Stag - Neck

        A major concern with the stag puppet was his neck, and how to achieve the voluminous shape dictated by my designs without obstructing the movement of the armature, particularly when the neck extended towards the ground. The car cleaning sponge was far too dense, not only preventing the neck from moving extensively, but pulling the armature out of poses back into its own 'resting' position. Even with layers of thinner packaging foam the problem persisted.

I tried hollowing out the sponge, to reduce resistance,
but to no avail.

         It soon became apparent that it would not be possible to include the large throat I had envisaged, at least not in a solid sculpted form. Instead I built a thinner neck which essentially only covered the armature rods rather than providing shape an body. This thin structure could then move freely within a loose covering of 'skin', which could be cut in such a fashion as to roughly reproduce the large throat I had envisaged.

        This is an excellent example of how a designer might need to adapt their vision to fit with the requirements and limitations of stop motion animation and puppet making. Hand drawn animation is in a way a lot more freeing, as characters can be all manner of extreme and physics defying shapes yet still move freely. While stop motion animation has its fair share of exaggerated characters (notably Tim Burton's spindly figures), it is important to bear in mind when designing a character the viability and ease of building it as a puppet.