Lovely head bases! Tell me, do you carve out of foam block, mold upholstery foam, or use the balaclava method?I'm trying to make my own fursuit, and I want to learn as much as I can from the masters. hehe ^.^

Well I'm no master! XD Thanks for the compliment though. It is indeed a balaclava head. But yeah, for this particular method I buy a pack of foam from Wal-Mart(the BIG one! Mistakes happen a lot!) and piece together different shapes and carve them down. Like the cheeks are about three layers of foam when I start and the snout is 5. I started with this tutorial: http://community.livejournal.com/fu.....t/1334914.html which helped me a lot on my first one. Hope it does the same for you! :D

Ah, thanks a ton for the link! :D
..I wish my Wal-Mart carried those big ol' foam blocks... they used to, but I dunno what the heck happened. Now Jo-anns fabrics has these pricey blocks of upholstery foam, and that's all I can find...lol
...Yeah, I just ran through an unpleasant little trial run with molding techniques (like, with 1/2 inch upholstery foam) and I'm thinking of moving into balaclava style.. carving is more of my thing. ^.^

Can I ask what was the foam called that you bought from Walmart? :3 And is it denser than the normal green stuff.

In all truth I really don't know if it has a specific name. I know it's usually in the crafts section next to the polyfil and the packaging changed recently, so you can find it in a cylindrical bag if your store carries it.

But no, it is definitely NOT denser at all! The foam is extremely soft and therefore cheaper, but is also harder to shape due to this reason. Not completely unusable(obviously) but it would take some getting used to if you're switching over from the high density green stuff.

Well the green stuff I have isn't very dense. xD I'm looking for some denser stuff possibly. But very nice heads! You don't mind if I use this picture for reference? :3 Your way of carving seems more doable than my first attempt. XD I killed my first balaclava.

lol, well I suggest shopping at Jo-Anns. That's about as dense as foam gets without shopping online :p

XD Man, I know what you mean! I won't even post pictures of my first couple of attempts at a head x.x But practice makes perfect of course. And please, feel free to use them! I hope they help you out on your next try :D

Sadly we don't have a Jo-Anns here. D: Ah well I'll just try again with the green stuff I have. xD And Yeah, mine was awful. I tried to use Matrices tutorials and ended up ripping all the foam off cause I couldn't get it to look right. Haha. Thanks! I think they will.

One more question, are the jaws and cheeks all connected together and then carved out? Or carved out then all glued on and matched to fit?

Carved out and then glued on and matched to fit. I usually have a stencil for the snout, the bottom jaw, the cheeks and the ears. I carve them into a general shape while not attached to the head, then attach them and finish/do touch up work. A really good example of my method can be found here: http://community.livejournal.com/fu.....t/1334914.html My method's still pretty varied from this one, but it's a good base for creating your own method and it's how I started out :3 Good luck with your head!

I just now realized I had already linked to that tutorial on this picture! XD Whoops, sorry for the repeat.