The Viral Dragon Puppet Craze: How Paper Claws and Hinged Jaws Took over Social Media
The core movement rests on two distinct paper triangles that sit over the fingers and thumb. Unlike single-piece hand puppets, an articulated dragon head uses independent upper and lower jaws joined at the rear corners.
To establish the hand pocket pocket design:
- Take a sheet of heavy letter-size cardstock and fold it lengthwise into three equal overlapping panels, forming a rigid strip roughly 2.8 inches wide.
- Fold this reinforced strip directly in half to establish a clean V-shape.
- Repeat the process with a second sheet, trimming 1.5 inches off the total length to create a slightly smaller V-shape that will serve as the lower jaw.
- Construct paper finger bands or closed triangular backings. Adhere these to the outer troughs of both V-shapes so your four fingers slide into the top unit while your thumb secures the bottom unit.
The critical phase is joining the two pieces. Lay the larger upper jaw directly atop the lower jaw. Connect them along the rear corners using flexible hinge tabs cut from scrap cardstock. The tabs must allow unobstructed pivot action while preventing lateral sliding. Using the hot glue assembly technique along these stress points ensures the hinge remains taut over hundreds of performance snaps.
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how to make dragon puppet