I am making my first puppet.  It is great fun, painfully slow with lots of adjustments along the way, and there are tiny bits of foam everywhere!  Apart from having a very short time frame in which to complete this fella. I am pretty much guessing at the construction.  I found a lot of helpful tips here, so thanks for that.  In particular, I was wondering if anyone had any tips regarding this jaw. His lower jaw needs to be much shorter than the snout, which seems fine, but I am not sure how to seat the jaw/mouth plate assembly into the neck to ensure ease and visibility of movement.  Any thoughts will be greatly appreciated!

Is your bottom jaw a seperate piece?

You are  off to a great start!. The top mouth plate you have, or will glue into the snout, so it will be nice and firm. The lower half of the mouth, hinge it with a strip of cloth so it will move easily but not tear. Then the chin foam should glue nicely to that lower mouth card. You can glue the chin foam to the neck, but since I presume, you are going to cover the whole thing in fur fabric, it  probably won't be necessary to glue it. In fact if you do glue it,it may be stiffer to operate than you want, so you can leave a gap  between the chin foam and the neck and not glue it to the neck.

The foam is a separate piece. I'm considering that the fleece skin should NOT be a separate piece, though. Thank you for confirming that pagestep. Then I will use the draping method to create my fleece pattern using different seams that the foam.  Is that important - that the fleece NOT have the same seams as the foam? Not sure why it's such a stumbling block, but I do want it to be able to move smoothly. This is an amazingly complex form of art!

I don't think I would connect the skin fabric for the lower jaw to the head fabric. Your design for this is more like a marionettes or vent dolls head which is kind of cool and with them a moving mouth is a separate piece that fits in the main head that is hinged and moves up and down.

You don't have to make different seams on the fabric but often builders do simply because fabric stretches and you can get less seems then in your foam base. For example your fabric may lay nicely across the top mussel/jaw without any seams if you position the stretch of the fabric correctly. The nose I assume is a different color so you would cover it separate and the seams for it may hide nicely at the base of the nose. In fact in hind sight I would have waited to attach the nose and cover it then sewn it onto the mussel.

You have a great start here! Love the shape of your head. Did your questions about the mouth plate get answered ok? Do you understand how that works now?

Your puppet is looking very nice, did you start with a sketch or drawing first? If so, I would love to see it!

Yes, thank you, Shawn, I believe I understand how to handle the mouth now for durable construction and ease of movement. I actually have a friend we call "gasket" (he makes & installs them) who gave me a piece of rubber today that I think will make a good mouth plate, although it has a very strong odor. Does that dissipate with time? It may be this particular puppet does not even really need a pliable mouth plate, as it will not show all that much. I do have some foam core, as well, if that would be strong enough.

I am anxious to complete the foam assembly and move on to the fleece! The draping process will be a fun challenge. I have done a good bit of sewing and interned at a costume shop when I was in college so I have a good working knowledge of patterns. I am curious to work with the stretch and see how few seams I can manage.

The character I am creating is an amalgam of several sketches done by a friend, CreativeSoulTV. The form has a evolved a bit while translating from 2 dimensions to 3. I think my puppet looks more Warner Bros and the sketches are more Hanna Barbara, but I'm OK with that. 

Thank you both for the encouragement! I am much more confident moving forward with some expert input.

The character I am creating is an amalgam of several sketches done by a friend, CreativeSoulTV. The form has a evolved a bit while translating from 2 dimensions to 3. I think my puppet looks more Warner Bros and the sketches are more Hanna Barbara, but I'm OK with that.

Being that you worked in a costume shop working with the fabric will be fun! I'm sure it's not easy bringing a 2D character to 3D with foam but I'm sure someone on this forum knows how and can offer some tips.

BTW, I grew up watching cartoons from both of those studios and I'm sure your puppet will bring back memories.

- Will

The mouth plate isn't just for aesthetics; it's the part of the puppet that gets the most use. Most of the time having a mouth plate is more about ergonomics + durability + flexibility.

Foam core may not withstand the test of time for a mouth plate.  Poster board like you see on the yard signs for elections (there is an official name, just can't think of it at the moment) is good. I assume that "gasket" gave you gasket rubber.  I personally like that for mouth plates. Never really noticed that much of an odor in the stuff I used but then my sniffer is not that good. I would bet the smell well go away over time.