Hey all, my puppet is going to need a big mane! Does anyone have any tips on creating a mane on what will essentially be a floating head? Im thinking about making it out of very long shag fabric but i'm very open to suggestions. I'm really excited about this puppet and pulling all materials and ideas together before I start posting progress regularly. Thanks for any advice you might have!

What do you need the mane to do? because there are a few obvious options I can think of, but I really depends on the look and what you have in mind. you could use the long shag fur fabric that you have mentioned, but you could also find a few long haired wigs and cut up the backing into strips (between the hair wefts) and then all you would have to do is glue the strips of hair down and because they are still on the backing mesh it wouldn't be too difficult, also in the same way you can purchase those fake ponytails from girls accessories shops and do the same, but if you where going for a more comical look, then long, thin strips of fleece fabric are good for making hair and a mane, you can even give them a little curl by stretching the little strips of fabric a little and letting them relax and they will have a slight curl to them and all you do is glue them down strip by strip until you have enough of a mane. you can also buy 'needle felting wool' which looks a bit like hair and can be utilised in quite a few different ways, it can even be 'punched' into the head of the puppet to secure it, you can weave it and squash it into many different shapes and I have used it personally in the past for making hair on a few puppets and it turned out really well!!
These are just a few suggestions, there are many more, but it highly depends on what you want the overall look to be and what you need it to do.

You could cut lengths of yarn to make your mane. Thin strips of foam dyed in different shades of yellows and browns could make a cool mane also. Tube horse hair is cool for making wigs that are very fantasy looking. Check this out. http://www.cosplaysupplies.com/tutorials.php?id=Cyberlox_Falls This one even has some strips of fun foam in them.