Shadow puppet head (female)

Head design includes both the head and headgear. The greater the collection of puppet head designs in a shadow puppet troupe, the richer the variety of plays, and the wider the range of characters, the troupe can offer.
Female characters in operas are called Hua Dan (female leads). In shadow puppetry, the head designs for middle-age women and female leads are typically carved by way of a cameo in order to create a puppet’s face with exquisite facial features and unblemished skin. An intaglio technique is applied to older characters such as elderly female leading characters, clownish female characters, and female spirits. Wavy lines are carved on the face of old female leading characters to represent wrinkles. Their hair is not dyed, and neither are their eyebrows, with the leather’s color used to achieve a graying effect. For clownish female characters and female spirits, bold colors and bizarre hairstyles as well as crooked lines are used to represent their unique characteristics.