Tag Archives: puppet making tutorials

More New Fairytale Shadow Puppets…

Posted on by Collette Knowles
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Here are more progress puppets for our upcoming show “Fairytales of Wit, Wisdom and Witchcraft” (CLICK HERE to find out more). I have overshot my initial estimate for how long it would take me to make all the puppets, but if a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well and taking a little more time, I feel.

We have here now the puppets for “Goldilocks and the Three Bears”, “The Three Billy Goats Gruff”, “Little Red Riding Hood” and a few puppets for “Chicken Licken” or “Chicken Little” as I believe it is better known in America.

As I said in my previous post, (CLICK HERE TO VIEW) I have been using cereal and pizza boxes for environmental reasons and to show how much is possible using recycled materials. The cutting out has been with a combination of scissors, craft knife and Indonesian Shadow Puppet Chisels for some of the cut out details.

Making an articulated Goldilocks puppet that will be able to sit down in chairs…
Starting a Baby/Little Bear Puppet…
Mother/Middle sized bear started…
Finished Little/Baby and Middle sized/Mother Bear
Starting Big/Father Bear…
3 finished Bears together
Big Billy Goat Gruff…
Finished Big Billy goat and starting Middle sized Goat…
Middle sized goat and Little Goat started
The body is good but the head is too small, so a larger one is made
3 Billy Goats Gruff
Middle sized Goat has finishing cut out touches added
Starting the Troll…
Trial of elasticated jaw mech.
Drawing a Granny to go with Wolf and Red Riding Hood already complete…
Wolf’s head blown up on photocopier to make large articulated wolf’s head for swallowing people whole/talking
finished head with Granny drawing and puppet making list…
Granny roughly cut out with wolf in bed drawing…
2nd Wolf Head with Granny’s cap and glasses created by drawing round the first one
Separate bed and Granny head and bloated snoozing wolf started…
Snoozing Wolf on bed
Snoozing wolf with articulated tummy
Top half of Woodcutter
Complete Woodcutter with axe and scissors
Woodcutter and snoozing wolf
Fox for Chicken Licken
Fox, Chicken Licken and Acorn

If you have a question or a comment about the puppets do please put it on the post, I always to try to reply 🙂

I am taking bookings for this show and accompanying workshops from August 2025 onwards. It is particularly suitable for schools and libraries and fits in nicely with the light and shadow and traditional tales (fairy tales) topic.

If you need a show or a workshop sooner than this, do get in touch as I have many existing shows and workshops that we can do to meet your needs. Just get in touch and I will be happy to supply quotes and talk to you about your needs/event. We have puppet shows and workshops for indoors and outdoors, festivals, community events, theatres, youth theatres etc. CLICK HERE to contact me 🙂

Theatres or theatre companies please get in touch for puppet commissions, training, residencies, collaborations etc.

To stay up to date with this project and all my news, please subscribe for the newsletter.

If you want to see Rough Magic Theatre live, our Mad Hatter’s Tea Party show will be coming to Congleton Food Festival again this coming Sunday. More details on the WHERE YOU CAN SEE ME page.

This coming Saturday a long awaited new “Al & Kai’s Faboo News” episode will be premiering on You Tube. Subscribe to channel so you don’t miss it (@faboonews). Visit FabooNews.com to find out more about this fantastic puppet based positive news show for families.

Some Sneaky Peeks of Work in progress on “The Secret Keeper” and a Thank-you to Beverley Puppet Festival from Puppet Dracula.

Posted on by Collette Knowles
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Here are some of the initial designs for characters on our new show “The Secret Keeper”.  This is our main character, (the “Secret Keeper” from the title).  He has a library of crime related books which make him an ideal person to act as detective for our murder mystery series.

You will note that he is wearing mismatched glasses frames (one square, one round).  This is because they do not have the resources/skills to create new pairs of glasses; so they cobble together what lenses they can find from different sets of glasses (whatever they can find that is mostly okay for their eyes).

We wanted him to have a gun/guns for a weapon.  The future in our story is a dangerous place where people have to protect their resources from others, (who might try to take them) so being heavily armed is the norm.

We are assuming that as a lot of skills and resources have been lost there would not be much in the way of futuristic “new made” weaponry.  They are largely re-purposing things that they find.  So we came up with the idea of a nail gun using a pressurised gas canister as a weapon.  Electric battery operated ones would not be a reliable option.

Our main character’s daughter is his bodyguard so we came up with a very heavily armoured/armed look for her.  She is designed to look intimidating to others so that (in many cases) a physical confrontation can be avoided.

She has a broadsword and a crossbow which presumably have been reclaimed from an old country house or a museum collection.  Bones of cows would be an abundant resource to make things out of so we decided to stick a cow skull on her shoulder for added intimidation factor.

She has another hidden side which is quite fond of delicate girly things and pink (the toy unicorn on her helmet is not quite so hidden).  We decided on a double french plait and lots of butterfly clips when she removes her helmet to reflect this.

We will be starting to post subscriber only content on this blog soon, where you will get to see more “behind the scenes” content like this.  This will include pictures, commentary and some videos too.

Meanwhile for those who haven’t seen it already here is my “Puppet Dracula” sending a big thank-you to the Beverley Puppet Festival for the prizes I won for making him.  CLICK HERE to see the “making of” post for him and CLICK HERE for the original Puppet Dracula video.