Custom puppets

Custom Puppets Made to Order

If you’re looking for a custom puppet built to your specification, our puppet makers at Picture to Puppet can help. We also produce bulk orders of up to 50 puppets made to order. All of our bespoke puppets are hand made in Edinburgh to your exact specification. Our unique custom puppets can be based on picture, photo or description. We create likenesses of people or animals from photographs, build character puppets based on illustrations and design puppets to spec.

Ours is a highly personal bespoke service, and we can make your puppet to your exact specification. We offer a huge range of fabrics and unlimited sizes and styles to suit your needs. We’re highly skilled in capturing illustrative style and personal charisma 3D form.

We specialise in hand, rod and glove puppets, but work on many other types of puppet as well. 

The price of our custom puppets varies according to the complexity of your design, but guideline prices are detailed below. Get in touch via our contact form, or email team@picturetopuppet.co.uk for an exact quote.

Custom Hand Puppets

Hand puppets:

Full body puppet/prototype – From £330

Half body Hand Puppet – From £280

Ask about reduced prices for multiples of the same design. We can usually offer a 25%-45% discount for multiples.

Likeness Puppets

Transform A Photo Of Someone Into A Lookalike Puppet.

See Examples Of Our Likeness Puppets

Our famous likeness puppets can be seen on stage and screen all over the world!

Optional extras include blinking eyes, moving eyebrows and wiggling ears!

  • Available as hand puppet (from £350)
  • Or a glove puppet (from £230)

Custom Glove Puppets

Glove puppets:

  • have soft glove bodies
  • can have soft fabric heads or sculpted clay heads
  • have movable heads and arms
  • are a maximum of 45cm tall.

  • Designing and making a single puppet/prototype – from £150
  • For a quantity of 10 – 50  – From £40 apiece

Optional Extras (hand puppets only):

Blink

Manual (lever operated) - £120 Animatronic - £350

Movable Eyebrows

Manual (lever operated) - £50 Animatronic - £145

Glove Hands

£25 per hand

Tattoos for puppets

Tattoo Sleeves

£35 per sleeve

Moving Ears

Manual - £60 Animatronic - £155

Arm Rods

£5 apiece

Puppet Eyelashes

3D Eyelashes

- £15

Props for our Custom Puppets

We often make and source props for puppets as well as the puppets themselves. These may include glasses, swords, sheilds, wheelchairs, hockey sticks, footballs, the list is endless. We use a variety of materials from plastics to woods. Get in touch if you’re in need of a custom puppet prop!

 Other Types Of Bespoke Puppets And Toys

Contact Picture to Puppet

If you can dream it, we can make it. We get asked to make marionettes, mascot costumes, jack in the boxes, finger puppets… We’re always keen for a new challenge, so if you’re looking for something weird and wonderful that’s not listed here, give us a shout!

Get in touch to chat about your requirements.

 Timescale For Custom Puppets

Our standard lead time for custom builds is about 4-6 weeks. We also offer a 1-2 week speed build option which is 20% of your total order cost.

How To Order 

Contact Picture to Puppet

You can fill out a quote request form here, or alternatively email team@picturetopuppet.co.uk with details of your idea. You can also write to us.

 

Custom Soft Toys

Looking for a soft toy? Visit Custom Soft toys

Custom Soft Toys by Picture to Puppet

How Our Custom Puppets Are Made

 All of our bespoke puppets are hand made to order in Edinburgh by our small team of designer puppet makers. Here is a bit about the process.

Design Phase

As all of our puppets are made to order, our we begin by chatting with each customer about their requirements. The more information you’re able to give us about your requirements, the closer we’ll be able to get to your vision. 

The next step is drawing the character in question out full size on a big piece of paper. We then cut a pattern out of paper before transferring it onto foam and fabric. For each of our bespoke puppets, we search widely for the best possible materials for your project and supply each customer with a selection of swatches to look over. If nothing that’s available is close enough, we can sometimes dye or print a new fabric. Let us know if you’ve got a particular preference regarding fabrics or textures for your custom puppet. 

Puppet Design

Initial Structure

Our custom hand puppets often have foam head structures that we carve and sculpt to resemble your character. No two skulls are quite the same; each one is uniquely made. We make fabric skins to fit the skull exactly. 

Once we have got the puppet’s structure built, we fine tune and adjust it until the size and shape are just right.

Puppet Eyes

Puppet Eyes

The facial features for custom muppets can be either stitched or 3D plastic. Our stitched eyes can be very detailed and are appliqued or embroidered on. Our hand painted plastic eyes can produce a more humerous effect, and we often use these for cartoon characters with round eyes. We paint them from inside and embed them into sockets carved into the skull. 

Moving Mouths

Our comfortable and durable moving mouth mechanism is something we have perfected over many years. We make each mouth to size for our custom hand puppets. The mouths are reinforced with hard plastic and fitted into the head. We line it with a soft fabric and tape it to give maximum comfort and leverage to the user. 

Puppet that looks like me

Our hand puppets have a movable mouth by default. In addition, we offer blinking eyes, movable eyebrows, moving ears and moving eyeballs. We offer both manual and animatronic mechanisms. We make each one individually made to fit the puppet. 

Often the skull needs to be reinforced to support the weight of the mechanism. You can find out more about our range of optional extras here. Let us know before placing your order what facial mechanisms you would like. 

Opening And Positioning

There are a number of places the opening for your hand can be located in your hand puppet. By default we would put it either at the back of the neck or at the lower back. Let us know if you have a preference – we’re always happy to accommodate. Where the opening should be ideally placed depends on how you would like to use the puppet. 

Puppet Costumes

The clothing for our puppets we often  make ourselves, or sometimes we source and alter children’s clothes to fit. Our team of costumiers who can make anything from miniature regency ballgowns to puppet spacesuits – just ask! We can add a custom print to your puppet’s costume.

Custom Puppet Costumes

Hair For Puppets

We make hair in a variety of ways, depending on the style required. For short hair, we often use fur fabric of various lengths. For long hair, we either use synthetic wigs or make wool wigs. We spend a lot of time styling each puppet’s hair to get it as close as possible to the image. We also offer removable and interchangeable wigs, which can be held on with velcro.

Specific markings or tattoos we do by hand using a wide range of print and dying techniques. 

Puppet Props

We make props for our bespoke puppets from all sorts of materials, before varnishing and painting them. We also source ready made props in many cases. Common requests include swords, shields, water pistols wheelchairs, sunglasses, bags, you name it, we do it. These are normally visual aids and not functional unless otherwise specified. 

Finishing

Finally we put all this together and put our finished custom puppet to the test! We photograph them and post them off to their new homes (which is often a bit of a wrench)! We often get attached to our creations, so we love it when customers keep in touch and let us know what the puppets are up to, and particularly to see pictures and videos of the puppets doing their jobs!