One of the common questions that get asked alot by people who are starting out building puppets is how to make moving eyes and rod-controlled mouths (or eye and mouth “mechs”). An American puppet builder named Mike has a terriffic gallery of photos of eye and mouth mechs he’s made that provide a really good idea of how to build them from common materials you can find in almost any hobby shop.

Another great resource for building mechs is Michael Brose’s book Figure Making Can Be Fun; it was written specifically for making ventriloquist dummies but almost all the projects in the book can be easily adapted for other kinds of puppets.