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Can't you use the pin tool on ahspes? Shape layers?
you certainly can 
but there is a Gotcha though.... since shape layers are collapsed by default you should not use any transform properties of the shape once you apply the puppet and use only the puppet or else you will get funky results . what duik and puppet tools is doing is manipulating just the puppet effect and therefore you won't get funky results. if you want to move it with the transform tools you will have to pre-compose and only then use the puppet tool (as M suggested)
this is from the help files: Animating with Puppet tools in After Effects
Note:
Don’t animate the position or scale of a continuously rasterized layer with layer transformations if you are also animating the layer with the Puppet tools. The render order for continuously rasterized layers—such as shape layers and text layers—is different from the render order for raster layers. You can precompose the shape layer and use the Puppet tools on the precomposition layer, or you can use the Puppet tools to transform the shapes within the layer. (See Render order and collapsing transformations and Continuously rasterize a layer containing vector graphics.)
I was just talking to someone about trying to learn AE - and how great this forum is - and I mentioned you!
Thank you. this community is great and the same way I got help for many years (mostly without saying thanks or being a registered member, but only seeing the answer and following the instructions) now it's my time to give back maybe your day will come too!
The problem with working directly on a shape layer is that the area available to attach a puppet pin to is defined by at least 3 points. For example, draw a path something like this < and then increase the stroke to about 100 pixels and when you hover over the path you'll see the available area where you can place a pin.
Even though the bounding box includes all of the area under the path you can only place pins inside the <. This makes sense to me because the path is rendered before the fill is added so puppet pin doesn't know what to do with the shape if there are only 2 points. There are no pixels available to use to create a mesh. It makes perfect sense to me.
I'm not saying that it's not a bug, just that I understand why it happens and it makes sense when you look at the rendering order. If you have 3 points not in a straight line then the area described by those 3 points is available for puppet pin. Unfortunately the mesh will only include that area of the layer. Turn on Composite on Transparent and you'll see that only the triangle formed by the 3 points is going to be manipulated by puppet pin. This will put a hole in the artwork.
The work around is to pre-compose. This will render the pixels of the fill before Puppet Pin is applied. You won't loose the vector edges so animating Puppet Pin will work as expected. You still can't do any transformations on the puppet pin layer without pre-composing again, but at least you can get the job done.
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