For the base of the puppet, we used wire a skeleton, and then made the joints out of milliput (a light air-drying clay.)
Next, we added foam padding. we started with a block of foam, and kept chopping off all the edges with scissors until we got the shape we wanted. We then cut the foam pieces in half, fit them around the puppet, and then glued them in place. I had many ideas for how to make the head, one was to make it wooden, another was baking clay, but in the end I went with the option that was easiest to sculpt - milliput. I moulded the milliput around a polystyrene ball to get the round shape I wanted, and as expected, the milliput stuck to it upon drying.
However, I found some issues with the polystyrene ball, as most powerful adhesives will melt right through polystyrene. I had to glue a wooden block into the base of the ball, and then glue the neck wire into the wooden block. After I painted the face with acrylic paints, I glued the fake fur on with PVA glue, and then I trimmed the hair into shape. I drew the eyes on with a marker, and then got to work on the toughest bit of all - the clothes. I got the fabrics from my Grandma, and my mum offered to make the hoodie and trousers. Trouble is, I wasn't such a fan of the fabrics my mum had used, and she made them three times too big. I got to work on making new versions of the clothes, using the techniques I observed in my mums designs, such as making them inside out and then turning them right side out to hide the seams. I was surprised and impressed at my own sewing ability, but for the most part I just used fabric glue, because it was quicker and easier. I had originally intended for my puppet to have three fingered hands, but the fingers were too small and fiddly to work with, so I gave him mittens instead. I gave his shoes soles, but I had to take them off because they made it more difficult to stand, walk, and find the pin-holes I need to use to pin his feet to the ground. The mouth is just blue tacked on, to make it easily replaceable. Overall, I'm quite pleased with how my model turned out. If I had more time, I would have painted the bottoms of the feet to match the shoes, and used more fabric to hide the neck wire, wrist wires, and foam up the sleeve.
For our scene, me and Corey were planning a story where the characters were crossing the road, when suddenly my character asks the old lady if she needs help. She gets offended and starts attacking him with her walking stick, hilarity ensues. This idea was scrapped because despite Corey's best efforts, the old lady's mouth wouldn't move so we couldn't have dialogue, her walking stick snapped on set, and her eyes kept falling out. However, the eyes falling out did give us a good idea for the scene we used in the end. I am very pleased with how the movement came out. The only thing I'd change next time, is that I'd pay more attention to the other characters movements, so I can time my own characters movements better.
Later, I made some subtle edits in After Effects to make the animation smoother. I covered up the original bouncing eyeball, and created a better animated one. On top of that, I also smoothed out one or two mouth transitions on my character using the puppet warp tool.
