I created these rat puppets for a show I'm currently workshoping, in-progress title is "Rat King" but I'd like to come up with something more mysterious. The subject of this show is a rat king, a real-life phenomena where rats will get stuck together via their tails and strugle until they starve. While working on the script and the visuals, I started with a lot of photos and articles on the subject.

My goal is to experiment with concepts like struggling to remove yourself from relationships, manipulative groups, and how even after physically removing yourself from a situation, you leave a part of you behind. The visual in my head is of someone cutting off the tails of the rats, or them doing it themselves, representing how the initial pain of removing yourself from a situation is necessary for long term happiness. I also see a single final rat still being connected to the knot of tails, representing their inability to put the past behind them and allow themselves to find new relationships.

Choosing a Puppetry Style

When I originally devised the visuals for the show, I was imagining people in rat costumes -

- which then shifted to rat masks -

- until I remembered how much I love puppets and how strongly I've been wanting to make my own puppet show for a long time. So I reimagined my concept with puppets, and began sketching to figure out how to show this many rats onstage at once with a very limited number of puppeteers (preferably one).

My first thoughts involved a shadow play, with puppets held by sticks hidden behind a sheet. But then I figured, why not remove the lighting issue and allow the show to be performed anywhere regardless of lighting constraints? But I decided to stick with the same method that shadow puppets use - sticks! I chose to built each 2d puppet on top of a pole, each of which would slot into a frame on the floor and would stand on their own. Then when puppeteering the individual rat, I could hold it from the back or take hold of the stick if it needed to exit the frame. In the middle would be the knot, possibly on its own stick but it may just hang in between the rats, supported by the ropes of the tails.

Another important aspect of the show is that I wanted to cut the tails for real. In the script, the rats must cut their own tails off to escape, and while my original ideas working with actors meant expensive sewn tails, working on a small scale means that they ccan be simple pieces of rope. Which can be cheaply bought, attached, cut, and replaced. So each rat, and also the ball of tails, need to be made in such a way that the tails can be removed and re-attached for each show.

To keep them as cheap as possible, I'll be using cardboard, scrap fabric, and materials from the hardware store.

I want to make them fluffy using scrap fabric and yarn. One of the driving themes for this show is texture, I want to highlight the unnerving nature of the sharp (or not-so-sharp) instruments that I'll be cutting their tails off with by making everything feel very soft and natural. Through soft yarn fur, rough rope tails, and cold shiny metal, I want it to be a tactile experience for the viewer even if they aren't actually feeling the puppets themselves.

As you could tell from the amount of tabs on this page, I did not stick with the rod puppet concept.

After mostly finishing the puppets in early 2025, I put them aside to work on other projects. While the pupepts were done, I still didn't have a script, and designing the way they would move was difficult without a solid idea of the show's format. So they got shoved in a closet for a while.

In fall of 2025, I had another opportunity to perform a new peice of mine, and decided to revist my rats. Through new bursts of inspiration I finished an outline for the script, discovering that I would need a new system of puppets in order to get the story across. For one, I needed the space for each rat to be a different puppetteer and actor. For two, I wanted them to be big. Really big. Big enough to be seen onstage from 30 feet away.

My plan at this point was to make hand puppets. I originally experimented with making standard size puppets out of a free pattern, but even with additional cardboard masks these were still too small. (Side note: I may return to the idea of a soft puppet with a paper mache style mask.) Time to go big! The rest of the new design is chronicled over on the new tab.

Vintage Rat Poison Ads as Art Style Reference

Making the rats

I started off by making a template to cut all the rats from. The legs were cut out seperately.

I planned on covering the bodies withfabric and yarn, but still wanted there to be detail where the carboard would show through. So the rats got a couple coats of paint with some blue highlights.

I always love adding many layers of texture and color to my puppets. Even if the audience can't pick out the individual patterns, you register the added detail and it makes everything feel much more real. The legs started out with pink, then got a dry brush layer of tan and grey, and I finished them off with a splatter paint of red and blue.

