The Puppet who lived

School is nearly back in session around here and that means it's time to prepare for our after-school programs. For me, that largely means planning our puppet program. I've been working on examples, making sure our planned puppets will work for our standard group. One I wanted to try this year is the Coaster Creature from the book Puppet Mania!, a simple puppet using basic craft foam shapes but with a lot of room for personalization. This is the puppet I came up with.

I'm pretty happy with my Harry Potter puppet and it lead me to two conclusions.
1. We will definitely be making Coaster Creatures. They're easy enough for little kids to make and operate but can be complicated if a kid is willing to put in the time.
2. I will definitely discourage the kids from making recognizable characters. It's very difficult to make a familiar face fit the necessary shape and the curve of the puppet makes a strange distortion in the face. I spent probably half an hour drawing and redrawing my pattern just to get it this recognizable and the features are still out of proportion.