I had a small amount of very old Ice Resin leftover and cast the missing brake part using the wonderful Composimold product to create the mold. Kyelynn was amazed at what mold-making could do.
![[lens.gif]](https://2.bp.blogspot.com/_u6p5H_ALavY/RefsFe2fdLI/AAAAAAAAAH0/XFltzQzVejo/s1600/lens.gif)
On the side of the underground set I used leftover dirt cloth made back at the loft (perhaps for this purpose) to make ridges and groves for the silk-covered worm puppet to wriggle into and around.
The puppet itself is made on a plastic ball-jointed armature, covered with layers of tight fabric wrapping cinched with wire to enhance its many hourglass curves. The final layer was a ruched tube of silk that had been sun-faded outside for a long while. It just looked right so I used it. Coated it finally in a flexible iridescent medium that makes things appear to be wet, to contrast with the flat matte of the dirt.
I shot these test shots with a small fresnel magnifying lens to add the Halfland atmosphere and slight analog distortions I need to make it all feel dream-like and poetic. I found that if I draped myself in black felt, I could control the flares and glares.
Took a box (not hard to find these days) and started taping brown paper into crumpled rolls and taping them to the inside surfaces. Painted that with a nice brown/burnt umber acrylic, and then sauced around seeking a clean material to texture it with.
Coffee! Watered down glue and my magic matte medium slathered on and then heavily dusted with rich Colombian coffee that had long gone stale. I wondered too late whether handling ground coffee for days would be dangerous but Google wasn't saying.
I build up the set with real roots and ancient fossils, rusty metal bits, a coin, a shell from an ancient sea, and three stones-coming-conscious sculptures I'd made years ago tucked into the folds of textured paper.
I wanted this set for a single transitional shot of the macro-scale grass tufts above, panning downward into the earth's inky darkness. BOOM--next scene! From the Bug Party scene among the large grass blades panning to the black of the underground set, then up, right into the Writing Mouse's underground house set!