no better spot then the bottom

I ended up going with the bottom for that puppet due to the deadline I'd set myself. I wanted to make the lining straight forward for speed. I'm till thinking a hybrid shape for some future projects (though I'm pretty much sidelined from building right now!).
Q Crazy>
I've held some of the real Ave Q puppets a few weeks back. (The puppet master for the Australian/Australasian tour is an old friend of mine and I went backstage for a while in Melbourne. I might start a thread here to describe some of the techniques they use for building, maintenance etc, time permitting.) Your "Nicky" is really impressive, well done.
 

S,s,s,s,scubasteve......YOU GOT TO SEE AND HOLD THE REAL Q CAST?!!!? i cant breathe. in my eyes you are now one of the luckies people on this site, all i had was two old pics of nicky for reference when i replicated him. but YOU my friend now know things a fan like me was only allowed to dream of! There is so much i wish to know but i wouldnt dare harass you with questions so plz share your knowledge. The Q puppets are very reiforced and incredibly easy to control from what ive read so you do have priceless information IMO....... Ok now that i can breathe again ill tell you that ive never been more thankful to join this site. I  puppets

Who did/constructed the puppets for avenue q? I know a few of henson puppeteers went on to work on the show...did some of his build team do the same?

Yes it is a fact that some of the actors worked for the muppets. Stephanie D'abruzzo and Rick Lyon (who built them) were very involved with the muppets before moving on to Avenue Q. Rick has his own site where he talks about his experience with the play and has pics of the charachters (http://www.lyonpuppets.com/avenueq.html). Stephanie was the purple girl in this video:
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https://youtu.be/zkHM8xG6i8o

Ok, I won't get it all on here tonight, but lets see... Yes they were built in the states by Rick Lyon and sent over, there must be a fair bit of confidence in their robustness as there was no spare fabric or the like sent with them for maintenance. VERY confident for a  tour that will number more than 54 weeks! The mouth plates for instance are thin plywood, both stitched and glued, the finger grip being a simple ridge on the top palate (also stitched) and a tube for the thumbs. "Stitched?" you say, yeah there were lots of tiny holes drilled through the wood and the thread passed through this. I wish I'd made notes on just what I learnt, I didn't dream that I'd get a little hazy on something so important to me!
Other things that surprised me was how little stuffing was in the arms of the puppets and they didn't have Elbows sewn in, not even inside the skin! I think it was down to having them so well proportioned they could only bend in the middle.
The first thing you see backstage is the puppet racks that are customised roadboxes, in theatre they usually use this kind for touring wardrobes, these ones though have their own Air conditioning units blowing clean dry air through the puppets to prevent sweat and bacteria turning into smelly slimy cultures. Mounted on the side of the box is a pump bottle of hand gel ( the rinse free type, again to keep hands clean and dry, before they go into the puppets.)
Once I washed my hands I tried on Nicky, LIGHT! WOW! the hoody (hooded sweater) he was wearing weighed more than the rest of the puppet all together. One of the "Bad idea bears" weighs less than an iPhone!
The necklines are really well hidden so that you are unaware of the fact that the neck tube goes down to the bottom of the body, even from up close it's difficult to tell. The neck tubes are a stretch fabric, a bit heavier than Lycra, (Jersy perhaps) but as Shawn mentioned to Rosy in another thread, the stretch only went across not down the length.They had light tubing around the bottom edge (as Darryl shows in his blog tv tutorial) Ok here's the only thing about them that was surprisingly basic, the neck tubes were safety pinned in the bottom, no press studs or fancy solutions there. If there is time in the show to change the puppets clothes they do but on character has two bodies and they swap out the head for a quick change (yep, safety pinned!) I can't remember which puppet that was... (D'oh!) I think there was two Rods, one with his hair a bit messed up for the dream scene. (I didn't notice this when I saw the show so that is a very expensive bit of messed up hair) To do this there had to be a different puppet as his super repressed characters over groomed hair is done by combing white glue(Called PVA in Australia, probably wide spread name, Poly Vinyl Alcohol )through Faux fur.
Hmm what else...
I didn't get to try on Trekky, which was a shame as this was the character (along with Nicky-played by same puppeteer) that I would have auditioned for. ( I am a professional Musical Theatre performer of 20 years) Except I was doing Billy Elliot at the time and the overlap didn't allow me to rehears in Sydney while we played in Melbourne. I looked at him briefly but he was on Stage left and the entrance to backstage was stage right and it was more poilticaly correct as a guest backstage to stay nearer there. A lot of the cast are friends and peers but it is still their backstage area and it's not cool to be seen to be intruding much. Luke, who plays Trekky/Nicky is so fantastic (as are all the Aussie cast) but also so tall! It works really well for Trekky and gives another level in some of the formations for the choreography.
Back to puppets.. Lucy T. I was surprised at how much hair there is in her wig, she is actually a conical head, a la punto pattern from Project puppet.
Not much else comes to mind right now (except kicking my self for not trying on treckky) I was also there to ask the puppet master to critique my stuff, he got me into the idea of puppets when we did our first show together 20 years ago!(without puppets, he is also a stage manager.) It was nice to be able to impress him
Some of what I've written might prompt a question which in turn prompts my memory. Things that don't spring to mnd now might be things I took for granted from my own research before I went there.
Glad I got a few moment to write this tonight, but I must go
Scoob

