Furry Puppet Studio hand-builds custom puppet design in foam, fleece, and fabric for TV commercials, music videos, and advertising campaigns in New York.

Each custom puppet design starts with a foam-core armature. From there the studio layers fleece, rubber skin, or woven fabric depending on the character — a smooth rubber octopus with articulated mechanical eyes sits alongside a full-scale talking refrigerator with hinged eyelid hardware. For Apple Japan's iPhone campaign, Furry Puppet Studio produced photo-realistic lookalike puppets of Japanese faces detailed enough to pass in product advertising. The Missy Elliott "WTF" video required string marionettes in the precise likenesses of Pharrell Williams and Missy Elliott, built to perform on camera.

How Furry Puppet Studio Approaches Custom Puppet Design

The studio's portfolio — hand puppets, mascot costumes, marionettes, animatronic creature effects — all fabricated in-house at 636 Broadway in Manhattan. Behind-the-scenes images reveal the gap between raw foam armature and finished character: bare mechanical eyelid hardware becomes a smooth-skinned face; exposed foam becomes a creature with dreadlocks and red sunglasses. That engineering layer is what separates custom puppet design built for camera from anything a prop house rents by the day.

Explore the full portfolio of custom puppet design work at Furry Puppet Studio.

custom puppet design — smooth rubber octopus with articulated mechanical eyes by Furry Puppet Studiocustom puppet design — photo-realistic lookalike puppet for Apple Japan iPhone campaigncustom puppet design — hand-built fisherman character puppet by Furry Puppet Studio New Yorkcustom puppet design — full-scale talking refrigerator puppet with hinged moving eyelid hardwarecustom puppet design — character puppet with dreadlocks and red sunglasses by Furry Puppet Studiocustom puppet design — string marionettes of Missy Elliott and Pharrell Williams for WTF music videocustom puppet design — large-scale monster puppet fabricated in Brooklyn for Casper TV campaigncustom puppet design — satirical TV show puppet likeness fabricated by Furry Puppet Studio