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A definition of puppetry. What’s a puppeteer?
A list of all types of puppets and a glossary of terms
Four sites you should bookmark
Where to find inspiration and ideas?

Each fortnight I post a question related to puppetry. It’s up to you to figure out the answer, and the first person to guess correctly gets a shout-out on the site. There’s only one rule: you have to post a citation for your answer, and it can’t be Wikipedia (yes, you can use this website instead ). Let’s face it, Wiki just makes it too easy for people… The answer and winner will be revealed on each following Friday (ie. at the end of this week).

This week’s question was:

What does the ‘three piece head’ method refer to?

Surprisingly there were no answers sent in to me this week, which is a pity because last week’s kind of leads into this one. If the ‘nip and tuck’ method mentioned last week referred to cutting and folding foam, the ‘three piece head’ method refers to carefully patterning and constructing foam heads using three pieces: each one forms a quarter of a sphere, with the fourth quarter being the hole where you fit your hand. A good diagram for this is Billy D Fuller’s on PuppetsandStuff.com. Note that the gap between quarters 1 and 3 is where you would put your hand; the gaps between quarters 2 and 3 is the mouth. See this diagram as well. (Billy has many other diagrams and patterns available to view in his gallery so do spend some time there!)

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Each fortnight I post a question related to puppetry. It’s up to you to figure out the answer, and the first person to guess correctly gets a shout-out on the site. There’s only one rule: you have to post a citation for your answer, and it can’t be Wikipedia (yes, you can use this website instead ). Let’s face it, Wiki just makes it too easy for people… The answer and winner will be revealed on each following Friday (ie. at the end of this week).

This week’s question was:

What does the ‘nip and tuck’ method refer to?

And the winner with the sole, and correct, answer is… Whole Ideas!

They tweeted:

It is a method of foam puppet building featured in The Foam Book. You bunch the foam and then snip away what you don’t need.

This is almost exactly what I was going to write. The ‘nip and tuck’ method can also be considered the ‘cut and fold’ method. That is, you cut away foam where you don’t need it (like making darts in dressmaking), or folding the foam over on itself to create facial features. This is a way of making a puppet without using a pattern, as well as giving more detailed features than you might not otherwise get. Good visual examples of this technique are shown at A Puppet A Week, Sonny Vegas, and Jakarta Puppets.

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Each fortnight I post a question related to puppetry. It’s up to you to figure out the answer, and the first person to guess correctly gets a shout-out on the site. There’s only one rule: you have to post a citation for your answer, and it can’t be Wikipedia (yes, you can use this website instead ). Let’s face it, Wiki just makes it too easy for people… The answer and winner will be revealed on each following Friday (ie. at the end of this week).

This week’s question is:

What is the name used to refer to the handle on a marionette?

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Each fortnight I post a question related to puppetry. It’s up to you to figure out the answer, and the first person to guess correctly gets a shout-out on the site. There’s only one rule: you have to post a citation for your answer, and it can’t be Wikipedia (yes, you can use this website instead ). Let’s face it, Wiki just makes it too easy for people… The answer and winner will be revealed on each following Friday (ie. at the end of this week).

This week’s question was:

Why is the Japanese form of puppetry called ‘bunraku’?

No one sent me an answer this week… so I guess it’s up to me to provide it!

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