Once our characters were cast in silicone, the next step in the process was to add the final finishes to the puppets, a process more commonly referred to as fabrication.
There were 3 main areas to contend with:
Body Wrapping
Based on the class system world we had created, zero’s had mottled brown and white cotton with knots and criss-crossed threads. Ones through to nines were pink and as you move up the class system the top layer of criss-crossing thread diminished with nines being of pure thread.
All characters were wrapped with 4 ply cotton, which was just the right texture and size for all those macro shots. (the empty cardboard spools also made great puppet stands!) As you can see by the photos, each character was individually wrapped row by row around and around for months and months! It was quite meditative and I spent a lot of time with my buddies Oprah and Deepak and watched way too many conspiracy docos online!
For the wool to adhere to the silicone puppet, we had to stick it down using more silicone. The basic rule of thumb is that nothing sticks to silicone… but silicone. We used Elastosil tube silicone, the smell of which I became quite accustomed …hmm looking back perhaps I spent far too much time alone, with glue and little string people. These tubes cost $40 each so I experimented using cheap silicone alternatives from the local hardware shop but the smell was toxic (like chemical foot odour) and the adherence was poor – so quality ruled price. My tools of the trade were large teddy bear sewing needles that allowed me to apply the silicone and manipulate the wool. I also went through a number of small scissors for precision cutting and to snip in awkward places.
I had a wrapping system – first the chest like a vest, then the arms and gusset and then the entire body. In large areas I wrapped with 4 pieces of wool at a time. It was important not to make certain areas too bulky (like the armpits) as it would limit the puppet’s movement. The silicone was also easier to use when it was freshly laid. I also had to be careful not to get silicone on the exterior material surface as we did not want the shiny finish of silicone to show up in the final photography.
We used foam balls for the heads, however the silicone caused them to dissolve. I conducted a range of glue tests with what seemed like every adhesive known to man kind. Spray adhesive worked best on the foam but was incredibly tacky, it was quite tricky not getting the glue all over my fingers on the cotton.
Worse memory – wrapping Zero! Zero needed to have multiple stunt doubles. As the star of the show we had to make sure that should he take a hit and break a limb mid-shot, there was an identical body double ready to step in. It was crucial that the doubles matched the colour patterns, knot positions and crossed threads of the original so any replacements were seamless. I ended up wrapping 6 identical Zero’s. Crazy, crazy times.
Hair Creation
For the character’s hair we used a thicker cotton ply than the bodies. I started by creating what can best be described as weaves for the heads. One piece of cotton with approximately 15 x 7cm threads slip knotted to it. Each head required 4- 5 weaves to create a hairstyle. It was quite a production line (albeit just me) and I must have made about 150 weaves altogether. My fingers often lost circulation as I pulled hard to ensure the slip nots would remain tight!
Weaves were then attached to heads with standard sewing pins as the hairstyle was determined. Hair cuts were given and the weaves were then glued down and held firm with the sewing pins until dry. Once adhered, the hair was covered with Craft Smart Fabric Stiffener which was used to hold the hair firm during the shoot. The Fabric Stiffener was excellent as it dried matte and therefore had no shine under the studio lights.
We outsourced a number of the hairstyles to Reina McAndrew, who drew the gorgeous illustrations shown. She came back with some hilarious contributions such as the balding man, the Farrah flick and the Afro child.
Reina also created the She-Zero hairstyle with plaits woven with straw and string as per these preliminary photo’s. The creative vision of She-Zero was for her to look like she slept in a garbage can yet be as cute as a button. We decided that She-Zero needed hair that would not move, period, as she was in a large part of the film. A few more straw weaves and plaits were added plus we cut her hair into a pixie bob with a funky jagged fringe, stuck it down and She-Zero was born.
Accessories
Numbers
Christopher Kezelos the Director and Brett Bimson our Production Designer sorted through hundreds, if not thousands of font styles looking for the perfect combination of curve and readability to match our fairytale world.
Because heads and bodies would be interchangeable, the numbers also needed to be removable. The challenge was how to fasten numbers securely onto fabric yet remove them easily with no damage to the cotton surface. We toyed with the ideas of having embroidered number badges or even making them ourselves out of cotton threads (like the Zero logo). We settled on using a laser cutter to cut numbers out of a range of fabrics such as felt and velvet. We ironed on fabric liner to create some stiffness in the material and to avoid the laser cutter frying the edges. The velvet numbers looked best on camera. After some tests , a simple glue stick (for paper) enabled us to adhere and remove numbers easily with no damage.
Eyes
We trawled the shopping aisles of Spotlight and Lincraft (Australian fabric and crafts stores) and online craft stores looking for the perfect eyes. In the end it was the proportional aesthetics which helped us decide, black drawing pins for the pink child characters, small black glass beaded teddy bear eyes for adult pink character and larger black plastic teddy bear eyes for the zeros. All eyes were easily wedged into the foam heads and held by wood glue if stubborn.
Eyebrows
Boy this part was fun…not! My mission was the creation of 50 eyebrows that had to be animatable yet rigid. We thought about plasticine, felt brows on Vaseline, compositing the eyebrows in post and even no eyebrows! The latter was lazy, eyebrows added much needed emotion to our characters. Compositing was far too timely and expensive and the other options once again would damage the material surface of the puppets.
The solution? I cut out 2cm long bits of cotton thread, unravelled them a little and placed a headless pin in the middle. I secured the pin with super glue and then re-twisted the thread with more super glue whilst moulding a gentle curve with my fingers. Super glue is the worst on fingers; I lost a lot of skin during this process and wish I had known about this technique for removing super glue sooner! Once dry, I snipped the brows into shape.
The finished eyebrows were pushed into the foam ball heads where the animators rotated them using either tweezers or their fingers, giving the characters various expressions.
I’ve included a gallery below with some more fabrication photos. If you have any questions. please leave them in the comments.
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