How do you turn foam, fabric, and a few simple details into a character that feels alive? Zack Buchman of Furry Puppet Studio creates puppets, creatures, and marionettes that bring a little magic to the screen. His work begins with curiosity, imagination, and the moment when a puppet seems to look right back at you.
You have said you never took the traditional path into this career. Looking back, what first made you realize that making characters was what you wanted to do?
I didn’t really feel like I had a choice, to be honest. When I was a kid I caught Mummenschanz on The Muppet Show, these strange, silent performers built out of shapes and light, and it genuinely scared me a little. But I couldn’t look away either.
That mix, being unsettled and completely hooked at the same time, is still what I chase every time I start a new character.
Was there one puppet, movie, TV show, or book that made you think, “I want to make something like that”?
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There was a stop-motion show called Bertha that I used to watch as a kid, about a giant machine that built toys. I was completely fixated on it; I used to tell people I wanted one of my own someday.
I don’t know that I understood back then what I was actually responding to, but looking back, it was probably the earliest version of this exact job. I’m very lucky.
You’ve said that a puppet begins with finding the “essence” of a character. How do you recognize that moment when a simple sketch suddenly feels like someone instead of something
Honestly, I can’t always point to the exact second it happens.
We’ll be a few passes into a foam mock-up, and I’ll pick it up to turn it in my hands, and something in it will just look back at me differently than it did an hour before.
No matter how many times I’ve done this or how much experience we have as a team, there’s an element of magic. I make sure I’m open to it.
Your work reminds people that physical objects can create powerful emotions. Why do you think people connect so deeply with puppets in a world filled with digital animation?
A puppet is right there in the room with you, and that seems to be enough.
Two ping-pong balls on a piece of fabric can read like a complete character with a whole range of emotions. CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) can chase photorealism and still fall into the uncanny valley, that space where something looks almost human and starts to feel wrong instead.
A puppet can be unassuming, and it just works on a different level.
What tiny details make the biggest difference in whether an audience believes a puppet is alive?
The eyes, almost always. They go in near the end, and a small shift in where they sit can change the whole character and how people read it.
What’s one piece of advice you’d give someone who wants to build more and worry less?
Build it because you want to see it exist, or because you feel you need to, not because you’re hoping someone approves of it.
I see so much anxiety in people chasing a certain reaction from their followers. Once you take that pressure off, it gets a lot easier to just keep going and enjoy the process.
Where can people see your puppets?
You can see our custom puppets at furrypuppet.com, and on Instagram @furrypuppet.
Rapid-Fire Fun:
- Pencil sketch or digital sketch? Pencil. It’s second nature to me, pretty much an extension of how my brain works.
- One creative habit you’ll never give up? Evening walks by the Hudson River, for about an hour. They help me think and reflect on the big picture. I owe a lot to these walks.
- Favorite material to work with? Whatever is in front of me, napkin, pencil, clay, my phone, whatever’s around at that moment.
- A tool you always reach for? Blackwings 602. I will never go back.
- What’s making you smile right now? Tales of Paranoia by R. Crumb. I just picked it up on a recent trip to LA. He’s really something.
Zack Buchman is the founder and Creative Director of Furry Puppet Studio, a custom-puppet design studio in SoHo, New York. He and his team design and build puppets, creatures, mascots, and marionettes for television, advertising, and music videos.
Interview posted September 2026
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