There is no answer to the question, “how do you make a puppet?” Mostly because there are so many versions of a puppet that can be made. Shadow puppets, hand puppets, foam puppets, rod puppets, the list goes on. And each kind of puppet is made from a different list of materials constructed in a different manner to create a unique form particular to the artist's vision. “There aren't really rules,” explained Michael Bush, a graduate student at the University of Connecticut puppetry program. Bush is currently earning his thesis by producing the play, Icarus. Bush is basically in charge of the entire play, which requires making (or assigning others to make) A LOT of puppets. According to Bush, there are more than 10 different kinds of puppets in the play, and 55 puppets in total. Bush particularly takes pride in the birds that were made for the play. The structure behind the birds is fairly basic for a puppet, but it was getting the birds to fly that was challenging. “No matter how much you know about puppets, you've got to start from scratch every time because each puppet is different,” said Bush who has never encountered a problem like this before. First, Bush made an oil based sculpture of what he wanted the birds to look like. He then used the sculpture to make a mold. There are two molds; one for the first half of the bird, the other for the second half of the bird. Both molds are made out of plaster, but one side is cured and the other is not, so that they don't stick together.
It takes about four hours to make the mold, and then another three hours to make the puppet from the mold. The longer the bird sits in the mold, the thicker it gets. When the puppet is ready to be removed, Bush pours out the excess liquid and pops out the puppet. It then hangs overnight to dry. The next morning, the rough edges of the puppet are shaved off with an Exacto knife and sanded until smooth. Once the bird is dry, Bush sticks a dowel into the body of the bird. The dowel is held in place with a screw, and a washer is added to keep the screw from popping through the body. “When building puppets, there's a log of strain. You have to do everything to reinforce it,” said Bush. The screw and washer are just there to reinforce the structure. To hide the washer from visibility, it is covered with muslin and blended into the bird's body. A layer of dry brush paint is then placed over it. A spring is made by placing medal in a vice and shaping it into a coil. The wire is then inserted into a hole in the dowel and held in place with glue and epoxy. A new wire is added to the old one using a solder to melt the medal into a pool of liquid, which then hardens, joining the two wires together. The second set of wire is then bent into the shape of a wing and covered with raffia to give the illusion of feathers. 
The next part was the hardest for Bush: making the birds fly. Bush wanted to make a sort of clapping mechanism, but wasn't sure how to do it. After a two and a half hour period of trial and error, Bush finally realized that by removing his thumb from the top portion of the wire, the birds wings were free to flap about. “Every single puppet teaches you something for the next,” said Bush, “It's just about being creative and going with the flow.”
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