All images from Stop Motion by Susannah Shaw. Reprinted with permission.

This is the first in a number of adaptations from the new book Stop Motion published by Focal Press. Written by Susannah Shaw, this book provides the first truly practical introduction to the craft skills of model animation, This month we delve into character design.

I really admire all Ray Harryhausen’s work. I did try to emulate him when I started with my own home movies. In the attic — I remember making a model dinosaur, which was bendable — wire coat hangers as armatures — I didn’t know anything about the right wire or the right rubber, materials or anything. I used foam rubber on the body — but I didn’t know what to cover it with — what would make leathery skin — so I used my mum’s old nylon tights and spray painted it. I never got to make that movie — I had big plans for it: live action/animation movie — but it never came off.

Practice and experience lead you to your own favorite materials. I hope to give the beginner a basic route toward making their own puppets and some idea of the choices. The puppet used in this book is a relatively cheap example of a professional puppet. It is strong, flexible and versatile and should require a minimum of maintenance. A variety of techniques have been used in making the puppet. There are many simpler ways of making an armature and covering, however, for the purposes of this book, I feel that a naturalistic looking puppet with a natural movement of limbs will be generally more helpful to the beginner.

Wallace and Gromit. © Aardman/W&G Ltd. 1989.

Character Design

I very much liked making the puppets for The Pied Piper (Cosgrove Hall Films) which was a film that we tried to do in the style of a Jiri Trnka film. The style of the puppets was very simple, but they had highly articulated armatures, so they could do an enormous range of movements. It had been done in the past, in Czechoslovakia and in Russia, but it was not something that had been seen on British television. For animation at its best, the one character I would choose from all the puppets I’ve worked on is the Pied Piper himself. He was very light, had a lot of articulation, the spine curved, but the look was very simple. A similar, more recently made puppet that had those qualities was the Periwig Maker from the film of the same name.