long i want mine to be you could have it shorter that'll make your character look younger or you could have it a bit longer that could make it look more older i'm going to have mine about right there looks like it'll be about five inches or so now let me measure the circumference of this too this is about 14 inches so i'm going to add a little bit just so i can have a seam with the glue so i did 14 and a half and i want it to be 5 inches but i'm going to give it like 7 inches so that i can trim it if i need to all right next what i'm going to do is do a glue line to create a seam on the back of this puppet by gluing it on the face of the fur here that'll allow the seam to be on the inside just like that i have a little fur fabric tube now i'm going to put this on with the seam in the back and i'm going to put this part on let's see yeah that's a good that works out well now this is going to be the tricky part is to gluing this seam onto this neck hole i would just do it little bits at a time and work your way all the way around let's give it a try [Music] [Music] here we go that looks pretty good before we move on let me tell you about skillshare skillshare is an online learning community with thousands of inspiring classes for creators you can explore new skills deepen existing passions and get lost in creativity and my favorite thing about it is it is curated specifically for learning that means there's no ads plus they're also always launching new premium classes so you can stay focused and follow wherever your creativity takes you i took an awesome class recently called video for instagram by hallease this class teaches you how to tell an engaging story in less than a minute one of the things she said in the class that resonated with me was if you can show something or convey an emotion without having to talk or show text then that shows that you're a strong storyteller there was so much value in this class a lot of these tips could even be used to write or film short puppet skits so definitely check out that class but there's a bunch of other great classes too they have classes in illustration graphic design animation and i even created my own puppet building class too my class takes you through an entire build from beginning to end including the pattern making and if you act now the first 1000 of my subscribers that click on the link in my description will get a free trial of premium membership so you can explore your creativity thank you so much to skillshare for sponsoring this video now let's get back to the build next you're going to want to create a set of arm rods if you click right here or in the link down in the description i already have a full tutorial on how to make professional arm rods for your puppet it's important to make really nice strong sturdy arm rods so that your puppet can last a long time last thing is you want an arm rod falling apart while you're trying to perform it so the first thing we're going to do with these are add the finger wires for the hands i have some 18 gauge wire right here i like to cut them off into about 10 inch lengths and now i'm going to put them in and wrap them around this little loop if you click here i also have a video on how to make hands for your puppets though you're gonna see it here it goes a little bit more in depth if you want more details there we go and that'll work for one finger and you make one of these for each finger that you want so if you want a five-fingered puppet do five but today i'm just gonna do a four finger puppet there we go and now we have these wires on the hands next i'm gonna draw out a hand so that it fits these wires i'll also use it to trace for the foam pattern too so that's a pretty good start but these fingers are a little thick let me thin it out a little bit especially since i'm not going to be sewing the fabric i want to make these fingers a little bit more skinny than i typically would that should work out pretty well if you want to skip this step of drawing out a hand i have a free hand pattern that you can download on my website make sure to check out the links below though you might have to rescale it to make it the right size depending on how big your puppet is so now that i know the shape that my hand is going to be i'm going to arrange these wires so that it fits inside of those fingers and then i'm going to hot glue the wires so that they stand still there we go and then do the same for the other one now once you're at this point you want to make sure that these aren't too long so i'm going to line it up again here on the hand and then what i'm going to do is put a little line at the top of each of these fingers so i can trim these down after i trim these i want to carefully just bend the tips around so that those sharp angles don't start poking through the finger just like that and then repeat it for the other hand and then repeat the process last i like to put a coat of hot glue on top of each of the fingers this makes them a little bit stronger and just like that these hands are now ready for foam and luckily i still have some more couch cushion left so since this is so thick i'm gonna have to cut it into a couple slices almost like bread but first let me rough it out now that i have it like this i'm gonna cut it into about one inch sections and i'll trace this hand again right here now cut them out now i'm going to cut these in half one more time i like to use the scissors for this so now what i'm going to do is sandwich this right inside there like that and the best way to do that is with spray adhesive now after we're here i'm just going to put a dot of hot glue at the tip of each of the fingers and pinch them that's also going to help those wires from not sticking through now it's time to cover these hands with fur so i just cut a strip of fabric just like this from the same fur as the body i'm going to