Puppet Designer Melbourne | Marionette & Puppet Design

Q: What does a puppet designer actually do?

A puppet designer settles two things at once: what the character is, and how a person is going to work it. That means the face, and it means where the joints go, where the strings or rods attach, how much it weighs, and how long someone can hold it up.

Q: What kinds of puppets does Oddtoe design?

Marionettes on strings, rod and carried puppets held up on poles, oversized heads worn or carried at street level, shadow puppets, and characters puppeteered on screen through projection and animation.

Q: What is the difference between a marionette and a rod puppet?

A marionette hangs on strings from a control bar above, so gravity does most of the acting and the puppeteer works from above. A rod puppet is held up from below or behind on poles, which is stronger, faster, and much better outdoors. Crowd and street work is nearly always rod or carried.

Q: How long does a puppet take?

Design runs two to three weeks for a single character. Build depends entirely on what it is and who makes it. Send the brief with the date it has to appear and you get a schedule with the build quoted separately.

Q: How much does a custom puppet cost?

Oddtoe does not publish prices, because the cost of a puppet is decided by its size, how articulated it is, and how many of them there are. Send what it has to do and where it appears and you get a quote. The build side is set out on prop fabrication services.

Q: Where is Oddtoe based?

Oddtoe is based in Melbourne, Australia. Supplier and business contacts run through Berlin and Los Angeles, and those are the starting points for work in Europe and the United States.

Updated September 2026

Oddtoe is an experiential design and generative-AI animation studio based in Melbourne, creating projection, installation, and animated work for events, venues, and galleries. As a puppet designer, I design characters that somebody operates — on strings, on a pole, or worn — and the mechanics that let them do it. That covers a stage puppet, a head carried through a street, and a character worked on a screen.

Every puppet is a machine and a face at the same time. Where a joint sits and where a string attaches decide what the character can do, and those get settled while the drawing is still open. I learned that part by building and stringing marionettes, and it still decides where I start. See mascot design for characters with a person inside, or character design for the artwork side.

Image for the artificial intelligence animation service showing a trilobite shadow puppet, illustrated by AI

Padded shoulder yoke with a timber pole socketed into the centre

Hand working a control rod linked to a protest head's hinged jaw

Protest head mounted on a single vertical support pole

Protest head with a woven mesh sight panel set into the chin

Hand-drawn construction studies for oversized protest heads, with proportion grids and annotations

A family of five blue shark costume mascots

A puppet designer decides who the character is and how a person works it. Those are the same decision. A jaw that opens changes the face; a hand that has to hold a pole at head height for two hours changes the weight, and the weight changes the whole build.

Get the order wrong and you end up with a beautiful drawing nobody can operate.

So the mechanics come in early: where the joints go, where the strings or rods attach, how the head is carried, how the puppeteer sees out, and how the whole thing comes apart to travel.

The visible half is the character. The half that decides whether it works is underneath. Related practices often land in the same commission — prop making and animatronics.

A character definition, a 3D model seen from every angle, a mechanism worked out against a human body, and drawings a maker can build from.

The forms this ends up in each have their own page:

• Worn characters and mascots
• Giant inflatables and walk-in structures
• Props and fabricated objects
• Projection and screen work

Everything is designed in 3D, which means the character is animated and seen moving before anything is cut. You watch the walk, the turn and the jaw before committing to a build.

The same model then does the other jobs: the renders that get the piece approved, the animated content it appears in, and a larger version of the character later if the job grows.

Most briefs arrive asking for a puppet. Almost always it is one of these three, and which one is decided by where it appears and who has to work it.

Marionette with a hinged jaw hanging on strings, a hand below holding a control stick

Hung from a control bar above and worked from a bridge or a ladder. Gravity does a lot of the acting, which is why a marionette moves the way nothing else does. It suits a stage and an audience sitting close.

Four oversized protest heads carried at street level through a crowd

Held up from below or behind. Stronger, faster, and far better outdoors, so nearly everything built for a street, a parade or a festival is rod or carried. Height is the point: it has to be seen over a crowd.

A large fish costume mascot on a trolley in a costume workshop

A performer inside the character, shaking hands and being photographed. The design problem moves to sightlines, weight and ventilation. Oddtoe designs these and a specialist maker builds them.

