I would like to know what kind of material you experienced puppeteers know to use on the ouside part of the mouth. I used red and pink felt on my first puppet to give him a tounge and a colored inside. the problem is that its thickness does interfere with closing the mouth. What can i use thats a very thin but dense fabric?

Felt is a common fabric used for this.  I do it all the time. There are different weights (thicknesses) of felt. Where is the thickness causing the issue? If you cover the entire inside with say pink and then wrap your face fabric and attach it on to that then a piece of red for the tongue should be no thicker then what you have made your "lips" out of the face fabric so there shouldn't be an issue.  Wow did that even make sense on paper.... made sense in my head.

Daryl likes to use a fabric like faux suede. (I'm sure he'll pop in later and correct this for me). He likes it because it is thin, flexible, and doesn't wear as easily as felt.

When I was making moveable mouth puppets I was using Foamies Foam sheets from the craft store.  It was simple and cheap for my purposes however my puppets were not professional.  They just got the job done for me to perform with.  I used them for the mouth plate AND the finished exterior of the mouth.  They are easy to cut.  I liked the flexibility they had because I like to make "realistic" mouth movements so I didn't want anything too rigid.  Now I like my puppets with no mouths, hands, nor feet.  Keeps them in one place at night, too.  Before they were running around the house making too much noise.  I sleep better at night now.  

Another thing I used was faux leather for tongues.  Again, they cut well and don't fray.  That's the only thing that I can think of that would cause you problems with many types of fabric.  You have to be careful with the fraying.  There are products out there that will help that but then that is just one more step that you have to add.  There are so many better choices out there that will make your puppet build easier and faster.

I use a combination of Foamies and felt. Felt wraps the foam, as described in The Foam Book (it's a sort of twist on what they say to do)

Shawn, dont worry i know exactly what youre saying. It is hard to describe puppet parts and i usually define things in a over-the-top- manner anyway. Thank you all for your input I cannot find pink leather or a less transparent felt where i live. BUT those thin foamy sheets would have been the perfect solution...............only, i was in a rush to buy new supplies and my brain wasnt around to remind me of how useful foamies were so i got pink fleece. As a positive im using black t-shirt to simply cover the plate so its thinness should help to make room for a fleece tongue. for now on, its gonna be a foamy tongue, its best bang for my buck. ill use felt when i lean how to make more space in the mouth. thanks guys

I've used t-shirt fabric before and it works quite well, especially if you give the back of the mouth a good reinforcement coating of glue (Sculpt and Coat I guess, it's just as an Aussie I don't have access to that product). This is what I used initially - t-shirt fabric and a piece of matte board for the mouth - but prefer the Foamie/felt combination as it offers more flexibility in movement and is easier on the puppeteer's hand (it requires less force to move than the matte board).

I can tell you what NOT to use. I was once stuck for black material, and all I had on hand was polyester pinstripe. Very slippery. Left unusual white lines in the mouth. Kinda funny looking.

I may have no idea what polyester pinstripe is but i promise not to use it :P Ive brobably seen matte board before but oh well... When i make the new head that this is going with i think ill make a tutorial, the question is, by photo or video?