Shawn, you basically described how the bunraku work, with the only difference that the head isn't attached to the neck board so it can rotate. You use the trigger for up/down, and rotating your wrist/the rod for left/right. ... I wish I could find the pdf of the mechanism that I had bookmarked, it would really help...

I have been giving this project a little more thought. The optical illusion done in the moving dragons eyes in another post could be used for the entire head. I have a CNC wood carving machine and I often find an inverted 3d image will look like it is following me depending on the light.
So if we made a papier mache copy of a styrofoam head  and had that face as a concave surface the shadows created would make it look like the face is following us. It could be lit from under the chin with a blue light.
You could place the face inside half of a milk jug on the end of the pole. I will draw a sketch and post it if anyone is interested. In the mean time I saw this today and it reminded me of the whole process.

here is an example of that concave face concept.

Wow that was cool optical illusion,I was thinking about how the audience is looking at a performance from different angles, this might work better when all of them are a larger distance back so that they see it straight on more. 

It is quite difficult to find them, but try to see some of Hansjürgen Fettig's books. Maybe at a good library. I think you will get some really interesting ideas.
For a sample:

Cheers for the help!

So I have 13 figures/puppets to make. They have to based on the broomstick body. Set at a crucifix shape. Head on top must be able to move to look up to the sky and back to neutral. I have been trying to weigh up my options on how to actually build the heads

1) Styrofoam heads. Which are covered with Sculpy, FIMO or some sort of oven baked clay.

2) Cheese Cloth

3) Foam, Covered by latex? Not to sure on this one.

4) Tin Foil covered in clay (Similar to number 1)

5) Wood. This would mean carving.... would mean to invest in new time/skill

Can you Gents (and ladies) suggest any other way for me to make these please?

My choice which you know is number one but I would not use Sculpy or FIMO but something like Creative Paper Clay or Model Magic. Ends up much lighter then the oven bake clays and you don't have to bake them.

You know if they don't need to be "realistic" then you could make them out of foam just like a hand in mouth puppet. Then for the neck hole where you would have normally placed your hand in to operate you could plug it with something like styro foam that would be a solid base to tie into the broom stick.

Ok. So Shawn. Would you have a Styro base (e.g. ball?) then sculpt around it. Or would you build the whole head using the Paper Clay. This project got put on hold. She's only just got the funding for it. Got a two week period to build them now! So its all go go go!

I sculpt over a styro foam base. Done like the puppets I did for Carnival http://carnival.puppetsandstuff.com/