Lady Fromage Rod Puppet, Part 7

I'm using gasket rubber to make Lady Fromage's mouth pallet. Gasket Rubber is a good material for puppet mouths because it's light weight, strong and fairly flexible. You can find gasket rubber at your local auto supply store.

B.A.R.K. Production Journal: The Grip, Step 1

Now that the puppet head is coming along I'm going to begin to build the mouth. Since the grip must go inside the muzzle, I'll be doing that first. To make the grip, I'm using a fourth type of foam. It is super high density and called L200.

1) With an exacto carefully cut two pieces of gasket rubber. This gives the pallet strength and form. The gasket rubber should be big enough to support your fingers and thumb, but not so large that it covers the whole pallet - keeping it small increases the mouth's flexibility.

2) Next cut two pieces of L200 to about half an inch in thickness and glue them with Barge to the gasket rubber. Make sure foam is thick enough to get a hold of, but not so thick that It's difficult to grip.

3) Cut two pieces of light weight cotton fabric about a half an inch bigger than the gasket rubber.

B.A.R.K. Production Journal: Putting the Head Together

The foam shapes are cut out and ready to be glued together. I'm using Barge Cement, and I'm taking the proper safety precautions. To glue foam pour out a little Barge onto a piece of cardboard - using a small about at a time will limit your exposure to it's harmful fumes. With a small piece of foam dab a thin layer of glue onto the two foam shapes you are gluing together and let dry for about 30 seconds.



Once the glue is dry press the foam together, being careful to keep the top and bottom flush.



Here are the three individual shapes that will make up the puppets head. Right now the rounded ends of the cheeks look pointer than I would have liked, and I may need to adjust this later. I'll keep them as is for now, and see if adding the fur gives me the shape I was looking for.



There, the cheeks are glued to the head, and the cat puppet is beginning to take shape.



I'm cutting a circle from a sheet of high density, half inch foam to create the top of the puppet's head. The higher density foam will help the head hold it's shape.



To keep the round shape on the bottom I'm using a thin piece of gasket rubber glued in place with contact cement.