The Puppet

I used wire to create the basic armature for the puppet. It stands about 6" tall as it is meant to be a short character who is jealous of Barbera's height.
The design of the character is based loosely on the paddington bear puppet with influence from Tim Burton's animations. The design choice came about as in my previous animation project: 'Being fr the Benefit of Mr. Kite!' (abandoned) the characters were initially inspired by the artistic style of Nick Park and Aardman Animations but I decided to alter them by using fabric to produce certain clothing, like coats or scarves - eventually some characters consisted entirely of material clothing with plasticine used only for flesh.

The plasticine I used was Newplast, I used this as it is a high quality product and is highly reliable. It is not too oily and therefore gives a matte look and is easy to animate. It is also the sole brand used by Aardman animations among many other industry professionals.

Unlike other puppets I've made, I produced this one completely naked and built the costume up around it.
The costume is a pinstripe suit, recycled from an old pinstripe skirt and the shirt is made from curtain material. I made four different shapes for the shirt and glued them onto the torso. The trousers are sewn, I made the two legs longer than the legs of the puppet to emphasise his lack of height. The trousers were glued to the back and hidden under the shirt. The blazer was also sewn, the edges were glued to save time but the shoulders and arms were joined with needle and thread. Once dressed, the character looked convincing.

Set Update

 Since the initial design for the set, I have made some changes. Though I still want the animation to take place on a street; I want to make it a completely white street.

This comes after seeing the sets used in the original Paddington Bear series, where they would be completely white (presumably made from foam-board or card) to save time and money.

I think that having a plain white set with only the minor details such as windows and doors to be drawn with pen and ink is a much better idea than trying to replicate an actual street using printed cartridge paper and cardboard cutouts. I think this because not only will it be a direct reference to Paddington Bear, but it will also be a lot cheaper to produce and it will be more aesthetically pleasing.

I am making the set from cardboard with sheets of thick A4 paper stuck on using strong sticky-back tape (like what they used to tell you to use in Blue Peter all the time). Measurements for windows and doors are marked out thinly with a pencil and then drawn on with pen. The windowsill and doorstep are made using cardboard cutouts with the edges drawn in pen also, this gives them a shadow which in turn gives the set more depth.

The details are drawn roughly and with crude lines with little care for neatness, itself reminiscent of the artwork by Tim Burton and low budget cartoons of the 1960s-90s.

The Main action I wanted to take place on some steps outside the house. The steps were made from a thin cardboard with paper stuck to the alternate side where the measurements were marked out. They were held together with masking tape and glued on the inside with hot glue, the result is better than I expected as I took my time particularly on the stairs.

The door is made with a thicker cardboard, I cut the indents with a scalpel and glued paper to the back to make it 3D. The handle consisted of two cardboard pieces which were carefully cut to scale. All the edges were drawn with pen so as not to make it out of place with the rest of the set.

Five additional smaller houses were made and glued to cardboard boxes, the smaller houses give a forced perspective making the street look larger than it actually is.

To the main houses I have added three extra windows on the second level and I added a roof also

Animation Background

I want the street set to look similar to this

I wanted the character to be begging from the street so I drew a sketch of how I wanted it to look with plans of the materials I need and the size of the set parts. I think if I do the animation at home rather than in-college, I can easily control the lighting and will have more control over the storage of the plasticine character and the set. I also have a large collection of props and set pieces from previous animations, along with additional characters I can use in the background and can use to make the set larger.