What Exactly is the Dart For?

[D'Snowth]

I've noticed that nine out of ten puppet patterns call for a dart at the top of the puppet's head that's meant to be sewn (or glued) together...

What exactly is the dart for? I don't usually use it for the patterns I come up with, but I just got curious about it.

 

[Scooterthegofer]

Usually, the dart is to round the head off.

 

[D'Snowth]

Really? That might be a useful tip to keep the head from looking like a triangle from a front view.

I suppose how long or how short the dart is determines how round the head appears?

 

[spcglider]

When you look at a beach ball, you notice its made up of triangular sections that meet at the points to form a ball when it's inflated.

The dart at the top of the puppet head pattern serves the same purpose, more or less.

Its the one fashion available to conveniently make a flat material conform to the shape of a ball (or as I like to call it, a complex curve).

If you examine the surface of a globe, you'll see many many darts in the paper surface. They do the same thing for the globe maker. They allow him to paste a relatively rigid material (paper) down to the surface of a ball without having super ugly wrinkles all over it.

The dart in the puppet pattern changes the shape and allows the foam skull to assume forms that it wouldn't normally.

-Gordon (who knows he's verbose... cut him some slack!)