One fun side-effect of the eyes being thin cardstock - light shines through! I don't have any specific plans to use this right now, but it's a fun feature to have.

Now it was time for assembly. I gave the rats a yarn border, which hides the unpainted cardboard edge and makes their silhouette a little softer. Each rat has their legs glued in at slightly different angles, for some variety.

Now for my favorite part, adding scrap fabric "fur"! This is a tchnique and look that I 've been toying with a lot recently, I really love the layering of scrap fabrics and yarns of different textures and colors. Similarly with the paint job, the varriation blends together and doesn't look too busy, but it pulls your eye into it. The fluffy texture will also make them more life-like, maybe even a little cuddly.

Working with three different yarns and at least six colors of fabric, each rat has a slightly different palette only visible if you look really closely.

The tails were attached with wire, partically as a temporary fix as I tested how they would look once all arranged together. I knew that the tails would need to be removeable one way or another - with my plan originally being to cut them off and replace them after each show.

Rat stand

Now it's time for the frame. Thing that will,you know, actually make them look like a rat king. I had this very distinct vision in my head of all eight rats spaced out evenly around a center knot, and each would be on its own pole that could be picked up and shaken around. After attaching each rat to their poles, I did a few layout tests of how this would look.

These tests really made me see how difficult it would be to find a balance between how far apart I wanted the rats to be, and how far I could physically get them while restrained by the lengths of the poles. I also realized I would have to cut most of these down. I decided to make them two feet apart.

By laying a piece of cardboard where I wanted the stand to be, I was able to mark the angles and loccations of each pole. I used these rough marks to determine a constant angle and distance from the center, then re-positioned the poles so they all lined up in order to check my work. These marks were then transfered over to the piece of wood used as the stand.

And this is where this leg of the journey ends. I didn't know where I wanted to go with the script, and visualizing how the rats would move in this formation became difficult. I had hit a road block, and set the rats aside for the time being.

Reset. Start over. New plan.

Cardboard Bases

One again using the cone style of construction like my General D. mask, I started off measuring my cardboard to make the cones the maxium size I could fit with my materials. After making the first demo, I measured the distance from each facial feature to copy onto subsequent puppets. I also made a single ear, including tabs to make attachment easier, and traced it for the other 9 ears. Making notes and patters allowed me to speed through making all 9 heads in one day.

They kinds look like skulls without the eyes in there don't they?

First coat of paint was watered-down black wash. Watered-down because I was low on paint and it's dark enough to cover most of the printing on the cardboard anyway.

Blue! I love blue! Most of my black animal characters will have a bit of blue in their fur, it's a little stylized touch I love that mimics the way black fur shines in the light. Black paint also doesn't catch light well onstage, usually signalling something you're not supposed to pay attention to, so the blue catches your eye. I painted with my hands to get a varried texture.

The insides of the mouths are filled with some scrap red fabric and cardboard teeth made of scraps I painted beforehand. I would absoltely recommend painting your fabric even if it feels wrong, the gum highlights and shadows do a lot to make it feel dynamic and grungy.

Adding "Fur"

My goal is always to use up scraps. I have so many scraps that need using up. This style of fur is mainly designed for that purpose!

I start by picking fabric in a range of styles and a couple specific colors. In this case, I also had a handful of t-shirt scraps and jeans from past project, which were perfect for the black/blue/grey palette. Cut the fabric into strips between 2-4 inches, and then cut slits into that fabric every inch wide or so. Then layer them on your base fabric, and sew, sew, sew. The effect is a little like a piñata, gives great secondary movement, and lets you use up all thos little bits of scraps that have been hanging around.

Each cowl is attached to the back of the head along the inside. I had wanted to staple these on to save glue, but my staplers were either too weak or broken, so I ended up using hot glue anyway. Put a good stapler on my shopping list.

Next, using more of the smaller strips, continue the overlapping fur pattern down the length of the nose.