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Materials to make a puppet. Using recycled materials
Where to buy puppet supplies in Australia?
Where to find inspiration and ideas?

I thought it was about time I rewrote this article as my original one is no longer as up-to-date as I’d like it to be. I’ve not only listed the various common glues that I and other puppeteers use, but also added in a little bit about figuring out what glue to use with what materials. Sometimes you may not know what glue you need, so I’ve got a great suggestion for working that out. And there’s quite a bit on glues for foam as well.

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As mentioned in my short post about what materials to use when making a puppet, there’s no hard and fast rules as to what to use when building a puppet. However, there are many things that tend to be favourites of puppet makers and the following will list a few suggestions for you.

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This is about screens not the puppets themselves. For info on the materials for the puppets, go here.

I’ve been getting a couple of emails lately about the different types of fabrics used in shadow puppet screens. As in my tutorial [link to be added], I discuss predominantly using silk (or bisilk, which is cheaper). So I thought I’d post my responses here for everyone else to read too. This is probably the beginning of a new category of articles: ‘your questions answered’. I’ll not go out of my way to seek questions, but if you do email me, I might just put the answer here (which isn’t to say I’ll not reply to your email of course). Names and personal info removed/changed and posted with permission of the author. Questions are in block quotes, my response is below.

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As mentioned in my short post about what materials to use when making a puppet, there’s no hard and fast rules as to what to use when building a puppet. However, shadow puppets generally stick to the basics: something to create a silhouette with (usually a flat card or paper material), plus something for joints, and of course the rods to operate the puppet with. Even though these materials may seem limited, you can actually push the boundaries quite a bit, as I explain below. The following is split into sections: the puppet itself; joints; and rods. A separate post about materials for screens is here [link to be added].

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