Instructions for making a giant puppet and an "El Tigre" head
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What can you do with cardboard, old paper bags, cornstarch, and a stapler?
I learned so much at the recent workshop given by Donovan Zimmerman of the Paperhand Puppet Intervention and Mark Donley of the Hillsborough Arts council that I was inspired to come home and continue the giant puppet project. In this lens I'd like to lay out for you, step by step, what I've been working on.
There are two projects in this tutorial lens: the first, an "Easter Island" head as the other workshoppers called it, and the second, my try at an "El Tigre" mask as pictured here on the left.
The tiger masks were made of leather, and mine will be paper mache. And I'm not sure I'm going to be able to find any boars' bristles. But I'll do what I can.
This lens is a work in progress. Stay tuned as I keep working on these two heads and matching hands.
Easter Island Head
A roll of corrugated cardboard, and a swordpoint stapler, and we're off.
It looked sort of like a sea anenome. I slit the top and stapled the tentacles into a rounded top. End of Day One
The chinless head.
This is as much as I could get finished on the first day - just one layer of pink underlayment paper draped over crumpled newspaper stuffing. But I knew that would be enough to build on the next time. End of Day Two
All I managed to do the second Saturday was cut down the creature's neck so he had a chin, and add two layers of papier mache. Then I slung the wet head into the back of my truck and took it home. I cut the head in half and hollow it out.
I realized that the creature would be very heavy with all that cardboard and newspaper inside, so when it was dry I cut it in half and pulled out most of the cardboard and all of the stuffing. Donovan gave me a back-pack rig for my giant head.
This isn't the one he gave me, but it's similar. It's simply the frame of an old backpack (he tries to find them at the thrift stores), with a stick or piece of bamboo to suspend the head above the crowd. I add a housing for the stick that will hold the head high above the crowd.
Donovan recommended that I bolt a furring strip inside the head, mount a piece of pvc to the furring strip, and insert my puppet pole into the pvc. But because the rig he gave me had a rectangular stick instead of bamboo, I decided to build a cardboard housing and install it while the head was in two pieces.what you see in this photo: the hollowed-out cranium is at the top of the picture. The cardboard housing is glued and sewn down the back of the creature's head (I would have stapled it but didn't have a sword-point stapler yet).
Last head questions: should I paint it? Should I give it eyes?
What do you think? Making hands for the Easter Island puppet
I scale up a picture of my own hand.
I did this the old fashioned way - I drew a 1" x 1" grid on the xerox, and then drew a 2" x 2" grid on the layout paper, and followed the contours through the little squares.Then I cut out the pattern and traced it on two pieces of corrugated cardboard.
Giving the hand model three dimensions.
As Donovan showed us, I "worried" the cardboard (that means rolling and bending it this way and that so it is more flexible). In particular, I worried the fingers rounded towards me and same with the palm.Then, improvising wildly, I took toilet paper tubes and paper towel tubes and cut sections off them and glued them to the fingers with hot glue (burning myself multiple times, be more careful than I was!) to give roundness. Then I glued various bits of corrugated cardboard and empty cereal boxes to give dimension to the palm.
By the way, very important - note that in this picture I had not yet flipped over the second hand silhouette. Be SURE you don't stuff them both in the same direction or you'll have two left (or two right) hands when you're done!
Adding stuffing to the palm and fingertips.
I added a layer of loosely crumpled padded newspaper to the palm to give it still more roundness.I used an entire issue of "Smart Money magazine" to pad these hands. Best use I've gotten out of that subscription in quite a while.
First layers of papier mache
You have to be very careful with your first layer of papier mache if you're using a very fluffy layer of newspaper padding. I don't like to ball up the paper tightly, I try to make the balls as airy and light as possible. As long as they're strong enough to hold up one layer of gluey paper, that's good enough, because by the next day the dried layer will hold up the subsequent layers. Two more layers of paper mache...
I got the idea from Jane Filer to hang the hands from the rafters to work on them. They have three good layers now, so next I'll gut to remove the armature. Pulling out the stuffing (my favorite part)
I didn't wait quite long enough to slit open the hand and pull out the armature - it was still a little damp inside and so a finger tore off. No matter, I just pasted it back on. I pulled out quite a weight of cardboard and newspaper wads and then glued the hand back together. Fun! Rigging the giant street puppet
Use a recycled or handmade backpack and some lumber or pvc pipe - and string.
