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At many steps along the way (materials, joints, etc), you can choose how complicated you want to get. The King’s Cousin is the simplest puppet, with just one working joint. Queen Jullanar is the most advanced (mostly because her wrists and elbows are very tiny). Also, please feel free to resize these to as big or as tiny as your heart desires. Bigger is easier, smaller is cuter.
Materials
You can go a few routes here: You can print on regular printer paper, then glue the paper to something a little stiffer (I like manila folders), or you can print directly onto card stock (definitely easier).
Once you have printed your puppets, it’s time to cut them out. This is the most time-consuming part, so be patient! A sharp exacto blade will yield the best results (use a cutting surface and please be careful), but if you don’t want to outline every curve and notch, that’s fine too. You DO want to be very precise when you cut out anything around the joints, so don’t skimp there. Otherwise, it will be hard to place things correctly.
Assembly
Overlap the joints on top of each other. For example, put the King’s Cousin’s head over his body so that it looks like the reference image. Find a good pivot point so that he can nod his head naturally, making sure you’re centering that pivot point on the neck stub. And then… stab away!
For this part, you want to make a small, complete puncture hole, all the way through both layers. Use an unfolded paperclip, a sharp pencil… anything small, sharp, and stabby. Again, use a cutting surface beneath (definitely don’t hold this in your hands while you’re doing the stabbing part).
When it comes to the actual hinge, again, it’s up to you! You can use tiny brads like these. You can use thread (and the needle is your hole-punch), as in this tutorial. If you want to get very fancy, you can use a fine-gauge wire and needle-nosed pliers.
Finishing touches
Once you’re done with that joint, you may have a visible brad head, coiled wire, or other bit of weirdness on your puppet now. If you’re into the industrial look, I think it works. If you’d rather it look a little bit more finished, just reprint that part of the puppet, cut it out, and glue it on top of the first one. Voila! Just make sure not to glue onto the actual joint itself, or you’ll impede the motion.
So are these double-sided…?
They can be! Again, this is a Choose Your Level of Complexity activity. Single-sided is easiest, but you can double-side if you like. Queen Jullanar doesn’t do two-sided very well, but feel free to play around!
Think of each layer like a sandwich. Again, returning to King’s Cousin, glue his two bodies together first, then sandwich his head(s) on either side, gluing them together everywhere but the joint part. If you’re making the Vazir, you’ll glue together his moving arms and heads, keep those on the inside, and then his body will go on the outside. For the camel, I like putting the middle part of his neck on the inside, and sandwiching his heads/main bodies on the outside.
Use logic/your best judgment/turn to someone and ask “hey which looks better?” It’s all part of the puppet-making process.
What if I have questions?
Shoot a message to lacykatherine (at) gmail.com with “Advent calendar” in the subject heading, and don’t be shy with the pictures. During the run of the Advent Calendar (that is, up until Christmas Day), I’ll get back to you within 24 hours.
