This cool little animation was for my senior project for the graphic design program at the University of Central Florida. We were given complete creative freedom for the semester to come up with anything we wanted. So naturally, I had no idea what to do…

My journey started at the craft store where I found this little simple doll thing. I thought to myself, “What if I made this doll into a puppet and made a stop-motion animation with him?” – and The Idea was born!

I wanted to make everything from the characters to the scenery and even the clouds by hand, so I got a bunch of craft materials and set to work. First I sketched the character so that I could make a skeleton for the puppet. Steel wire and epoxy puddy were used to make him posable. Then I made a costume out of craft fabric and an old pair of jeans!

The butterfly was made with pipe cleaners and fabric, and he had a little stand which was removed in post to make it look like he was flying. With the help of my awesome wife Amanda, we punched out hundreds of little leaves for the trees from construction paper.

Everything was photographed on a blue screen stage that I set up with stuff from around my apartment. I used desk lamps for studio lights and a couple of different rigs to keep the puppet standing. Each element was treated, composited, and rendered in After Effects.