Making Puppet Body using Liquid Latex
Health and Safety - Latex can very commonly cause allergic reactions - it is important to test before you being using large amounts. If does get in eyes, simply wash out with water or at the nearest eye cleaning kit and seek medical advise.. Its also very difficult to get out of clothes so overalls or long sleeves should be worn.
- Plaster mould
- Liquid latex
- Old brush or sponges
- Armature
- Foam sheets/sponge
- Spray mount
After making my plaster mould, I started to experiment with making my puppet body out of latex. A lot of tutorials I looked at recommended doing layers of latex in the mould before pouring a thicker layer into the pour hole. I found it easiest to pour a small amount of latex in and then use a sponge to cover all the surface. Once latex dries it doesn't easily come off of tools or clothing so I made sure to use old sponges or brushes that would be thrown out after use. Sponges worked best as they created an even layer with no brush strokes. Its important to let each layer dry before doing another otherwise it can cause uneven patches where the silicone hasn't completely cured. I purchased a bottle of liquid latex of Amazon for £5 which was skin coloured. This saved me a lot of time as I then didn't have to mix up my own colour.
My first attempt was done with about 3 layers of the pre coloured latex. As I didn’t have a huge amount of the coloured latex, I used a white latex after doing a few layers. In total I did about 3 layers of the pink and 3 of the white. I thought this would be enough as I hadn't really used the latex before and didn't know exactly how it would cure. I did find that large pools of the latex filled the deeper sections of the mould such as the belly and breasts. After I let all these layers dry, I then ripped up some pieces of wadding and laid them on top of the latex skin. This is to give the body a bit of substance and to stop the body from looking flat. The armature was then laid inside these wadding layers and covered with a light layer of silicone. Once I had coated the outer edges of both halves of the mould, I then closed the mould together and left this for about 15 minutes. The images below show my results.
I found that the wadding wasn't strong enough to keep the body shape and so I will need to find another material that is slightly stronger; maybe foam or sponge. Also the sides of the mould were rather thin from where the latex dripped down. Next time I will do some more layers around the edges. The parts that worked best were the parts where the latex had created thicker pools as they were more sturdy and durable. This is something to bare in mind when doing this again - the more layers the better. The latex seemed to hold very well when I bend the arms and legs which is good. It didn't seem to tear but did however fold and flatten on the areas that weren't very thick. To solve this, I will do a lot more layers of the latex so that its more of a solid form. The two pieces seemed to stick together very well which is good but I do need to get some smaller scissors to trim off the excess latex around the outside. There is a solvent that can be purchased that melts away the excess however I dont really want to use this as it may eat through the join and makes holes. Once I’ve trimmed down all the edges I will do another couple of layers of latex to seal everything in.
My second attempt was done using a similar technique but this time I sponged on more layers of liquid latex. After doing around 6 layers of the pink latex, I then did about 6 layers of latex that had been thickened with baby powder. This took longer to dry but really added a thicker coat and strengthened the skin. This time to pad out the body and stop it from creasing so much, I cut up pieces of foam sheet and spray mounted them onto the armature. By adding this layer, it will hopefully fill out the latex skin. I then inserted the armature into the latex skin, closed the two piece mould up and poured more latex through the pour hole to strengthen the body.
