Half the fun of a shadow theater is figuring out various ways you can make props, figures and characters for your theater. In this part of the tutorial I make some various animated props and give you ideas on how to make them yourself.

Here are the various shapes I made for my shadow theater. If you watched the video you saw them in action. From left to right they are the Blacksmith, the windmill, the forge, the anvil, the rolling waves and the tulips. Not shown is the little sailing ship.

I made these parts out of cereal box cardboard. And some of them are animated. The blacksmith swings his arm and the windmill turns. The rolling waves are also animated. You tip them back and forth like a see-saw. You do this by rolling the wooden dowel left and right.

There are a thousand ways to animate your figures. Have fun with it!

Here you can see the rolling waves in action. Rolling the dowel left and right tips the waves left and right like a see-saw.

Telling a story with it

The big thing about a shadow theater is that it allows you to easily add images to a story. Write out or think up a story to tell. And then create the figures that go along with it.