this could be helpful for me, i just bought the roly pattern, and was thinking about blowing it up about 1.25%
i mean, 12 inches seems waaay small to me

You did read this part right?

One more thing that I always mention when folks ask about the size of the Project Puppet patterns is that in puppet design, small is good. The size of an average human hand and arm doesn't vary that much, and you want the puppet to fit that hand and arm. The better the fit, the more control the puppeteer has, and in turn the better the performance (potentially). Bigger (although it may be necessary for some characters and will bring its own design challenges) is not better.

Measure from your wrist to your elbow.  How many inches is that? If it is more then 12" I'll be surprised.  I am talking about from the inside bend of your elbow to the inside bend of your wrist.  I've had to work with puppets before that are long in the body and it is very tiresome.   

I partially agree with bigger is not always better, although I do find that the Simple Series patterns for heads seem a little too snug on my hand, so I usually bump them up just a smidge. The bodies I leave alone, but the arms and legs get lengthened so my puppets have better "reach".

This isn't completely relevant to the original post, but just by coincidence at work this week we were reducing the sizes of some of the PP "Forma Series" heads because we found them too big. We needed to make a bunch of Vikings with large wigs and beards for something and figured that the Project Puppet patterns were ideal for making a bunch of head shapes to build on top of quickly.

I have a preference for smaller puppets, they tend to be lighter, more flexible, and cost less to build. I don't use the "Simple Series" patterns, but have seen them and they're an ideal size for a soft, flexible puppet.

well i bought the Roly pattern and looking at the mouth pattern, i just can't even see my hand fitting :/. Oh well i will try it out unaltered and see if it works out alrite

I agree - hands are different sizes. When men buy my puppets (or I make them for the male puppeteers on our team), I have to make them larger. The guys have trouble getting their hands in and out of the smaller puppets.

I have purchased my pattern from them and loved it BUT I needed a giant puppet so I brought it down to staples and they were able to enlarge it to what ever size I wanted I had the puppet head increased to 36 inches for the head and cost hardly anything for the enlarging.

That is great to hear Sugar!

BTW: Welcome to Puppets and Stuff. Don't forget to stop by the "Introduce Yourself" area to let us know a bit more about you.

Welcome Sugar!

Welcome to Puppets and Stuff. Do you remember what percent they used to increase the pattern to make it that size?

Sunbeatle- how would you make it larger? I just finished a roly and it is a bit small but it still works fine. (it's my first puppet)