Oh yeah, remember that arms were flimsy the were rope ligaments or something and I think they were slowly getting replaced with Dolls joints! So not so sturdy there afterall!

Ok steve heres some things that i want to know: what did hey use to give nickys arms shape? and i need to know how they made the fleece pattern for lucys breasts because im making a female puppet and thats something that i kneed to know now! also you pretty much live my dream. I love more musicals than rock bands and would KILL to play everyone in the cast of Avenue Q. Ive mastered most of the puppet voices and i love singing both parts of "If you were gay" Acting is the only thing i know i can do wonders in. and THANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOU for sharing this with me :D oh! and how did the make nicky so light? mine weighs ten pounds!

Sorry taken a while again, I don't know about Lucy's breasts, sorry. Your puppets seemed even and will dress well if you don't want to show cleavage. I would have suggested trying a  sort of a cross between pacman and a tear drop shape. Or a pac man face with long lips. As you close the mouth shape you should get a conical shape. If you started with a circle you will get a "chinamans hat" but elongating should help get more natural shape, with some gravity. A small dart or two in the bottom curve would give a better, more spherical, curve to the bottom of the  breast. Which is the shape you've ended up with at the bottom of yours.
To really get an idea, have you got a sister or friend who won't be freaked out if you ask for an old t shirt bra with a sewn bra cup. I'd explain what I was trying to do and cop the flack (australian slang for taking the teasing on the chin) if you can find the right type of bra, unpick it and reverse engineer the pattern you'll be on a winner!
I can't really remember the arms but I'l ask my friend, he knows I'm thinking of making a working hand puppet too. the rod arm puppets (like Rod) had no elbow as such and were lightly stuffed, I think Nicky might have had a piece of foam...
Light weight comes from materials. The thick poly foam you are using is doing you no favours (don't worry, I do it too, I have thje stuff and am trying to use it up, though my friend from Ave Q put me onto a supplier and he cut blocks of foam down to sheets in large quantities for a lot less than I was getting my retail priced foam scraps!) Polyfoam is heavy enough without the thickness you are using. Reticulated foam is nearly as durable without the weight. You may have to treat it with a little more care but puppets need TLC anyway. Nicky was not the lightest of the puppets there but he was certainly lighter than anything I'd made.
As for the acting thing, I was lucky enough to come to the industry as a straight male dancer who could sing and act a bit, making me rare enough to work alongside some people who were much more specialised and talented in their fields. Puppetry is more bohemian and underpaid, with a lot of talented competition, (I seem to remember from some where you are 18, yeah?) I would say STUDY, enroll in tertiary programs, train as an actor and explore puppetry majors if you can, but train train train in order to compete. One of the most amazing puppet doctors I met was completing his training at NIDA in Sydney (Graduates you might now are Mel Gibson and Geoffrey Rush) He was doing a stage management course and switched to props and puppet making in his final year. His work was incredible!
Hope this answers some questions, go get enrolled.

For breasts you can use Crayola's Model Magic in white (i think it is cheaper in white)...it dries lightweight and you can easily mold them and then glue them on to the body....I have used it and it is much easier and more realistic than trying to carve or fold foam into breasts.

Just a thought to share......

Daryl H