How To Make Shadow Puppets!

For the Puppets
posterboard
clear contact paper
scissors
pencil
thick, yet bendable, wire
duct tape
wire clippers
needle nose pliers
hot glue gun and glue sticks
hobby knife
brad clips - if you want your puppet to have 1 or more movable parts

For the Stage
a white sheet (to project the shadows on)
one or two bright lights
thumb tacks or push pins

1. Draw the puppet's outline
Draw the outline of your puppet on a piece of posterboard. Make your puppet large, so it can easily be seen from a distance! All you really need is the basic outline of your puppet. There's no need to draw a lot of details inside your puppet since those details won't be seen by the audience anyway, but you can include a hole for an eye (or eyes) and other things like that, if you'd like.

2. Create movable parts, if desired.
If you'd like for your puppet to have a movable part, such as a mouth that opens and closes, wings that flaps, or a tail that wags, you'll need to draw, and cut out, that part separately, and later attach it with a brad clip. I recommend only creating one movable part per puppet, at least for the first several puppets you make. Having several movable parts on a single puppet makes it harder to maneuver the puppet and takes more skill.

Fox Puppet With Movable Mouth

Fox Puppet Parts

Eagle wing

Eagle Body

Eagle Puppet

3. Cut out your shadow puppet.

4. Give your puppet a double layer of poster board.
Place your shadow puppet on top of another piece of poster board. Draw around it and cut that out too. Then glue the two together. This not only makes a studier puppet that will last longer, it also makes it easier to keep all parts of the puppet touching the sheet during the performance, and allows less light to shine though, thus creating a darker shadow.

5. Cover both sides of your puppet (and any small parts too) with clear contact paper.

6. Attach any movable parts.
Use the hobby knife (with adult supervision!) to make a tiny hole in the puppet, and another one in the movable part, then connect them with a brad clip. Make sure the hole is large enough to allow the brad clip to to turn easily.

7. Cut and bend the wires.
Cut a piece of wire about a foot and a half long. Use the needle nose pliers to bend the end of the wire into a curved hook, and then bend the curved hook so that it's perpendicular to the rest of the wire.

Second, bend the small hook perpendicular to the rest of the wire.

First, bend the wire into a small hook.

8. Attach the wires.
Hot glue the curved and bent hook to the back of the puppet. After the glue has hardened, cover it with duct tape to hold the wire in place even more securely.

If your puppet has a movable part, you'll need to also attach a curved, bent wire to the movable part. (Very small movable parts often don't work for this reason. They must be big enough to allow room for the wire!)

9. Make a handle.
Make a handle at the place where your hand will hold the puppet by wrapping duct tape around the wire. You can also bend the wire some (as shown below), if it makes it easier to manage the puppet.

10. Now practice working your puppet some!
Get use to the motions needed to move your puppet's mouth, tail, etc. Sometimes it's necessarily to remove the wires and reposition them in a new way in order to get the best control of your puppet.

1.The Support.
Our homeschool group had two large movable pegboards on stands that we were able to stretch a sheet between for our stage. It worked perfectly for our needs!

If you happen to have a puppet stage, that works too - just cover the opening with a small sheet or other piece of white fabric.

We've also just stretched a sheet across a corner of a room before, securing it on each wall with a few pushpins.

2. The Sheet.
No matter what you use to support the sheet, you want the sheet or fabric to be thick enough that the puppeteers won't be seen, but thin enough that the puppets will!

Also, try to pull the sheet fairly taunt. The puppets won't show up as well if there are lots of wrinkles and folds in the fabric.

3. The Light.
Set up a light on the same side of the sheet that the puppeteers will stand. If possible, place the light between the puppets and the puppeteers so that only the puppets will make shadows on the sheet. You may find that two lights, both behind the sheet but one each side of the stage, may produce better shadows.

If you want to impress your audience, rehearse your puppet show several times following your script, before you invite your audience to watch! When saying your lines, remember to speak extra loudly, as your voice must travel through the sheet! If you'd like, have a narrator stand on the same side of the sheet as the audience, and tell the story as the puppets act it out.

Puppets, from left to right: Boar, Eagle, Alligator, Bat, Crane.

(Note: There were several others children and puppets in our performance too.)

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