Don't be shy of making a puppet.  If you feel like you need a pattern for ProjectPuppet.com has some basic patterns that are great.  The head for Joshua is a pretty basic round head.  What makes him buggy is the body which is more or less a cylindar with the wings and thorax back plate added on.  Once you figure out the basic shapes it really patience in figuring out how to make them fit together so they look the way you want them too.

For me the foam part is fun and easy.  Fabricating the puppet while also fun is not nearly as easy.  Hopefully when we get to that part some of the more experienced puppet makers will add their advise.

I can't wait to see the finished product.  I do love bugs!  You are doing a great job!  I haven't used the craft foam inside the mouth as you have, so I don't know how it would hold up.  I could not tell if you secured the hand and thumb tube other than with the cement, but I'd suggest covering them with fabric and securing them to the mouthplate.  They have the most stress put on them as well as the hinge of the mouth. Also, you might think about covering the inside of the hand strap and thumb tube with fabric or something to absorb the sweat (sorry  ) and for added grip and comfort. 

Have you thought about just putting the opening in the back of the head or neck? It will depend on if you are using him. 

I plan to line the head and cover the mouth plate with fabric before I fabricate it.  At this point I can still turn the head inside out so it shouldn't be too difficult.

I really hadn't seriously considered putting an opening in the head or neck.  The puppet is intended for use with a stage and I want the head of the character to be able to be viewed 360 degrees.

I am working on designs for other characters to go along with the junebug and some of those ill probably need to be axcessed from the neck.

Thanks for the great questions

Yesterday someone asked me about the pattern I used for the head shape.  Actually I got the pattern from Puppetbuilder.com.  It is a free one piece round head pattern.  To get it to the size I needed I divided it in half and enlarged it on a copier.  For Joshua's head one half just fit on letter sized paper.
 Below is the address for the free round head pattern.

puppetbuilding.com/hand--rod-puppets/free-round-head-puppet-pattern.html - 14k -  (LINK)

I used a more pointed mouth shape to get a more pointed shape to the face.

Here are the direct links
To see what the head looks like

http://puppetbuilding.com/hand--rod-puppets/free-round-head-puppet-pattern.html

Here is the pdf download
http://www.puppetbuilding.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/round-puppet-head-pattern.pdf

Thanks to Andrew from Puppet Building.com

Billy D.

Seems that Billy beat me to the punch on the clickable link.   Oh well now there is more then enough ways to access the pattern.

Thanks Shawn you taught me well  .......... but maybe you explain to Jon how to insert weblinks to a post.

Billy D.

 :-\I was going for the clickable link.  Tell me how it's done and I be sure to use them in the future.

When you want to add a link with in a post just click on the icon
  above the post.......... this will give you a bbc code.

You then copy and paste the link and place it with in the brackets. Hope this helps 



Billy

[http://]

Below is what the code looks for the link I created on your post. The icon Billy mentioned only enters the [url] and [/url] code.  If you want your link to show up like it would in the Address bar of a web browser then you really don't need to use the bbCode.  All you really need to do is type it in with http:// starting off the link and the program converts it to a link.  If you want to get fancy and make the "text" diffrent then you do as I have below:

[url=http://puppetbuilding.com/hand--rod-puppets/free-round-head-puppet-pattern.html]LINK[/url]

Notice that in the first tag I added = and then the http:// with the web address.  The http:// part is pretty important in either case since other wise the program may think that they site you are linking to is P&S and add the domain  name for the site on to your link which messes everything up.

Here is the reference list for bbCode in the help section.

Well here goes another enstallment.

I started with a sketch of the basic outline of the hands.  As you can see I chose to give the hands two fingers and a thumb.

I decided that I wanted tomake the hands posable.  This will be my first try at making posable hands.  I used 18 guage florist wire.  It's not as heavy as I would have liked but its the heaviest the craft store had.  So I doubled up the wire by twisting it together.  I made a circle, matching the inside of the palm, keeping about 1/2 inch in from the edges of the hands.  To this circle I attached the wires for the fingers using the drawing as a guide for length and placement.  The finger wire were made by doubling wire in half and twisting it together.  I made sure to leave extra wire on each finger so that I could attach the fingers by simply wrapping the loose ends around the plam wire.  Then I used a pair of plyers to crimp down any ends so they won't poke up later.

The next thing I did was cut out four pieces of foam in the shape of the palm.  These I coated with contact cement.  Then I sandwiched each of the wire hands between two pieces of the foam palms.

The fingers were made individually.  I cut the foam to width and left them long.  Then I coated the insides with cement and the edges also.  When the cement had dried I folded each piece of finger foam around the finger wire.  Then I pinched the edges together to make the fingers round.

The last bit was to cut the fingers to length and glue and pinch the fingers to make them rounded.

Hopefully between the written description and the pictures that will be clear.

Now I'm going to insert the attachment for the arm rods in to the hands and attach the arms.

For arm rods I am going to use some fiberglass rods I have on hand.  These used to be part of a kite which didn't fly very well.  I have already used two sections of these rods for Barnaby, a bull dog puppet I made, so I know they will work pretty well.

I want to make the arm rods detachable.  When I was building Barnaby I was looking for a way to attach the fiberglass arm rods and found expansion nuts at Home Depot.  They come in a different sizes and they work great for holding the rods in place when opperating the puppet but will release them when storing the puppet away.

So any way, I inserted the expansion nuts into the hands just above the wrist, gluing them in with contact cement.

Then I made two tubes out of foam and glued them to the hands at the wrist.  And my arms are ready to be adjusted to length and fabricated.  Before fabricating I will sew an eldow joint in the foam.  Once covered the elbow will be almost invisible.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that expansion nuts have a small nut in the rubber cup shaped gasket.  you could use threaded rod for arm rods and screw the rods into the nut in the expansion nut.

Here's an update on my progress with Joshua Junebug.

When I was making Barnaby I found that with a large diameter body there was a tendency for the body to colapse under the tension of the fabric stretched over the foam and the streeses of being handled.  I solved the problem by installing ribs that I made from strips I cut out of some tote lids that had lost their bin.  Since Junebugs also have a rather thick body I'm going to install a rib in Joshua as well.  Just to be safe.

I've included a picture of the finished rib before and after installation.  The ribs are installed simply by glueing them in place.

I've also included a picture of Joshua so far.  You will notice that I cut the arms and pinned them in place.

Now it's time to make and insert the lining and then fabrication the outside.

BTW - This is my fourth puppet and I'm still learning the art of cleanly fabricating a puppet.  It seems to be the trickiest part of puppet building.  Any advise on fabricating mouths so they don't have a lot of tucks?