Body Parts I: Creating Puppet Patterns

The first step in building the Br.Thomas puppet was to create patterns for each of the body parts that would later be cast in flexible silicone rubber.

The images immediately below are a detail of a rough armature used to sculpt a hand and a detail of the finished hand pattern.  The beautiful thing about silicone rubber is that every wrinkle, bump and fingernail you see in the finished pattern will show up with amazing accuracy in the final puppet!

To insure all these pieces would come together as a whole I created a new sculpt exactly 80% to scale of the original makette.

From there I was able to make a mold . . .

and cast as many plastic bodies as I needed to cannibalize for the individual parts.

After that it was simply a matter of sanding, fitting and shaping until all of the body parts were ready for their own individual molds. . .

but that’s another post. 🙂

Tags | Body Parts, Br. Thomas, Casting, Fabrication, Puppet Making