Puppet Making, Character Art, and Creativity with Zack Buchman of Furry Puppet Studio

• Share on Facebook
• Share on Twitter
• Share on Pinterest

Meet Zack Buchman, founder and Creative Director of Furry Puppet Studio, and discover how puppet making connects to character art, storytelling, creativity, and inspiring young artists to imagine future creative careers.

Puppet Making, Character Art, and Creativity with Zack Buchman of Furry Puppet Studio

One of my favourite things to share through Ms Artastic is the work of artists, makers, designers, illustrators, and creative people who are using their imaginations in real, exciting, unexpected ways. I love creating art lessons and resources for kids, but I also think it is so important for children to see that creativity does not only live inside a sketchbook or on a classroom bulletin board. Creativity can become a career. It can become a studio. It can become a puppet, a character, a music video, a television appearance, a story, a performance, a handmade object that suddenly feels alive, or one of those magical creative paths that makes you stop and think, “Wait… people get to do that as a job?”

That is exactly why I love sharing artist spotlights like this one. When kids are introduced to different artists and creative professionals, they begin to understand that art is not just one thing. Art can be drawing, painting, sculpting, designing, building, sewing, storytelling, problem solving, performing, engineering, experimenting, and collaborating. Sometimes art looks like a canvas. Sometimes it looks like a puppet with a perfectly placed pair of eyes and a personality that somehow appears the moment someone moves its mouth. And honestly, that is the kind of creative possibility I want students to know exists.

As educators, parents, and homeschool families, we are not just teaching kids how to make projects. We are helping them see the world as a place full of ideas. We are showing them that their drawings, characters, stories, and “silly little things” can matter. A child who sketches a funny creature in the corner of a page might one day become a character designer. A student who loves making paper bag puppets might one day build puppets for film, television, or live performance. A kid who cannot stop inventing voices for every stuffed animal in the house might be developing storytelling, performance, and communication skills without even realizing it.

That is what makes creative careers so inspiring for young artists. They help students connect the dots between what they love doing now and what they might become later. Not every child will grow up to be a professional artist, of course, but every child benefits from seeing that creativity has value. Every child benefits from knowing that imagination, curiosity, and hands-on making are meaningful skills. And every educator benefits from having real-world examples to share with students when they ask, “But when would I ever use this?”

Today’s artist spotlight features Zack Buchman, the founder and Creative Director of Furry Puppet Studio, a custom puppet design studio in SoHo, New York. Zack and his team design and build custom puppets for television, advertising, music videos, live performance, and all kinds of unusual creative projects. His work is a beautiful example of how character art can move beyond the page and into the world.

What I especially love about Zack’s answers is how he talks about puppet making as something deeply human and handmade. My creative heart MELTS for this. I feel this when I create my own artworks in my own professional art practice Even when modern tools are part of the process, the heart of puppet making still comes back to a person shaping foam, adjusting eyes, carving expressions, experimenting with materials, and waiting for that moment when the character begins to feel alive. That is such a powerful thing for students to hear because it reminds them that art is not always instant. It grows through patience, observation, play, revision, and curiosity.

Puppet making is also such a wonderful connection to art education because it blends so many creative skills together. It includes character design, sculpture, costume, engineering, fabric, movement, storytelling, performance, and collaboration. For kids, puppets can be especially magical because they invite play. A drawing can sit on a page, but a puppet asks to be held, moved, voiced, and brought into a story. It gives children a way to explore emotion, personality, imagination, and empathy in a very hands-on way.

I also think this spotlight is a lovely reminder that the creative process does not always need to be polished, perfect, or high-pressure. Sometimes the most interesting characters come from experimenting. Sometimes a puppet with mismatched eyes has more personality than something carefully overworked. Sometimes the “scrappy little thing” is the one that feels the most alive. That is such an important message for young artists, especially in a world where kids can feel pressure to make everything look finished, impressive, or shareable.

So as you read this interview, I hope it sparks ideas for your classroom, homeschool, art room, or creative family life. Maybe it inspires a puppet-making lesson. Maybe it helps you talk with students about character design. Maybe it gives a child permission to take their funny creature drawing a little more seriously. Maybe it simply reminds us that art can become something wonderfully unexpected when imagination and making come together.

Interview with Zack Buchman of Furry Puppet Studio

What would you most like readers to know about you and your puppet studio?

I am Zack Buchman, founder and Creative Director of Furry Puppet Studio, a custom-puppet design studio in SoHo, New York. We design and build custom puppets for television, advertising, music videos, live performance, and all kinds of unusual projects.

The thing I most want people to know is that puppet making is still very human and very handmade. We use modern tools when they help, but the heart of the work is still a person sitting with a piece of foam, carving a face, moving the eyes a tiny bit, changing the shape until something starts to feel alive. That part is hard to explain unless you have seen it happen in front of you.

I never went to college, and most of what I learned came from being around generous people with different skills from mine. That shaped the studio. I love collaborating with people who can do things I cannot do. A puppet is rarely one person’s work. It is character design, sculpture, costume, engineering, fabric, performance, and a lot of patience.

