Moth Puppet

All concept art by Austin Hillebrecht

The moth was made both for close-ups, and as a model for all the smaller moths that would need to fly around in the film.

I started with an outline of the wings pulled from the concept art, and made a paper pattern. I used that pattern to cut out two pieces of muslin fabric. Next I took wire and bent it into the shape of the wings, about 1/8 of an inch in from the edge. The wire was to stabilize the fabric. I painted white glue onto both pieces of fabric and sandwiched the wire between them, pressing along all of the edges so the wire was fully concealed inside. Once they dried, I could paint on the designs of the wings.

The body and legs were made from fluffy pipe cleaners, slightly different from your every-day ones. I’m not sure what they’re called but when I saw them at the craft store I knew they were perfect. I cut several lengths for the legs, each pair of opposite legs is one length of pipe cleaner which starts at the foot, bends to define the lower half of the leg, then doubles back across the upper half to give it some thickness. A little length in between to attach it to the body and then repeat in reverse for the other leg. The abdomen was made by simply wrapping a length of pipe cleaner in a spiral around itself.

I used two glass beads for the eyes and strung them onto a thinner piece of wire. Then wrapped more pipe cleaner around and between them to form the head and proboscis. Assembling all the pieces was as simple as hot-glueing it all together, and using some faux fur and paint to hide any of the glue. I separated the sides of the wings from each other, so that with only a fabric joint in between they would be easier to flap, but left the wire that held the front and back wings together so they could be positioned opened or closed.

The antennae are made from black craft feathers cut to size.

Once finished, the model was scanned using photogrammetry. A process which uses a series of pictures of an object to upload it into a digital space, not just the physical shape but the details as well. Once captured digitally, they could rig it for animation, and use the same moth puppet for scenes with dozens, even hundreds of flying moths.