Here we have the rough shape of the
head on its stand ready for carving.

The face begins to appear over the
rough shape of the head.

The final sculpts are approved by
Larry Adrian of The Oregon Coast
Children's Theatre.

The head is cast in two halves of a
plaster mold for later
casting in neoprene.

The neoprene doing its magic. It will sit
in the mold for four hours, then be
dumped out and the remaining neoprene
(Chicago 501 Latex) dried for eight hours before splitting the plaster mold and removing the piece.

Marty grinds off the flash line and
other imperfections in the Neoprene
with a Dremel tool and sandpaper.

The finished neoprene, with a coat
of Gesso, ready for painting and to
have the moving eyes installed.

Steve begins the painting of the face
with water-based pastels which are
later sprayed with a matte-finish lacquer
for protection and permanence.

Faces are painted, and the eyes are
installed and ready for painting. The wigs
are at this point only attached with
T-pins just so they look like people.

Steve painting the eyes with a
tiny brush and acrylic paint.

This is the control rod for Hans' head.
Since he's a reverse marionette (worked from below), the eye strings go up to the top of the crossbar and then back down through the eyelets to a ring controlled by the puppeteer's thumb.

Here you can see the the opening
in the back of Hans' head, the eyeballs, and the springs and strings that control them.

Here's the body which Larry will attach to Hans' head. It is made out of vacu-formed plastic which is lightweight and strong.

Final acceptance inspection. Larry helped with the final assembly of Hans' head, since he will be puppeteering him and it needs to fit his style of performance.

I hope this helps explain the steps involved in the way we create most of our puppets.
The bodies, hands, and feet are made the same way, and the arms and legs could be as well, although we usually make them in soft-sculpture out of cloth which is tightly packed with fiber fill (fluffy stuff) and then painted to look like the neoprene pieces.