Donovan gave me a backpack frame with a tall furring strip (1x2 wood stick) attached to it with duct tape. I made a housing inside the giant head for the furring strip to fit into.
Then I attached pieces of 1" PVC to each hand with bolts and washers made of bottlecaps smashed flat...
... but the PVC was too short, so I took 2 left-over strips of wood (about 1/4" x 1.5" in cross-section), whittled their upper ends to fit inside the PVC pieces...
...then I drilled a hole through their bottom ends and put strings through the holes and loosely tied them to the bottom of the backpack frame.
I then tied a string to one of the wrists, fed it through a short piece of pvc attached as "shoulders" (perpendicular to the stick supporting the head, and tied it to the other wrist. This string is what the clothing fell over and it was the arm line (if the hanging fabric is long enough it will conceal the pvc and your own arms entirely).
I had a long, lightweight piece of black knitted material which I folded in half and cut a SMALL hole in, like a poncho. I hot-glued the small hole to the neck. Then I hot-glued blue sleeves to the black poncho on one side and to the wrists on the other side.
Making "El Tigre."
Here's my model.
I love these tiger masks. They're made of leather and worn by men who, to propitiate a God, hit each other over the head with knotted ropes. But where am I going to get boar bristles? Worry the cardboard...
Isn't that a great term? Make a septagon base...
After looking at my model for quite a while, i decided to go for a septagon. To make the cardboard keep its shape, I put the septagon into the bottom and glued it. The geometry of fitting two cones into a septagon! Also, cone teeth.
Here are the cones, with the forehead arch notched out of them.
Wrapping the armature.
I swathed the cardboard form in plastic bags and then added two layers of paper mache and let them dry. Adding the mouth.
The mouth is where I'll see OUT of the head, so I cut a peephole in the paper mache to see where the mouth should go. Then I cut out the whole mouth-hold.The oddness of the original "El Tigre" mouths is owing to their being made of leather. The mouth sticks straight up. I decided to get this effect with strips from a bubblewrap mailing envelope, it worked very well! I went around three times and decided that was enough.
Nose added, mouth ready for teeth!
I added some newspaper padding for a nose and plastered over it. Next step, adding teeth. Today: dentistry begins
I gave the head one more layer of paper so there would be an off-white base when I began painting, and I finished stiffening up the teeth with another layer of paper, so they're ready for insertion. Still to go: finish spots, add mirror eyes, boar's bristles??
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From the Mandalay Marionettes Theater website:
"In the Past, Myanmar Puppetry was not only for entertainment, but also a high art held in much esteem by all classes. Marionettes were a means of making people aware of current events, a medium for educating the people in literature, history and religion, display of lifestyles and customs. At the same time, they functioned as mouthpieces for the people in the days of royalty, tiny hands in state and social affairs."
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What do you think? Have you made a giant head?
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WordCustard
Feb 18, 2011 @ 11:17 am | delete
- This is pretty amazing! I've never made a giant head, just a life size one, but it looks like such a fun project.
I stopped by to see what was new from you... I hope you won't think I left the angel blessing in return for your one, the truth is I think this lens is fantastic and couldn't pass by without blessing it!
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RAND (www.RandAfricanArt.com)
Aug 8, 2010 @ 3:13 am | delete
- Great job on the Tigre mask :-) I love them and the example you pictured is one of the 4 in my collection.
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Susan AE
Feb 24, 2010 @ 9:01 am | delete
- This is so awesome! Thanks for the lens. I made a couple "Dia de los Muertos" masks a few years ago built onto bike helmets... the backpack frame concept would have been too tall for that program but I'm really looking forward to using it at some point.
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Giant puppet links
- Compañía Eva Halac
Teatro de muñecos (doll - puppet theater) in Buenos Aires, Argentina
This lens is part of Chapel Hill Fiddler's Puppets & Masks CollectionPunch and Judy • How to Make your Own Punch & Judy Dolls • Casting a plaster mold to make a paper mache head • Punch & Judy show: the other characters • Bread and Puppet Circus • How to Make a Handmade Parade • Adult Puppet Theater • Make a La Llorona paper mache mask • Scary Masks from Afar • How to make a giant puppet and an El Tigre head • The giant head masks of Jane Filer • Make a space alien head from papier mache • Creep masks for Halloween inspiration • See all the puppet lenses at once • The scary recycled puppets of artist Michel Nedjar
by ChapelHillFiddler
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