slightly spread out these fingers a little bit that's going to make it easier to cover once i have that lined up where i want it i'm going to spray some glue on both sides on this side and on the fabric there i'm going to let that dry for just a moment and then i'll stick it down just like that and now i'm going to spray this half as well and now this side of the hand and make sure to get in between the fingers too i'm just going to do a little slice so the arm rod can slide through there we go and now i'm going to fold this whole thing in half make sure to sandwich it really good you can feel where the fingers are let me cut this extra off quick so make sure you get in there and press these fingers down really really well you'll be able to start to see the foam through it and once i see that foam through it i'm just going to cut around the fingers with my scissors now this is not the best way to make fingers especially if you're using fur but since we're not using a sewing technique this is probably the best and fastest way i could come up with now that is a pretty good little puppet hand now i'm going to do it one more time [Music] and there we have some hands for our puppet now the last step for the body before we go into adding facial features is the arms so i'm going to take another little slice off of this piece right here and cut it down into about a one inch strip now i like to make my arms about eight inches long but for this puppet i wanna give it a little bit of an elbow too so i'm gonna cut it down to seven inches long and then cut them in half before i cut them in half i'm gonna round the edges too next i'm just going to cover this foam with two tubes so here's how i measure the circumference of this i line it up at the edge roll it over and make a line right where it ended so that's how i know how much fabric i need to get around these arms and i want to leave just a little bit of space for the elbow joint and i'll draw this out so on mine this is about nine inches long and about three and a half inches wide yours might turn out a little different depending on the size of the foam you cut and now i'm going to glue them in one at a time [Music] i'm going to glue them down flat though that can make it a nice hinge for when you attach it to your puppet now let's attach it to the hands all right now we have our arms now let's attach them to the body of this puppet now you can really place this wherever you want i like to put it about a finger or two below the neckline right about there now we have our puppet completely put together the last step left is creating the facial features now if you click the link right here or down in the description i have another whole video on creating facial features for your puppet but i'm going to walk through some basics again right now a simple thing you can use for eyes are ping-pong balls these are some jumbo ping-pong balls that i'll leave linked down below now even though they have that stamp on them that's not going to interrupt this puppet because that's where i'm going to put the glue and then just stick them down like this so let me do that now all right that looks pretty good the next thing i'm going to do is add some pupils onto the puppet these are just little velvet stickers if you want to see how to make these or different pupils go ahead and click on the link right there looks pretty good in that video with the pupils too it also shows how to give your puppet really good eye focus eye focus is extremely important i argue it's the most important part of a puppet and what really brings it to life so now he looks pretty good you could stop right here but i'm also gonna add a simple nose i'm gonna carve one out of this scrap foam right here there we go i think something like that will look good but i am going to cover it with some fabric first well i'm pretty impressed myself with how this came out considering there was zero sewing in this project at all so if you completed this project i imagine this is one of the very first puppets you've ever built this is a pretty good puppet but i highly encourage you once you make a puppet like this start to get into some sewing techniques i have a video that i'll link down below on the best stitch to do for making puppets also be sure to check out my video on the best glue for making puppets spoiler alert it's not hot glue hot glue is a great craft material for making a quick little puppet like this but it is not a material used for professional building hot glue is really designed for a quick fix almost like the duct tape of glue if you want to make real professional puppets that you're going to send to clients or for a real shoot you got to use something much better so be sure to check out that video also if you don't have blocks of foam like i used with this project and you only have sheet foam you can also use the free patterns on my website i did a whole free series right here on youtube on how to build a professional puppet from scratch it's about 22 episodes long but it's all there and again if you're not versed in sewing you can use a lot of these same hot glue techniques to put that kind of puppet together too and if you make any puppets using any of my techniques i'd love to see them be sure to tag me anywhere on social media and if this project hasn't fulfilled your puppetry needs i have a ton of tutorials and puppetry news that you can find at puppetnerd.com so be sure to check that out anyway that's it for now we'll see you next time you

Channel: Adam Kreutinger

Views: 302,542

Rating: 4.9530044 out of 5

Keywords: adam, kreutinger, puppets, DIY, Pattern, free, builder, maker, cosplay, How to make, how to, muppet, muppets, how to make a puppet, How to make a muppet, tutorial, building, 101, No sew

Id: 54YroFGrbPQ

Length: 29min 54sec (1794 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 07 2021