Realistic skin

Furao

Hi

I'm making a dinosaur puppet for a performance at my preschool. 

Please help me how to make dinosaur skin to be realistic when touched by children.
The puppet is made of sponge and is controlled by hand.

Chris Ellerby

Hi Furao,

You can carve the foam surface of your puppet to look like dinosaur skin (elephant skin and reptile skins are often used as reference depending on the style you are going for), then coat it with a few layers of liquid latex that you pigment with acrylic paint to get your desired color.

This lesson has some foam texturing techniques that would work on puppets:
https://www.stanwinstonschool.com/tutorials/foam-fabrication-texturing-techniques-tutorial

And our "How To Make A Dinosaur" lesson covers some painting and finishing techniques for foam dinosaurs in part 3:
https://www.stanwinstonschool.com/tutorials/make-a-dinosaur-t-rex-foam-fabrication-part-three

You may also like the other parts in that series as they cover creating dinosaur details in foam, just at a larger scale.

Our "Garage Monsters" lesson series also covers creating a dinosaur-like puppet using lots of texturing and painting techniques.

https://www.stanwinstonschool.com/tutorials/garage-monsters

Hope those help!

/Chris

Furao

thanks for your reply
What foam do you think to choose?
Regular upholstery foam or EVA

Chris Ellerby

Upholstery foam is a bit softer and works best for moving parts or building up larger forms.  If you need sharp details or rigid forms you can use EVA.  Both can be used in a single puppet.

/Chris