Puppet Design Process - Head Pattern

This week I'm working on building a new puppet from scratch. In this series of posts, I'll be going through the process, detailing each step, and reflecting on improving the process for future projects.

For this project, I wanted to take inspiration from real-world animals. So, I began by searching for animals that could pair well with the puppet furs I bought at puppetpelts.com. I bought five different pink pelts of different textures and tones. For this puppet, I'll be using medium-length fur. I decided to base my design on the Wombat. Their faces are sweet, and their heads have very distinct planes, which I hope will translate into the foam well to create a defined skull shape.

I then went into Affinity and drew out my design. I wanted to exaggerate the triangular shape of the head and arms. Once I had an idea for the shape of the head, I grabbed some clay and began to sculpt out the shape I wanted. I used a method that I learned from Adam Kreutinger's youtube channel. I took small pieces of painter's tape and covered the head, making sure to overlap pieces. The last time I used this method, my pieces were too large and gapped, so this time I was careful to use pieces smaller than my fingernail. Once I had the head covered, I drew a line down the center of the face to the back of the neck. Next, I separated the head into four planes to emphasize the planes on the face and create the wide jawline. I then cut along the lines and the darts and laid the pattern flat on some paper. After tracing and photographing the image, I used the Pen Tool to trace the pattern in Affinity.

In the next blog post, I'll be constructing a test version of the head. If there is any need to adjust the head pattern, I'll be making those adjustments, and then I'll begin building the final head. Follow along for more!