Making FUZZBRAINS, Part 3!!

Greetings, blog-readers and FUZZBRAIN followers!

 

Now it is time to glue the mouth plate to the skull. Using contact again (in a well-ventilated area, of course) I apply a thin coat 1/2' around the rim of the top mouth palate. Since I'm using 1/2" foam for the skull, the glued area around the mouth also needs to be 1/2". Larger puppets may also have foam jaw pieces that need to be glued to the bottom mouth palate, but such is not the case for our FUZZBRAIN friends.

 

Always close your container of contact when not using it.
There is nothing worse than gummy contact cement!

After applying contact to both the mouth and skull, the two edges are joined and, as you can see, the skull and mouth are now forming the head.

Here you can see how the skull, brain and mouth fit together:

And how my hand fits inside the head:

Now we're ready to add the puppets skin onto the foam. I've already stitched up the head, bodies and arms. All of that was sewn on my sewing machine, including the tufts of hair, which were sewn into the dart seams. Pull the skin over the puppets skull being sure to match up the center line seams.

 

Using a fabric glue (I use Fabri-Tac) carefully glue the fabric lip-line in place. I usually start at the creases of the mouth  then glue the center points top and bottom and work my way around those points. It is very important to be as neat as possible during this step. Gluing a mouth/lip line in place can be one of the easiest things to mess up and one of the hardest to fix. Take your time!

 

Here's our FUZZBRAIN with mouth in place:

 

For tongues, I like to use ultra suede. I cut a heart shape to a size that I like and, using fabric glue, adhere it inside the puppet's mouth. For detail, I take a marker and draw a line about halfway down the center of the tongue and follow the inside curve lines.

 

Check back soon when "all eyes" will be on finishing up these guys! Three guesses as to what I'll cover in the next edition!