Thanks, guys!  

I don't know what I'm going to do with him with he's finished. I guess it depends on how well he turns out.  At the very least, he will be a great learning experience and a new playmate for my daughter!  I'd like to start making webvideos and films with my puppets and perhaps perform live for kids at the library or something, but the main reason for making him is because it's fun.

A couple of questions: What method do you guys recommend for attaching the beak to the head?  I have hot glue and contact cement, but would a different adhesive be better?  Or is it better to hand stitch it?  I have no idea how to do that, but I haven't let that stop me yet!

And the same question for the foam body.  And how tightly does it need to be secured?

What kind of materials will be mating to each other? Will it be foam from the beak to fabric on the head, or foam to foam? If foam to foam, my preference is for contact cement, but you will find plenty of hot-glue advocates here as well. If it is fabric to foam, then I think I would use hot glue. Either way, I would hand stitch them together as well, after the gluing, just to give it plenty of strength.

It will likely be fabric to fabric.  I wrapped the fabric on the beak all the way around when I was gluing... but the head fabric isn't attached yet, I could possibly fold and trim that a bit and try to do beak fabric to head foam if you think it would turn out better.

My only concern would be the possibility, in the case of fabric on fabric, that the weight of the beak might pull the fabric on the head forward and away from the head, causing the beak to be somewhat floppy. If the head fabric is well glued to the head, then I don't think there would be an issue. Depending on how you glue the fabric to the head (assuming you do), I would still stitch the beak to the fabric for added strength. If you use hot glue to fasten the fabric to the head, it's almost impossible to sew through hot glue. (I have holes in my fingers from the back of the needle going through them from trying, lol).

I agree with Chris, the beak needs more support than just fabric to fabric for that long beak.  Sewing in tight curve can be a challenge, there are different size and shape(curved)needles that can help. Contact cement is the strongest,long lasting foam bond. Not a hot glue fan, it is so messy, sewing fabric layer should give neatest results with the bonus if you don't like it you can rip it out and try again. I have not been successful removing hot glue from fabric.

pagestep007: my last puppet team was two groups of 4 that alternated, I have been working with teams for 40 years and I have never know one of my puppeteers who liked the open mouths.  When they bought puppet with open mouth they asked me to alter it so that it closed easier. Mind you we are not professionals, but doing multiple shows back to back was hard on our hands and arms. I think you need to make a puppet the way that works best for the hand that will use it, we are all made different.

Snail,thanks for that info (40 years huh? That unwittingly is letting top sectret information out...). I agree. We have no more than 4 puppeteers at a time also, so new characters are taylored to suit them a bit. And agreed, the energy you need to save is not in opening the mouth so much as at the rest position, as that is the 'action' you do most of the time, resting between opening, and resting while other characters talk.If your rest position requires energy to hold the mouth closed, you are using a lot of energy. After all, a 'rest' position means.. rest. If your rest position is open.. ok, but in most cases a rest is likely to be in a closed position,like a human. but... each man to his own. There is no hard and fast rule I suppose.

My only concern would be the possibility, in the case of fabric on fabric, that the weight of the beak might pull the fabric on the head forward and away from the head, causing the beak to be somewhat floppy. If the head fabric is well glued to the head, then I don't think there would be an issue. Depending on how you glue the fabric to the head (assuming you do), I would still stitch the beak to the fabric for added strength. If you use hot glue to fasten the fabric to the head, it's almost impossible to sew through hot glue. (I have holes in my fingers from the back of the needle going through them from trying, lol).

Okay, so what I really need to do is try to cut the fabric and pin it back so I can get some foam to foam contact, adhere it with contact cement, and then hand stitch the fabrics together.  I'll try that.  Thanks!

Yes kelso that would be your best option.

Well, I successfully sewed the head on last night and got the beak cemented into place!  Turned out that I didn't have to do as much trimming of fabric as I thought.  I'm going to try to get the stitching done this weekend and get some pics posted!

Looking forward to seeing the results!