Foam
There are many different types of foam that can be used to construct a head. Common types of form are:

• Upholstery foam. Large blocks can be cut and glued back together to yield a head-sized block with minimal seams.
• Sheets and rolls. Found in most craft and fabric shops. 3/8“ to 1/2” thick sheets work best.

Foam sources

Cutting Tools
Most cutting tools will work with foam, but at a minimum a good pair of scissors and a knife will be required. Electric knives can also be used.

• Sharp pair of scissors
• Large serrated kitchen knife
• Exacto knife
• Electric carving knife

It's not recommended to use a hot wire knife or a cutting method that melts the foam - the fumes given off are toxic.

Adhesive
There are many options for gluing the foam, at varying levels of toxicity and durability. Popular options include:

• 3M Hi-Strength 90 spray adhesive
• 3M Super 77 spray adhesive
• Hot glue gun

Head down to your local upholstery or foam shop; you should be able to find one or two in your area. Purchase a sheet of foam about 3/8“ - 1/2” thick. The thicker this sheet of foam, the bigger the head will be. Don't go much thinner than 3/8“ - the foam will have difficulty holding its shape later. This foam sheet will be used for your base to glue all the other pieces on to. Also, check out a wig or costuming shop for a foam head used for wigs and hats. A plaster bust of your head (if you happen to have one) would work better. If you have a choice, pick a foam head that is about the size of your own. If you can't get either, you'll just have to keep trying your creation on until it fits right. But having a fake head to rest the foam on makes life much easier.

We'll be making a foam “helmet” first. Take the 3/8” thick foam and wrap it around the foam head. Tape it together at that spot, and try it on. See if there's enough room to fit your own head into. If there's too much or too little, pull off the tape and readjust until the foam fits around your head snugly and comfortably. Mark where the side edges overlap and cut off the excess foam, but leave the extra foam on top. Tape the foam back together again, and try it on again. It should still be the snug fit you had earlier. Use the 3M adhesive to glue the two edges together and use tape to hold them together. Let it sit until the glue dries.

Next, put the foam back on the foam head you bought earlier. Move the glued seam to a point where you think it's comfortable. When I glued mine, the foam ended up creating a slight point at that spot; a perfect fit for my nose. So I put the seam running right down the front. Fold/cut/shape/glue/bond/staple/whatever the top of the glued foam to curve the foam over the top of the head, into basically a helmet. Don't worry if the cuts don't look clean, the important part is that it holds its shape. This part is tricky, and will require plenty of experimentation. Don't worry if you cut off too much; just glue it back on and try again.

Finally, put the helmet on and make sure it fits OK. Measure where your eyes and mouth are, and cut holes in the foam for each. You'll need them for later.

Compare your helmet base up against the plastalina sculpture, and decide where the eyes of the fursuit will be placed. If your character's eyes are placed fairly wide, you may want to decide how/where to disguise the eyeholes. Perhaps they'll be hidden by long fur, or you'll be looking thru the mouth. This will also determine the scale difference between the plastalina sculpture and the actual size. In my case, my eyes always match up approximately with the fursuit's eyes. This makes scale fairly easy. The following directions will presume that you are using the same eye placement as I do.

Next, I start sculpting the muzzle and cheekruffs. I usually start with the muzzle. First, I take a piece of foam that looks to be about the right size I want. If I don't have any that are big enough, I'll take two pieces and glue them together. Don't worry if the color of the foam matches; it will be covered by the fur when you're done. I'll sculpt one side of the piece to fit the contours of the helmet we made earlier, and tape the piece to the helmet in the place it will eventually attach to. For the muzzle, I'll tape it below the eyes and probably over the mouth hole. Then I compare this piece up to the plastalina sculpture. I'll compare the two at a number of angles, trying to see if the angles and placement are right. Add or remove foam from the muzzle piece as needed. For now, I'm looking for the basic shapes, not perfection.

Once you're fairly satisfied with the shape and placement of the muzzle, start with the cheekruffs. Use the same method up above to size up the new foam pieces to get pretty close to the plastalina sculpture. Move the pieces around on the helmet shape as needed to give the desired effect. When you're confident, use a sharpie to mark where each piece is on the helmet, remove them and glue them onto the helmet. Once they're glued on, I'll tape them in place to make sure they don't slip.

When the glue is dry, compare the head to the plastalina sculpture. There should be a lot of points where the two don't match up. Take a small piece of foam and sculpt it so it fits in that gap. Repeat this until you feel that the fursuit head matches the plastalina sculpture OR matches the concept you have of what the head should look like. Don't worry about getting the shapes and curves perfect; the fur will cover up a lot. Just be sure you are satisfied with the result before you start gluing the fur on.