How do you imagine your puppets would inspire teachers and kids?

I think the most interesting idea for your readers would be puppet making as character art. How engaging it can be. That feels especially connected to art education. A puppet begins with the same questions a student might ask when drawing a character: Who is this? What are they feeling? What makes them tick? And what happens if I change the eyes, the mouth, the color, the posture?

The finished puppet may end up on TV or in a music video, but the first step is still imagining it in your head. It is still drawing, experimenting, noticing expressions, making something with your hands, and letting the character surprise you. Sometimes I can’t believe that this is what I’m doing for a living.

How do you see puppet making connecting to creativity, imagination, storytelling, or art for children?

I think puppets give children permission to tell stories in a very direct way. A drawing can feel finished once it is on the page, but a puppet asks to be held, moved, voiced, and played with. It invites the child to keep going. It’s very open ended.

I also think puppet making is a great reminder that art can be playful and serious at the same time. A child can make something silly and have fund with it and still be practicing design, sculpture, performance, storytelling, empathy, and problem solving. It’s inviting and organic.

What inspired you to start creating puppets?

I grew up loving Sesame Street, the Muppets, and Jim Henson’s work. I was also really influenced by early computer games, especially the old LucasArts adventure games. Those games had such limited graphics that designers had to capture a whole personality with just a few pixels. Sometimes one tiny dot had to decide whether it was an eye or a nose.

That stayed with me. I think I became obsessed with the essence of a character. What is the smallest thing you can change that makes a face feel alive?

I tried animation early on, but what I really craved was the physical side and that free play.

What has been the biggest highlight of your puppet making journey so far?

One highlight I keep coming back to is the Missy Elliott and Pharrell Williams music video for “WTF.” We built marionettes in their likenesses, created the costumes, and worked with street performers to get the movement right.

Marionettes are genuinely difficult to create and shoot. They are not as precise as some more modern forms of puppetry, and they can fight you a little. But that project was so outside my comfort zone, and the final result made me really happy.

Do you have a favorite puppet or project that stands out as especially memorable?

It changes, but I am very fond of the projects where the character takes on a life of its own after we finish our part.

Frankie Focus is a good example. We built Frankie as the mascot for New York State’s phone free schools initiative. He ended up appearing on Jimmy Kimmel, in The New Yorker’s daily cartoon, on news channels, and in all these unexpected places. He ended up being played by Matt Damon. Watching a character leave the studio and become part of a larger cultural conversation is always surreal.

What was your experience working on Jimmy Kimmel Live?

For me, the funny part is that a puppet can start as a very practical assignment, a mascot with a specific communication goal, and then suddenly it is being used in a late night comedy bit. That is what I love about puppets. Once a character exists, people start imagining new uses for it. They invite it into new situations.

Seeing Matt Damon inside the Frankie costume on Jimmy Kimmel was definitely one of those moments where I had to stop and say, “How did this become my job?”

Check out more about Furry Puppet Studio

• Custom puppets by Furry Puppet Studio
• Furry Puppet Studio blog
• Frankie Focus
• Missy Elliott and Pharrell “WTF” marionettes
• Instagram: @furrypuppet

Is there anything else you would like teachers, parents, or young artists to know about your work?

I would tell young artists to keep the work personal and low stakes for as long as possible. The pressure to make something impressive, or shareable, or finished can arrive really early and it is not always helpful. Some of the most interesting things happen when there is nothing to prove and nobody watching.

For teachers and parents, I think the best thing you can do is protect that low-stakes space. Give kids the materials, leave a room for mess, and let them surprise you. An art piece or a puppet does not need to be polished to have a personality. Sometimes a scrappy little thing with mismatched eyes has more life in it than something that took ten times as long.

Concluding Thoughts

I hope this interview with Zack Buchman of Furry Puppet Studio inspires you and your young artists to think about creativity in a bigger, wider, more wonderfully imaginative way. Puppet making is such a beautiful reminder that art can be playful and serious at the same time. It can begin with a sketch, a piece of foam, a strange idea, a funny expression, or a character that simply refuses to stay flat on the page.

For teachers and parents, Zack’s work is also a reminder that creative learning does not always need to have a perfect final product. Sometimes the real magic is in the exploring, the building, the storytelling, the problem solving, and the moment a child realizes their idea has a personality of its own. When we give kids room to make, play, experiment, and surprise themselves, we are helping them build more than art skills. We are helping them build creative confidence.

And who knows? The child making a puppet from paper scraps, yarn, cardboard, fabric, or whatever mysterious craft supplies are hiding in the bottom of the bin might one day be designing characters, building puppets, creating films, working in television, making theatre, illustrating books, or inventing an entirely new creative career we have not even imagined yet.

That is why sharing the work of artists and makers matters. It opens doors. It gives children real examples of creative lives. It helps them see that their ideas are worth developing. And it reminds all of us that art has the power to become something that moves, speaks, tells stories, and maybe even ends up somewhere completely unexpected.