Our unique & beautiful culture and craft.

Introducing very popular Rajasthani drummer Puppet.

Greetings creative Hive world. This is my entry to the community #DIYhub
monthly contest to show our culture in DIY craft. Here is my unique craft from North India Rajasthani craft handmade puppet that is popular for entertainment locally, still popular even everywhere multimedia spreads.
Unity in diversity is our Indian slogan. Each corner of India is full of art and craft, India is known as an incredible India. We have long long history of art and craft for many centuries and some crafts like making silk or making jewelry attracted the Europeans and Arabians and then the English to come to India. There are thousands of different crafts made by Indian artists. And many are popular all over the world.
Today I present a North Indian Rajasthani art puppet. I am not from the North but I am Indian. and proud of my Indian culture.
This puppet-making art is very special around Rajasthan.
I am not an artist but trying this tutorial according to my understanding.
It is a big project and many different art forms are involved. Like clay work, painting, papercraft, doll making, sewing, jewelry making, and making instruments.
I used different materials but mostly recycled materials except for color and decorative beads, lace, glue, etc.

here is a list of material I used:
Wooden piece, clay.
Old scarf, leftover cloth from sewing, old blouse sleeves, wool
glue, masking tape, glue gun
thread. needle, scissors, lace, glittering thread, beads, and rhinestones.
magazine, aluminum foil, Weaving tread, recycled packaging wrap
pieces of egg tray, toilet paper, colors, and brushes.

Started with making the face. first I tried carving a piece of wood but wasn't successful.
then I fastened clay onto the wooden piece to make the face

Making eyes is quite difficult if you are not a ceramic artist. and using a plastic spoon, match stick, and chopsticks, ear buds instead of clay molding tools. I struggled a little but managed.
I tried to smoothen the surface using earbuds but still, in the final step, I will need to polish it.

Before making a scalp I tried some color on the face.
I used toilet paper to cover the scalp area to make hair. Soaked toilet paper in water and fixed it on the scalp area using glue.
And covered with small pieces of paper gluing them.

Used magazine pages to make the legs of the puppet, just paper rolled in tube form. and glued under the neck of the puppet. They are long I need some support to handle it during the next process.

Making arms and upper body I used aluminum foil, old magazine, and recycling white packing cloth, some thread. First I rolled aluminum foil and tied on the the appropriate place. they look very long but I cut them later.
I wrapped the white cloth (recycled package material) using glue.
To make the upper body just 2 pages of magazine. wrapped around the arms using weaving thread. Wrapped more cloth on it.

Now I finished basic upper body here.

These different cloth pieces I used to make the puppet's shirt and pants, gloves, and shoes.

First I cut the orange cloth according to the puppet's shirt size.
Put the cut cloth on the puppet.
and then hand-sewed the arms and sides with a normal needle and thread.

Fixed some red glitter lace on the neck.
Wrapped golden glitter thread around the wrist, made pink gloves and attached them to the arms then I made the arms a little shorter.

A few days ago I tailored my long-sleeved shirt into short sleeves, I used the leftover cloth to make the legs and attached the shoes directly while sewing the legs using thin lace/ribbon.

Sewed the legs to Puppet.

Time to make pants.
Use my old scarf to make pants, before I sewed the legs to the puppet I measured the leg size.

Cut them into two pieces.

By pulling the thread from cloth I made small gathered plaits to look like a skirt.

Sewing them separately made pants.

Here the pants are done.

Meanwhile I made its legs shorter.

After putting the pants on the puppet I retied the shoes and cut extra cloth to make a proper shape.

I used a glue gun to fix his belt made of a blue ribbon.

Made earrings.

His hat is in process. and his face is polished. The hair is fixed.

Eyes are done.

His drum is ready.

Fixed small details and the craft is ready. Rajasthani drummer Puppet
Thank you very much for stopping and reading the post.
All the contents are my original work. Including photos.