Grade 9 Marionette Puppet - Max's Soccor World Cup Supporter Vusi Vuvuzela

Being twins, Max got the same brief as Connor regarding the creation of a puppet (see other post).  He decided on a marionette rather than a rod puppet due to his puppet needing to be more moveable.

We used a polystyrene ball as the base for the head and then used paper mache' and paper pulp to create the features. You need to make a whole through the middle of the head and push through a piece of string.

Once dry, the head was painted and features added. The hair was created in the same way as Connor's puppet, only using black paint rather than grey.  We made a short neck in the same way we created the arms.  Be sure to glue the top of the neck onto the bottom of the head though or it will spin independently which is annoying.

Max made the legs and arms using string and rolled up strips of newspaper.  You need two 'cigars' per arm and two per leg.  These will be tied together at the end.  The arms will be shorter 'cigars' than the legs. Paint them in your desired colour.

To make the body we used scrunched up newspaper and packaging tape.  Make sure to tape in pieces of strings in areas where the legs, arms and head can be attached later.

We made the clothing out of scraps of material.  The black shorts were attached using straight pins stuck into the body.  It's easier to dress the body first and then attach the arms and legs by tying the strings together.

We made the hands from brown felt.  Again you need to tie string to these in order to attach them.  If you cut four hands and glue the string inside two stuck together, it seems to work. His vuvuzela is a cotton reel from overlocking machine thread.  His hat or macaraba was a toy hat that we painted and added a South African flag to. We drilled a hole through it so the string from the head can fit through.

The boots were cut out from egg boxes following the shape we thought looked good. We painted these black and then attached them to the legs using black electrical tape.  Quick and easy.

The marionette driving mechanism is made from dowel rods. One down the center and two diagonally across.  The front one is slightly shorter than the back one.  Hopefully you can see from the first picture how we did it.  We then attached strings from the different areas of the body to the driving rods. In hindsight we should have attached the leg strings on the thighs rather than the shin area, but you live and learn.