Hi, I'm new to puppetsandstuff, and I am a huge fan of Avenue q.  I was trying to make thepuppets, and I was wondering what sort of foam to use for carving a head.  I am planning on using a foam block, not a foam sheet, as I can't afford a pattern, but I just don't know what kind of foam to use.  Thanks in advance!

http://swazzle.com/blogs/2007/01/puppet-building-tutorial-frosty.html

look here, a tutoral about carving a puppet

Thanks very much.  Great tutorial!

you're welcome

Welcome to Puppets and Stuff Rod......... Gompie gave you a good lead to a great tutorial. Search thru the forum here. There a lot of threas on Avenue Q.

Billy d.

here is a good one.  Its for a larger size / suit but it might help.

http://www.nicodemus.org/fursuit/foamhead.php

Hi Rod, welcome to the group. 

It looks like you've gotten a couple of good leads to foam carving tutorials already. I know that a few of our members here have personal experience in the technique. I tried it a long time ago myself with only limited sucess, before these tutorials were available - and keep thinking that I should try it again someday.

Here's a couple of other links about foam carving that we've posted in the past...

http://www.thatguywhojuggles.com/Gallery/Puppets1/Build/build%20index.htm

http://www.erichedman.com/tikiproject.htm


Here's another interesting foam tiki tutorial, but it uses stiff insulation foam, rather than flexile polyfoam, (foam rubber)...

http://www.biffinc.com/tikifireplace/tikifireplace.html


This puppet builder is quite skilled at creating carved polyfoam puppet caricatures, etc. - something like the Spitting Image puppets from Britain...

http://www.whattacharacter.com/gallery.htm


Please take a minute to tell us about yourself over in the Introduce Yourself forum, OK?



Ron G.

PS
Remember to carve your puppets with their mouths at least partially OPEN... it's a lot easier to squeeze a "permanently" open mouth shut than it is to stretch a "permanently" closed one open, with fewer chances of tearing the foam.

Okay.  Thanks guys.  I actually think I am going to make it out of sheet foam, because I can access it more easily.  The only thing I don't know how to do is make the pattern for making a sphere shaped head.  Does anyone know?

www.puppetbuilding.com has one free.  they're down right now don't know why.

I have a round headed pattern that I'm happy to send. It includes the mouth shape, and three head pieces (two for the top of the head, one for the lower jaw). You can see its use in my gallery page - the sheep. Sorry, no longer offering this pattern for free.



I've used this pattern to make a number of different round-headed characters.