OK, you guys and gals, I need help covering foam.

I've built more than 35 puppets. Every thing from paper mache to soda bottles to foam footballs to The Foam Book's 3 piece and Nip and Tuck, but I've rarely had to cover the building material. I built a 7 man Mariachi band with pink carpet foam, no covering. I built a 5 chicken clogging group, no covering, just paint. So, I have very little experience with covering.

I've wanted to a bunraku type "old biddy" and when I saw escu's Gladys, I knew that was her.

Anyway, I've done the head doing the 3 piece method. Had some material I purchased from One Way Street several years ago that was the right color and started covering the head. It didn't have as much stretch as I had thought and so I've had problems with folds.

What I need is info on covering a head when you do not use a pattern. Please try to make it simple as I am old and don't do well with written instructions. Visuals are better.

Thanks for all the help I know I will receive.

Jay (DrPuppet) has a perfect video for you on sale ($5). Unfortunately his page is down at the moment (what s goin' on, Jay?) but hopefully will be back online soon.
A page: www.drpuppet.com

There is a tutorial on covering a head with no pattern at all.
The method is very simple --- what you need to do is to cut out a chunk of fleece, e.g. a square, large enough to cover whole head. A spray and hot glue would be helpful for you too.
Start with the mouth --- cut out a hole for a mouth (you need to measure it first), glue it on in the mouth corners (you can than glue fabric on whole mouth but maybe you prefer to sew the rest on).
Then start to cover the upper part of the head --- you can use your hot glue gun if you have any glued features [like nose] on your puppet's head to glue fabric in the small places to reach a better shape. For the whole head you can your spray glue to hold the fabric on.
Trim an excess of the fabric, pin it and the sew it up.
Do the same with the lower part of the head.

Hope that helps somehow.
Jay's video will show you everything perfectly, but you need to wait till his page is on again.

Here are some pics:



You can here see how it's done.

If you check out my Blogtv account I do a video on covering heads with material using the draping method......here is the link to my page http://www.blogtv.com/People/stiqpuppetslive....scroll through the video's and find the coveirng head one.  I will be having them transfered to my youtube account soon enough.

Hope that works for U......

Daryl H