He's been experimenting with his style...

The original plasticine model had been created before the workshop; I then had to remake this model that included a lightweight core and K and S technology.
    A lightweight core is not only sensible in terms of making the puppet lighter but it is brings the cost of materials down as well. This should sit where the back of the skull would be on your puppet with the facial features protruding off of this. Using a piece of pre-cooked lightweight sculpey that is set around a long piece of K and S, I moulded my character again, this time using a harder plasticine (sculpting grade) which meant that it would be harder to disfigure during the process of making the mould.
    I had to change some of my characters physical features due to the fact that in the original figure I had used spherical buttons for the eyes whereas for the workshop I was given the smaller beads with a pin hole more commonly used in stop-motion puppets. I had to make sure there was a length of K and S either side of the characters head as this acts as a brace holding the armature inside of the mould.

Using Potters clay rolled into balls and built into layers in this case onto a bit of foam board, I made a 'bed' for my puppets head which would be cradled in the centre. The half way line around the puppets head needed to be identified. This is half way up the K and S when the puppet is lying horizontally and facing upwards, this line is followed around the puppets head. This is the point that the clay is built up to.

The bed then needed to be smoothed with no gaps around the object so that no plaster can filter through when it is poured into the mould. The bed needs to sit at an even level with the half way line, the first image shows the uneven surface when the balls were first smoothed flat, this had to be corrected so that it looked like the last image. I achieved this by using a small unused rubber with a right angle which enabled me to smooth the clay around the head as well. After this I fettled the whole area with a damp sponge, this also helped to get rid of any excess clay from the plasticine head.

The clay bed then needed to be cut into a circle using a clay knife. The best way to get a circular shape is to keep the knife still so that it stays at an upright angle and rotate the board with your other hand. In the second picture, the gaps that are visible at the bottom of the clay bed are where the balls haven't been blended together and it is necessary to leave it this way for a later stage in the process.

I then cut a chunk out of the bed in a triangular shape. This would give the plaster a catch so that when using the mould I would know where to align the two pieces easily and the cast would be in perfect alignment of its two sections.

A biting edge or a shim is a channel in the bed around the object. This is created by laying a thin rolled strip of clay around the object with the catch between this and the edge. If you didn't have a lot of space between your object and the edge of the bed, your shim would best fit as shown in the image on the left. If you had room between your object and the edge of the bed then it is best for it to lie as it does in the image on the right.

I then dug out the clay shim that remained leaving just the plaster mould and the plasticine head. I could then clean the plaster surface with water and a sponge and scrubbed away any rough bits of plaster with a green wire scrubby cloth. The shim was then replaced with fresh clay and a triangular wedge of clay was placed on the edge of the plaster which would enable me to prize apart the two bits of plaster when the second layer had set.