Most briefs arrive asking for a puppet. Which of these three it turns out to be is decided by where it appears and who has to work it.

	Marionette	Rod or carried puppet	Worn character
How it is worked	Strings from a control bar above	Poles from below or behind	A performer wearing the character
Where it suits	Indoors, close up, on a stage	Streets, festivals, parades, crowds	Match days, store openings, expos
What it is good at	Fine, strange, floating movement	Height, speed, and standing up to weather	Handshakes, photos, direct contact
Puppeteer visible?	Hidden above, or in view by choice	In view, usually dressed as part of it	Fully inside the character
Takes to travel	Tangles; needs a case and a rack	Comes apart into poles and a body	Packs into a costume case
What Oddtoe delivers	Character, mechanism, stringing plan	Character, 3D model, build drawings	Character, 3D model, maker-ready spec

Theatre companies, festivals, campaign organisers, museums, brands, and producers. The craft is the same each time. What changes is how close the audience gets.

Theatre and children’s programs commission characters for a stage, where the audience is near and small movements read.

Festivals and parades commission carried and rod work, built tall enough to be seen over a crowd and tough enough for a day outdoors.

Campaigns and protests commission oversized heads that a group carries through a street. That brief has its own page: publicity stunts and cheeky PR campaigns.

Museums and galleries commission puppetry inside an exhibition or a late opening, often crossed with projection, and usually built to run unattended for weeks rather than for one night.

Producers and brands commission characters that are puppeteered on screen, or a physical character that also lives in animation.

In 2004 I trained under Christopher Piper at The Puppet Co. in Glen Echo Park, Maryland. He is a second-generation puppeteer — his father ran a travelling show out of Hawaii — and what I learned from him was building and stringing marionettes.

Stringing is the part nobody watches. Where each string attaches decides what the puppet is able to do, and a head hung a centimetre out will never look alive, whoever is working it. You find that out by getting it wrong and restringing it.

That company had hundreds of puppets and a new theatre to fill, so the work was constant and the standard was set by people who had been doing it for twenty years. It is the most useful apprenticeship I have had.

Everything since has been the same problem at a different size. A head carried on a pole through a street, a costume with a person inside it, a character puppeteered live through a projector — all of them are objects a human being has to operate. The ones that fail are the ones where that was worked out after the drawing was finished.

Questions about

Puppet design?

What does a puppet designer actually do?

A puppet designer settles two things at once: what the character is, and how a person is going to work it. That means the face, and it means where the joints go, where the strings or rods attach, how much it weighs, and how long someone can hold it up.

What kinds of puppets does Oddtoe design?

Marionettes on strings, rod and carried puppets held up on poles, oversized heads worn or carried at street level, shadow puppets, and characters puppeteered on screen through projection and animation.

Do you build the puppet as well as design it?

Some of it. Small carried and rod work is built in the studio; larger runs and worn costumes go to a specialist maker, working from the design package. The design is drawn in Melbourne and the build happens wherever the job needs it, which sometimes means a fabricator near you rather than freight.

What is the difference between a marionette and a rod puppet?

A marionette hangs on strings from a control bar above, so gravity does most of the acting and the puppeteer works from above. A rod puppet is held up from below or behind on poles, which is stronger, faster, and much better outdoors. Crowd and street work is nearly always rod or carried.

Can a puppet be used outdoors and at a festival?

Yes, and it changes the design. Outdoor work has to survive wind, rain and being bumped, has to be carried by someone for a whole shift, and has to come apart to travel. Those constraints get settled early, because retro-fitting a stage puppet for a street is usually a rebuild.

How long does a puppet take?

Design runs two to three weeks for a single character. Build depends entirely on what it is and who makes it. Send the brief with the date it has to appear and you get a schedule with the build quoted separately.

How much does a custom puppet cost?

Oddtoe does not publish prices, because the cost of a puppet is decided by its size, how articulated it is, and how many of them there are. Send what it has to do and where it appears and you get a quote. The build side is set out on prop fabrication services.

Where is Oddtoe based?

Oddtoe is based in Melbourne, Australia. Supplier and business contacts run through Berlin and Los Angeles, and those are the starting points for work in Europe and the United States.