So, after a few years without any puppet making, I’m jumping back in head first. I decided to make a sack-body monster puppet with a couple of yards of fur I bought years back, actually after visiting the Jim Henson's Fantastic World Exhibit when it was in Philadelphia.
I got the foam pattern from John Kennedy's “Puppet Planet” and modified the same pattern for the fur covering. I've been using a whip stitch and the seams have all been completely invisible so far.
I made the nose by carving it out of foam and then coming up with a two-piece pattern to cover it with, I originally tried a pattern I found online and stuffed it with poly-fil, but wasn't satisfied with the results. I stitched together the pattern using polar fleece. The tongue is just a piece of cardboard with pink fleece hot-glued over it, and I added depth by coloring it with crayons.
Nothing is glued or attached permanently in these pictures, I just wanted to get some photos before I stitched and glued the covering on permanently.
I'm going to see if I can't make the body tomorrow with nearly invisible seams using my sewing machine. I'm also going do some experimenting to figure out the eyes and nose position.
I’m hoping to finish up by the end of the weekend, and I’ll post more WIP pictures as I go, hopefully it’ll come out as good as it looks in my head!

Great work Luke. Polyfoam stuffed noses can work sometimes but the way you did it often works better on a larger nose. Like the fur you are using on this guy. When you sew your body on the machine try to brush the fur away from the edge of where  you  are sewing. This will help to hide the seams. Then when you turn the piece most should have not gotten caught in the seam and the amount that did should be easy to pull out with a pin or pick.

Great start.  I'm anxious to see it progress

Tongue is nice with the shading and depth. Never thought of using crayons before.

Thank you very much for all the compliments!

I had to go into work today, so I wasn't able to work on the body,but last night after posting, I found that the original tongue was too thick to comfortably puppeteer with, and it also wouldn't let the mouth close all the way. So I went ahead and remade it with cardstock instead of cardboard, and it's much better now. I also like the way the shading came out on the new tongue much more than the old one.
(Old tongue on the left, new tongue on the right.)



Thanks for the tip, Shawn! That was what I was thinking, so I'll go ahead and pin it all together beforehand so that the fur won't be caught in the seams.

You and me both, Arthur!

And Snail, it only occurred to me to use crayons to shade when I saw the Crayola box sitting on my sewing basket and a light bulb went off in my head, I'm really pleased with how it came out, and I'm considering hitting the tongue with some hairspray to preserve the coloring and keep it from wearing away over time.

I also think I'll trim back some of the fur on the head once the body is sewn on so it's not quite as fluffy. More progress pics as they come, hopefully a full body picture tomorrow.

Thanks again!