As for ears, I tend to add those last after the fur is glued on. I've found it's easier to glue fur on that way.

Anyway short and sweet… I measure my head and cut the head hole in the block of foam. Marking it's dimensions on the from and side a marking pen. Also measure where your eyes are and draw you line of sight on the front and side.

Now draw the profile on the side and rough cut out. Then the top and front. I then cut out small tubes to my eyes from the front to make sure I line up the heads eyes when carving.

Then carve away with the scissors till you get what you want. realizing that the fur will bulk it up a lot so carve it all a bit skinnier than you want. I cut out a couple of cardboard eyes and place them on the head as I'm carving just to make sure the eyes end up in the right place. (actually the eyes are the life and soul of the face. you need to have them there just to visualise what the face will look like as you are carving. a so, so looking carving jumps to life when you hold those cardboard eyes up to it!)

Also make sure you can breathe! Either make an open mouth or make air channels going from you mouth to the eye holes. This also keeps cold air circulating across your face and helps cooling.

When your done carving the head you can now make/buy the eyes and nose. use felt and sculpy to line the mouth, make teeth. I don't attach them till all the fur is on though.

Now fur the head, cut out large enough pieces for each area of the head. Hot glue on at some center point (a high point on the skull or cheek or muzzle etc.) Then glue outwards making cuts with the small scissors as necessary to get it all down flat. (when using the small scissors take care to cut only the fur backing material and NOT the fur strands themselves!) When you glue edges of the fur be careful to glue the edge down completely. The next piece of fur that butts up against it, glue to within about 1/2 in. (1.27 cm) and very carefully trim with the small scissors to fit the already glued piece. Then glue the edge of the new piece down. You can attain completely invisible seems if your careful about it.

Then glue on the various appliances, eyes, teeth, etc and your done!

well that was longer than I expected but… there it is. All cheap easy to find materials and no complex processes. Just a bit of patience and sculpting skill!

I like to make my eyes from the curved sides of white plastic bowls. These usually look pretty good, I think, but you almost have to be using a carved foam head to do it the way I do. This is gonna wander, BTW, because I pretty much need to describe how the head is made to be able to properly describe how to set the eyes in place.

Start with your foam block. Trace the outline of your head on one of the sides. Now draw the outline of the character's head on the block, keeping in mind that what you're really doing here is determining where your head will be inside the character's head. Make sure that the lines of sight for both your head and the character's head are the same.

Carve the foam head to shape. Make a pair of cardboard eyes to use while you're carving. These help remind you where the eyes should be, and how large they are. Also, having eyes seems to give some sort of focus to the carving - you build a face around the eyes and mouth, just as though you were drawing. When you make the eyeholes, make them the size and shape of the eyes (not just little round holes, but actually as large as the finished eyes will be) and make them deep, all the way back into the head. Round off the socket edges, etc, so they look like real eye sockets. You should have a somewhat gruesome-looking eyeless head at this point.

Now take a marker, and make a line all the way around the inside of the eyesocket, showing the point where the eye should meet the socket. You're essentially marking how deep the eye sets in the socket. Take an X-Acto knife, and carefully cut a slot all the way around the inside of the socket, following the line you drew. Take care to make this cut as nearly perpendicular to the surface of the foam as possible. Make the slot the same depth all the way around the cut.

Cut a pair of eyes from a white plastic bowl. Use your cardboard eyes for patterns, but make them bigger around the edges by just a bit less than the depth of the slot that you cut in the eyesockets. Before you do anything else, fit them in place and make sure they fit right. Trim the eyes or deepen the slot as appropriate if they don't fit correctly.

Remove the eyes, and make holes for the pupils. I generally start by drilling a number of small holes, and then connecting them with knife cuts, but there are many ways to do this. Smooth off the edges. Glue some thin black foam behind the pupils, to make the black part of the eye. This is what you're going to use to see through, also. I generally use air-conditioner foam, glued in place with hot glue.

Make the coloured part of the eye either with good art markers (Eberhard-Faber Design3) or else paint.

When you cover the head with fur, tuck the ends of the fur right down into the slot you cut around the eye socket. Use an electric barber's trimmer, and trim the fur around the eye socket to a neat, short length. This helps define the edges of the eye, and makes the face look nicer, IMHO. You can also take a small pair of scissors, and trim away the pile from the fur inside the slot. This will let the eye be seated a bit more securely.

This is the really short version (I'll eventually have the fully detailed and illustrated instructions for foam heads on my website), but I hope it'll help.

Carving Photos

Courtesy of Ryngs, a layered foam technique - http://werevarmint.timduru.org/wvhow2.htm

Another way to make foam heads, courtesy of Blake the Tiger - http://www.geocities.com/wardmp.geo/tiger/blake.html