Tangle Dangle Tutorial Guide

This guide is based on a single first attempt plus my own reflections after the fact - you may find a better tutorial elsewhere.


INGREDIENTS..\

_I used:


PLANNING..\

_First, determine how many layers you want. You'll have one foremost layer attached to the rod, which is whatever's furthest forwards - such as the head.
_You'll also have to use a separate layer for each part you want to be able to dangle separately - ie arms separate from legs. (In mine, I did the tail separately from the legs - if I were to make another, I'd have put the legs and tail together, and left only the arms/torso and head as separate layers.)

_Sketch these out so you can remember them easily. Additionally, if you're trying to color-match to a specific character, you'll want to be sure you have a palette of your available colors - plus how they layer, if they're watercolor/markers/paints.


PROCESS..\

_Before sketching anything out, the first thing I did was assemble a paper ROD and some paper rings to go around it. The ROD is like assembling your own mini paper towel roll - I rolled a cut ribbon of index card hotdog-style around my pencil, as tight as i could - smaller is better for the rod - and used tape to fix it together. (I hadn't thought of using my glue stick yet)
_This rod only needs to be a couple inches long, really, but making it larger and cutting it to size later gives you leeway if you decide you want to add anything more, or need more space than you think. Mine started about 3&1/2 inches longways, and wide enough to stick to itself after rolling up pencil-size.
_Then, I assembled paper RINGs - essentially the same thing as the ROD, but wrapping it scarf-style instead of hotdog style, and I let it be a little looser than the pencil width. For these, tacking it with glue is immensely easier than trying to tape them - I recommend starting the roll around the pencil, using a glue-safe surface to rest the excess on, and rub a bit of glue on the inside of the excess for tack. Then curl it further, you don't need glue all the way round unless you'd like, and when you get near the end, rub glue on that underside so it tacks on. Then I sealed it with a thin strip of tape, so it couldn't curl off accidentally. Done! These are your 'technical' pieces for the build.

_Now it's time to do art!! I began by freehand sketching the tail first - since I knew I wanted it to be the longest, and I was limited to the max dimensions of my index cards (unless I wanted to stick two together, which I didn't at first, but wished i had), so I'd make the tail as large as I can and size the other parts to it. If you're using a larger sheet of cardstock, you can start with whatever is most important, like the head, and size everything else around that.
_I didn't do this while I worked, but it would be helpful to take measurements of your pieces when you make them - most notably, the outside circumference dimensions, so you know how large to make the cut on each art piece to fit the ring inside snugly.
_It's important also to keep track of where on each piece your punchhole will be - so you can make sure they overlap and dangle correctly.

_When I drew mine, I first cut the pieces and sketched out the colors with my pencil. Then, I started coloring areas in, starting with the lightest areas - on Tangle's head, I started with her eyes and moved to her face markings. On her arms, I did all the yellows first, and then the greys and blacks. After I colored and cut everything, I'd use a marker-safe surface to set the art on and drag my marker around the edges to get a consistent line border - and then line things inside, like color divisions or fur tufts.

_With the thickness of my index cards, the art COULD have worked fine single-layer, but I chose to double-layer everything by gluing blank index card to the back - I pulled a fresh card and set my art on top, then traced a loose border around the cut (like, 1/2 inch out, or slightly closer). I moved the art and smeared the whole inside of that trace with gluestick, then set my art on top, making sure all the little bits like fur tufts were tacked to the glue. Let that dry - you can move to drawing/cutting other pieces while it does - and then you can come back and re-cut the excess paper to fit smoothly. Then I went around with my black marker again to get the sides all black - no random white bits poking through (I didn't color the backsides, though).
_At first, I figured I'd want looser punchholes, so I could try to tape or glue the rings in. Instead, the easiest way to fix them in place was cut the punchhole on the art *just* big enough that you can put the ring through with effort, but without warping the paper - friction keeps it in place! (The tail, unfortunately, I didn't properly plan - layer on, I glued a 'donut' to the bottom to give it a punchhole, and tried to add tape to weight the bottom of the tail down.)


ASSEMBLY..\

_Once you have all of:
Your RINGS (1 per layer, unless you want a thin one without a ring - this just means it jostles back-and-forth more)
Your ROD (long enough to fit all your RINGs)
Your ART
_You can assemble the final product!

_I taped an 'endpiece' to my rod first, a flat bit of paper that covered the open end and kept RINGs from sliding forward and off. Then I glued my head art on here, trying to align it to the rod and other dangle layers.
_Then I slid on the rings - my tangle dangle has a torso with no ring, it's just flat, then a tail that's the same, and lastly a legs/butt segment with a ring on it.
_After you slide on your last part, you can test! Either dangle it from an art layer you intend it to dangle from (like my tangle's tail), or hang it from the back with your finger or a pencil!
_When you're satisfied with the way the art looks and layers, and the way it dangles, you can cut the rod to size and then seal it with another flat piece of paper stuck on.


An image of the author's creation, a paper-made dangling character, depicting Tangle the Lemur.