Angel,

Yes if you are more comfortable with a tape measure the go that route. For me using a piece of paper or cardboard would be easier and I do it all the time to get rough patterns but I may not be explaining it right. It is always best to go with what you understand.

Shawn,

That makes so much sense.  You'd cut the opening for the mouth and slide the paper in from the front and trace the edge, right?  Subract 1/2 inch from your trace line on the curved edge and voila! mouth plate pattern!

What I was initially trying to do was make a small mouthed puppet.  Like Bunsen here:
http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Dr._Bunsen_Honeydew
I have yet to figure this out.  I wonder if his mouth is difficult to manipulate.

I think for Honeydew they don't use a mouth plate....I think that the head is carved out of a large piece of foam (Like a large Nerf ball)  and they just carve in finger holes (inside) and a slit to make the mouth (outside).  I think that your fingers would get pretty cramped using this style of puppet over a long period of time, however I think that he has a pretty easy moving mouth since it really relies on your fingers to make it move.

Daryl H

I think that Daryl is correct. In fact I think that many of the Muppets are actually more of a "solid" foam construction as opposed to flat foam that is patterned. I am pretty sure they have molds now that they can use as the base for them. At some point I read a bit on how Miss Piggy used to be carved out of solid foam but how now she is popped out of a mold.

Here is an idea to accomplish the same thing with a pattern.  Cut that shape, or the one you want, in the sphere then on the inside of the head glue a "tube" of foam that follows the line of the shape you cut out. Now compress the tube and see what happens. This could be very hard to manipulate but what if you glued a long opera glove to the foam tube you glued to the inside of the mouth?   You foam tube would need to be long enough so that the "back" of it fit into the cup of you hand when it is in the head. I have no idea if this well work but might be worth a try.

Hi, Good morning everybody!

I'm not an expert in the field,  but I like geometry, and I think what you should try with this pattern (already attached) is to make the cut out in parallel with the dart.
you can trying cutting in parallel way the top, and the botton like a  "v" or "u" (However you want to call it), and see what happend

PS: I've been reading all your posts and they are interesting (The answers), I'm just Studying to try to make a better puppet

Thanks, Miguel!

I've always wanted to carve a puppet from a block of foam, so I'm going to try it that way. That idea is going to have to wait for a bit, but it will be on my list.
Thanks for the info.  It makes sense. 
Right now I have 4 puppets in the works that I'd like to complete first.  I'm excited about this next one.  It's based off a sketch by Pasha Romanowski.  His name is Riley "Taps" Parker and I'm almost done with the costume.  I'm still waiting on my Scott foam to arrive via mail.  This will be my first Scott foam build.

I  Scott Foam and I am sure you will too. 

Daryl H

No Longer Available
Here is the entire 9 part video series of thistledownpuppets's "Building the Red Panda".

Philip Hatter walks you through his design process for a hand-made puppet that he built for a local art show/charity event.

Thistledown Puppets web site.

Shawn I was looking at some previous post when I came across this one. How did you combine all nine videos to play in this one post. I don't know how this post slipped past me.

Billy D.

I created a playlist over at YouTube of all 9 puppet tutorial videos and then I embedded that playlist here at Puppets and Stuff.