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.