I am wanting to make a puppet for my nephew and I am kinda low on cash and wondering how do you make your own patterns. How do you even go about this? I understand that you first think of what you are trying to make but I dont understand where to cut the arrows out to make the shape I want. Is there a way to experiment without wasting foam??



Thanks

Thomas

Do you know what kind of puppet you want?  How old is your nephew?  Little kids don't need anything too fancy.  Professional puppets are kinda heavy for them anyway.
My 5, 6 and 10 year olds are happy with simple glove puppet monsters.  I use my hand or their hand to make a pattern for this.  Here's a picture:

Sock puppets are easy too.  Billy and other members here have links to FREE puppet patterns that would use that foam you mentioned to make a fancier puppet.  They will probably chime in soon.  There might be a thread somewhere on this site with a list of free patterns.
Pam

I want to make a professional one....... its not for him to use, more for my brother to calm him down for naps (he is only 8 months) and to distract him during doctor vists and stuff like that. He is glued to Baby Einstein, I was thinking one that looks like a garden gnome.

Pattern making is kinda complex.  It helps to see other patterns first before you draft up something of your own.  Here's a thread about patterns.  Read through it.  It has for sale patterns and free ones listed in the dialog.
http://puppetsandstuff.com/community/index.php/topic,919.0.html

For my first puppet, I started with a pattern for a sphere I found on the internet.  From this I learned a bit about the way foam works.  I then looked at a few free puppet patterns that are out there and eventually came up with the round head pattern that I now use for a starting point for creating a puppet head.

Now there is some experimentation that goes into the design process.  I start with paper.  It's cheaper than foam and I don't feel as attached to any product that I make if I don't like it.  Once the paper pattern looks like it might produce a good foam head I move on to foam.

One thing that is good to remember when working with foam is that, if you are going to cover the foam with fabric, its very forgiving.  You can add and remove foam all you want until your happy with the shape you have built in foam.  And it doesn't matter if it looks like scarface because you're going to cover it with fabric. When working with foam I am picky because I know that making adjustments is simple and easy.

I agree with using paper before moving into foam. In fact, that's how I do all my pattern work. I develop the shape from old newspapers (nipped, tucked, taped or cut into a shape), and then when I have what I want, I transfer to foam and save the newspaper for later if I need it again. The great thing about using paper is that if you get stuck you can add or remove bits as you experiment, and you won't have to worry too much if you need to start again.

i also agree that a good way to start is to use paper to experiment with until you find the shape you want. at first i still found it hard to get my head around how i could fold and bend the paper to get the shape i wanted. whilst searching the web i found a few websites for 3dimensional papercraft modeling.
www.paperkraft.net is a good one. there are loads of different models there if you have a good search and the patterns are free to download.
i found that printing some of these helped me to understand how different shapes could be acheived and with a few slight modifications i dont see why you couldnt use the patterns to make foam ones (remove the tabs and just stick the foam edges together). through the process i found another hobby for me! i made the "Clank" robot and thought his head would make a good shape for a puppet heres a picture of the paper version.

the head may look a bit square-ish but if built with foam i think that would bend into a nice curved round head.
anyway i found this to be quiet helpful for me so i hope it helps anybody else out there.

cheers
Spam 

Great find Spam!  Looks like there are tons of shapes that could be adapted to foam puppets.

Wao!, great web! Thanks Spam for you sharing. Is a lot helpful. Like Mr. Sorrell said.

Thanks again

Miguel

Like Mr. Sorrell said.

   Please call me Shawn.  I feel old enough the way it is.