Well, I'm gonna have some fun this weekend, then, aren't I!? :P
Billy, thanks for that, and again, thanks to all of you for your continued support!

Such a good site. Thanks Mr Fuller for share!

I did forget to mention that the back opening should be the same size as the doll joint.... but you knew that didn't you.

Billy D.

This is all brilliant advice and it's all starting to come together now. Thank you so much. I'm sure I'll fail at my first attempt at this, but I'm optimistic. ^_^

it is a learning process so make mistakes and learn, still the best teacher

It is true. For avoid making mistake, you do more mistake and don't learn much (That's what happened to me in the beginning of this puppet road)

Trial and error isn't a bad thing
. Nearly any mistake in puppet building can be over come or result in a completely different character than orginially entended. I've able to salvage even my biggest goof ups and make a different puppet. That is the part that truly establishes puppet building as an art form.

Okay, I'm going to attempt this today. I did a test, and the shape looks pretty good for the fabric for a first try. I'm gonna just go ahead and try to build the foam skull. I do have one question, though, and it's a stupid one, probably.

I actually have two questions.

1. When I'm making the pattern, how much smaller should the foam skeleton be than the fleece that will be stretched over it.

2. How in the holy heck do you insert the foam skull into the fleece covering? I'm having a little bit of trouble understanding that. I was checking out some of the project puppet patterns, and they show how to make the skull, but they don't really talk about HOW to insert it. They just say to "insert it"

I would assume that I build the understructure of the head as one piece, including the mouth plate, and the slip the fleece on over this. Am I correct in assuming this?

Usually a fleece covering is sew around the foam skull.  The foam pattern for my dragon head is about 1/4 smaller with deeper darts. The mouth area is actually a 1/2 smaller to allow the fleece to meet the mouth area. Let me know if a picture will help.

It will be easier to insert the foam head through the mouth opening if you have not already sewn it up.

Don't forget also that your foam skull is soft ans squishy.   It is pretty easy to get insert it even through a small neck opening.  You just keep working with it and moving it around inside the fabric to get it in the right position. Along with Matt's idea of leaving the mouth plate out and then hand stitching it in, you can also leave seams open like down the back of the head where you would put hair to make it easier to get the foam in. You then hand stich them closed once you have the foam in place.