Figuring out pattern shapes round body forms

[TopperFraggle]

One of the things I've had trouble with is figuring out what smaller shapes will create the larger body or head shape I'm going for. Take a look at the shapes in this photo. Now these are all uniform, and probably create a body that's fairly simple. But some get pretty complex. What I would like to know is if there are any guides, mathmatical formula's etc... that help figure this kinda thing out. I mean usually what I do is if I know how big around I want a form to be, I take that measurement, and divide it by the number of pieces. That becomes the widest measurement of each individual piece (assuming they all are the same). Then I work backwards from there. but I always struggle through it, and if there's another way, I'd love to hear it. Thanks.

 

[shtick]

I've asked people this before. All I ever got was "just figure it out as you go along". I hope there actually is some formula to it. I've noticled Puppets' head construction is generally concentrated on more than bodies, but then again I coud be wrong.

 

[Buck-Beaver]

Shtick, this has actually been discussed many, many times. What Topper's referring to is what's called "the wedge method". You take 6-8 wedges of foam and glue them together like slices of an orange. For a perfectly round ball the ratio of the wedge's height to its width is 4:1 (the wedge should be exactly four times higher than it is wide). To make other shapes you just experiment.

I've written a tutorial on this, but my web site is temporarily down because it's exceeded it's bandwidth. When it's back up and running I'll try to remember to post a message in this thread.

Until then search the forum for "wedge method".