It’s a courageous publisher who publishes a book on model animation in today’s CGI-dominated industry; it’s an even greater act of courage when the book in question deals not with some populist, mainstream topic of model animation but one very specialized discipline within it.

Tom Brierton’s Stop-Motion Armature Machining is one such book, and McFarland & Company is the intrepid publisher behind the enterprise. The book is, as the title plainly states, a manual on how to make stop-motion armatures and — in spite of its somewhat anachronistic timing — is long overdue. Quite what level of readership it will attain, however, I don’t know. Model animation has suffered badly since the advent of computer graphics, and nowadays many would-be practitioners of the art have, out of necessity, chosen to develop their skills via computer rather than learn the craft-based skills of the puppet workshop.

Assuming that Tom Brierton was faced with no such dilemma at the outset of his animation career, one thing would have been for certain: the lack of information, text books or college courses to guide him on his chosen path. As Tom writes in his preface, “one must peck through 20 to 30 years of publications in order to find what is wanted” and even then “most of the information that is found in them does not go into any great detail on the technical processes of creating a stop-motion armature.” The great inspirational animation wizards Willis O’Brien, Jiri Trnka, Ray Harryhausen, et al, kept their tricks of the trade a closely guarded secret like their “Magic Circle” counterparts. We all knew the principles of their wonderful illusions, but how they actually made those exquisite puppets, and what lay beneath the surface of their models, was only ever alluded to, never revealed.

In the absence of readily available information, those with sufficient curiosity, resourcefulness and enthusiasm found their own answers. Tom studied human anatomy, then replicated the human skeleton in miniature with tiny, metal, ball and socket joints. He came up with his own solutions and techniques to create his own armatures and puppets. It’s the creation of the armatures that is the central topic of the book, and Tom gives a very methodical account of how to go about making them.

Thirty years ago, when I first started to be involved in model animation, but was at a complete loss on how to make my own puppets, this book would have been invaluable. Things that took me months of trial and error (mostly error!) to fathom out are systematically explained and illustrated in Tom’s book.