The album of the main characters of wayang purwa was drawn by Raden Soelardi, a court painter, a musician and a puppet maker himself. The figures are cut from tanned buffalo hide: a T-shaped torso, long thin arms on rods, patterns and ornaments punched by hand.
Soelardi drew them in color and with gilding, although during a performance only silhouettes are visible from the screen side. The paint and gold are seen by those who sit behind the screen, with the puppeteer. The book was published by the colonial bureau for popular reading, which ten years later would discuss how to use wayang against the growing talk of self-rule.
