Nick Barnes Puppets: New Summer 2025 Course Dates Announced!
Learn puppet making this summer — An Introduction to Puppet Making (30 June–2 July 2025) and Patterning and Constructing Plastazote Puppet Heads (4–6 July 2025). Limited spaces available!
Exciting news for puppet enthusiasts and makers!
Nick Barnes Puppets has just announced two new puppet-making courses for Summer 2025, held at their renowned workshop in Hove, right next to Brighton on the south coast.
Nick Barnes — award-winning puppetry designer and maker — has been creating stunning puppets for stage productions across the UK and beyond for over 25 years. His work is celebrated for its craftsmanship, innovation, and artistry, and these workshops offer a rare chance to learn directly from Nick’s talented team.
Here’s what’s on offer:
Introduction to Puppet Making
Dates: 30 June – 2 July 2025
Location: Nick Barnes Puppets Workshop, Hove
Cost: £384
Learn the principles of puppet making while creating your own one-person-operated rabbit puppet!
Over three intensive days, you’ll explore puppet design, plastazote assembly, basic sculpting, and simple armature construction using wood and aluminium. Set in a working studio full of prototype puppets, the course encourages discussion and discovery, inspired by the space and the interests of participants.
This course is ideal for anyone with basic making skills — whether you’re a student, industry professional, or serious enthusiast. You’ll leave with a puppet to finish or adapt further and new skills to take into your own creative practice.
👉 Explore key puppet design principles, construction techniques, and materials — and make your own rabbit puppet!
Patterning and Constructing Plastazote Puppet Heads
Dates: 4–6 July 2025
Location: Nick Barnes Puppets Workshop, Hove
Cost: £384
Take your puppet-making to the next level!
This three-day intensive focuses on working with plastazote — a lightweight, versatile material central to many contemporary puppet builds. You’ll learn how to create patterns from sculpted forms and assemble lightweight puppet heads from those patterns — a professional technique used by Nick Barnes Puppets across productions of all sizes.
The course is suitable for anyone with basic making experience — perfect for puppeteers, costume designers, cosplayers, and anyone interested in lightweight sculptural builds.
👉 Master professional techniques for creating patterned puppet heads — opening up endless creative possibilities!
Spaces are limited — early booking is strongly recommended!
Here you can take a look behind the scenes at the making of The Life of Pi