I made a pair shaped head, with a friend, a couple weeks back. There was a tendency for the middle to bulge out as you say THansen1. I got around it by gluing a plug of foam into the head inside, to help the thing stay pulled in, and above the plug, in the crown or skull, I stuff with leftover foam to help it  keep its shape.
 ArtherS, very interesting  shape on that  pattern there.

http://puppetsandstuff.com/2008gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=25674&g2_serialNumber=2

That's the shape I'm looking for. And did you use a shape like snail posted as your pattern?

I did the pair shaped head with my friend, taken from a plasticine model. Unfortunately the patterns that resulted are at that friend's place and I won't be going there until Friday. But I think Snail's pattern should do well. Failing that, get a pair from your fruit bowl, cover half of it in masking tape, cut the  tape into segments and stick it on some paper, size that up .. then eat the pair while you ponder the foam cutting....

The pear shape I made was not as long or as thin at the top. I can see that it might tend to flip out on the middle inward curve, that was a good point made. Depending on where you put the mouth if you glue a circle of foam inside that middle point to stablize it could be a good roof to the mouth.  I hate large empty heads, I like the mouth to respond immediately when I move my hand rather than wave around in an empty space. What is the character going to be? About where did you envision the mouth?

THansen1 If you haven't gotten around to doing the pear shaped head yet...I took this pattern off a plasticine model last night. I haven't actually made it... so you might be the first to try it. The gussets may not be necessary as the foam may stretch, but give it a go and see what happens. Oh, it is on a letter size paper, so size it up 3 or 4 times to a size you are happy with

I decided to  work through the  process of making the 'pear head' and see what shaped head we can come up with... and so anyone intersted can have a go at it too.

so, first I made a plasticine model of  roughly what we  want



then covered it with making tape, cut the  bits off, stuck them to a paper and  scanned them.


Then sized them up 300%, found they were too small for  my liking , so  resized them up to  400%.

cut the foams and glued together. Found the  mouth card was not deep enough, then made it as a 180mm circle

experimented a bit with the  plugs one of  11cm half way down to the mouth plate and  one  of 18cm just above  the  mouth plate, stuffed between with foam scraps to maintain form.


Then came out with a prototype
   


then adjusted patterns to symetricalize them.... and have decided to take a little in around the  top plug and the neck to improve the shape. The  patterns so far are:

         


   

Next step , remake  the foams to check adjustments, before cloth covering.
Stay tuned for  the  next installment

Well, this is interesting. I've been thinking about some head shapes that are a bit more advanced than what I have, and this is a great way to work it out. Thanks for the walk thru philip

Great job Phillip, its great to see others experimnting with patterns and making the shape they see in thier heads become real!! thanks for allowing us to join you in this and for showing us your patterns and process, im sure this will help quite a few people out that still dont understand basic pattern building.
Ben.

Thanks for the step through Phillip!

I posted this over in the enlarging patterns thread, but hope you don't mind me posting it again here as it is really two processes in the one video, and is part of the process of doing the pear shaped head. This is the step to symmetricalize your pattern peices. That process starts at 4:47. This helps get the patterns evened up and not lopsided.