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Puppet Drama - Ups and downs of Goro's construction

The Goro puppet project has been going on quietly in the background. It is a learning experience and some things are going very much to plan while other things are decidedly not. 

My first positive is the back scales: 

I was able to crochet the back in a few hours. (Not in one sitting mind you.) I mixed metal with plastic scales which has a fun effect. I still have some left over plastic scales that I could sew into the body but I like how this looks. 

Victory 2: Body Structure
While the head has been my main focus I was able to take a break from that and morph some EVA foam sheets into a makeshift skeleton for the body. 

Positive 3: Started the yarn tails to see how they'll look compared to the body size. I've done this before so feel confident that I can do it again. 

Positive 4: While I did burn myself with hot glue, I made some ears with minky, stiff felt, and a bit of faux fur. I even painted them so the markings are correct. 

Positive 5: Mouth contructed!
I put in the jaw set, the tongue, and used black fabric to hide the back of the throat. 

Now to talk the drama that's been annoying me with the project. 

Setback 1: Eyes

So I 3D printed this lovely eye blinking system and what do you know...it's too big for the head. Because I had to shrink the head to fit my hand better, I ended up losing a lot of real estate that could have housed the blinking mechanism. 

The eyes could fit it if set back very far. 

I could manipulate it fine but...
To fit the eyes in the head with the lids, they sat far back in the sockets. When I put on the test fur, they all but disappeared completely. So for this first puppet, I'm abandoning the blinking. Because the eyes are the right size for the skull. 

Setback 2: Head fur pattern
It works but it's also taken a lot of manipulating. I hand sewed it together and I probably should have machine stitched the darts at least. Took a lot of gluing and manipulating...but honestly, this is looking okay. It's just the jaw doesn't open as wide as it used to or with the test fur piece. But I'm still fiddling. But it's got some weird puckers here and there. I haven't secured the fur to the eyes yet but I have around the mouth. I plan on using my 3D printing pen to outline gums and the eyes. Or maybe 3D puff paint would work better. Hmm...may bear some research. 
At least they look like smile wrinkles. 

I still need to decide how to make the body but I have lots of fabric to play with. :D 
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