How a Puppet Is Made

The hide is soaked in water until it is supple. It is then stretched on a frame of bamboo or wood, tied with cord all round, and pulled tighter little by little until it is taut and flat.

It dries on the frame. Drying under tension is what keeps the sheet flat and stops it from curling later.

While still on the frame, the hide is scraped with a scraping knife: the hair on one side, the remains of flesh and fat on the other, a little at a time, until it is equally thick everywhere.

Scraped hide is ivory yellow and slightly translucent. Once dry, the surface is smoothed so that it can be drawn on.

The hide comes off the frame and the figure is drawn on it. Carvers usually trace a pattern from an existing puppet or drawing, so that size and shape follow the conventions: the height of the body, the set of the shoulders, the headdress, the stance of the legs.

Not only the outline is drawn, but also the inner lines that will guide the carving and the painting. The two arms are drawn apart from the body.

The hide is laid on a block of hard wood (pandhukan) and pierced with a tatah, a small chisel struck with a wooden mallet (ganden). A carver owns dozens of tatah with different blades, straight, curved or round, each for one shape of hole.

The holes are set out in named patterns, such as bubukan (round dots), inten-intenan (like little diamonds) and mas-masan. Hair, headdress, cloth and jewellery each have their own carving.

Last, the figure is cut out of the rest of the hide along its outline. Carving is the longest step; one puppet can take weeks.

Before painting, the whole puppet gets a white ground coat. Traditionally it is made of bone powder mixed with a glue (ancur); today many use a ready-made primer.

The ground seals the pores of the hide, makes the colours brighter and helps them last.

The painter lays the colours in steps, from the lightest to the darkest, so that every area shades from one tone to the next.

Some parts, such as the body, the jewellery and the headdress, are gilded with prada: gold leaf in the past, often imitation gold powder today. Last come fine lines and small dots in black ink that sharpen the shapes.

The colour of the face and body is chosen for the character’s nature.

What the face colours mean →

The rods are made of buffalo horn. The horn is heated over a fire until it bends, then straightened and shaped little by little, pared down and polished until it shines.

A puppet needs one main rod that holds the body from the feet to the head, with a pointed end that is stuck into a banana trunk (gedebog), and two small rods (tuding) to move the hands.

Before it is put together, a puppet is: the body with head and legs in one sheet, two upper arms, two forearms with their hands, gegel pins for the joints, the main rod and two arm rods.

Every part has been carved and painted on its own. The labels on the picture name each part.

The upper arms are joined to the shoulders, and the forearms to the elbows, with gegel: small pins of horn, bone or metal, riveted so that the joints turn.

The arm rods are tied to the palms with thread, then the main rod is clamped to the body and tied with thread in several places. The puppet can now move as it does in the dalang’s hands.

This Wisanggeni is finished. In front of the blencong its carving becomes a patterned shadow on the screen, while the painting is seen by those sitting on the dalang’s side.