Also, the asymmetry gives him a bit of a... dirty Harry- look!

I honestly cannot see what is wrong with this head, its fantastic, i think you are being too harsh on yourself, a perfectly symetrical puppet face takes charector away, its the tiny inperfection that give it so much personality, and i think this one is amazing, id love to see a picture of him with his mouth open, just to see what it looks like.

I'm learning that my puppet making is an evolutionary journey. While I don't mind the asymmetry of the puppet at all, I still very much want to learn how to get it right if I have to.
Haven't had much time for this the past couple of days, but got a couple of hours this afternoon. Added ears, painted eyes and did the mouth interior. I haven't set the eyelids yet as I'm considering redoing them completely, but I may just be too lazy to do that.


I hope to do the body and get the hair on this guy over the weekend. Can't wait to see who he turns into?!
Chris

I really do like this guy even with his asymmetry. That being said let's see if we can figure out some things you can do to improve. 

You mentioned you where thinking of reworking the eyelids. I can see some of the asymmetry that you are talking about in them and the lower lids. Are they separate foam pieces that you covered and then sewed on?  If so I would think that if patterned and cut both sides the same that it should improve things. Are the other features layered on top of the basic head shape or is this a carved head out of a block of foam?  Layering shapes on top of a patterned head base like you have with most of the patterns out there I feel makes it simpler to create symmetry. I have a harder time when I am carving or modeling out of clay but if you divide of the face and measure where features fall it can make this easier. Most books on modeling or carving will describe this technique although I have a feeling you may already know this considering your background.  Maybe it is just a matter of applying what you know in other mediums to this one.  Do you use Calipers if you are sculpting?  I don't use them but I know that they are very helpful to many.

I really like the interior of your mouth. You made some very good choices. It seems your upper teeth have a higher profile then the lower ones which allows the mouth to close completely and not show teeth.  I think often folks do not think about that.  Again your past experience is showing.

I love that guy!

Thanks, Shawn, for your input. I really appreciate it and I think you touched on why I'm a bit slow learning certain aspects of the process. This guy is glued foam, not sculpted. If I'm anything, I'm a sculptor and a lump of clay is where I'm right at home. While I've done quite a lot of foam construction, it's always been over a rigid base of some sort, so this free-form fabrication is quite a change for me.
The first mistake I made on this guy was on the top of the head where I don't think I cut the petals evenly. I hope with a little more care I can avoid that problem. I feel sure that I'll get a handle on the foam construction fairly quickly, it's really the fabric and sewing aspect that's killing me right now. The ears on this one were foam covered with fleece. The foam pieces were almost exact mirrors of each other, but after I sewed them they did not resemble each other in the least. It was the same with the nose. While my hand stitching is getting better and easier, I think I still have a long way to go to get it right.
The eyelids are free floating fleece that were originally planned to simply be cut away and discarded, they were never intended to be the final lids. I can glue them down and get them much more even, but as this is a "learning" puppet, I think I'll go for replacing the lids entirely for the experience. Any eyelid tips are more than welcome!
You're right about the teeth; the lower teeth are just flat felt and the upper teeth are a piece of felt doubled over and glued on edge. I think that worked better than I'd hoped.
I'm having a good time with all this. It all feels completely new and challenging. The hardest part is being patient with myself. I'm used to moving along at a much faster pace and I really need to take my time with all this.

Are you patterning at all when you are making these guys? I free from but I still pattern of sorts. In other words say I start with a tube of foam for my head and then start to ad darts to round it out, I would cut a piece of butcher paper and make a tube of it. I would then have something I could easily and uniformly add the darts on the left and right side the same.  In other words I would flatten the tube together and cut the dart once to end up with one on each side. Make sense? 

Eyelids I would draw a circle (most likely grab a lid off something that seems about right) and then cut that circle in half. Often I want the lower lid to be a bit smaller so I would not make my cut right down the center of the circle.  Now I have my pattern piece for foam or even just fabric to cut and use.  Since it sounds like the sewing may be throwing you off some it might help to use something just a bit ridged like craft foam or maybe leather and cut your shapes then cover them with fabric.  This should give you a shape you can bend and sew down over the eye but the hard edge of the craft foam or leather is going to help you keep the shape you want as you sew.  The sewing thing is just something that takes a little practice but a lot of time!  An alternative would be to glue these pieces down. I am not a big fan of gluing simply because it is harder to "undo" it when making repairs.  You could use glue gun but a glue like fabric tack or tacky will give you a bit more time and control. With them you need to hold or secure your glue line while they set. Pretty easy with puppets since you can push a pin in along the line you are gluing to hold it while it sets.

Great suggestions, Shawn, thanks. I suspect I'll be gluing the lids down just because I'm not too good at sewing in tight corners (yet).  I've been doing more and more patterns on these puppets as I've progressed, but I haven't found a good approach to the basic head shape yet. I take your point about "sort of" patterning and I think that's where I'll wind up once I get a bit more comfortable with it all. It's obviously something I need to be doing more of.
I'm already looking forward to starting the next puppet to try more of these techniques.

In regards to gluing, this may not always apply but since fleece has a nape to it you might want to clip away some of the nape at times so you are gluing tighter to the base of the fabric.  I've done this on long pile furs before otherwise you glue to the "ends" of the hair and your bond is not tight. The glued piece kind of just floats there.  Might not need it with the eyelids but keep it in mind as you look a things.

Very familiar with that problem from many years of working with faux furs. I edge glued the lids down as best I could and I think for the most part they don't look too bad. I may do a little airbrushing to try and hide the edges a little better.
Just playing with some fur for hair. I had originally thought this guy might be a redhead, but I couldn't find any appropriate fur so I'm going with black.


I'm undecided whether he should have rod arms or real hands. I made rod arms for him, but they look too small and I haven't done one of the real hand/hand puppets. Is there a better term for that style of puppet?