While I was studying at the Yale School of Drama I met an art student who was doing a stop-motion film as his final thesis. The premise was that a business man had gotten stuck in some kind of time warp where he could never leave a certain park in Russia. He kept running into a homeless man who tried to explain to him how to get out. The film takes place during that cold, grey time when it’s not quite winter. I agreed to build the costumes for his puppets. In these photos you will see the drawings he gave me, clay models of the puppets for me to pattern off of and fabric swatches that have been dyed or distressed. The tall man’s suit is made of a striped blue and white linen. It has been dyed, painted, and sanded to make it look darker and older. The short man’s coat is a homespun cotton and the pants are made of cotton muslin. Both have been dyed, painted, and sanded to give them the appropriate color and shabbiness. I built the hat from felt and a product called “Stiffy” normally used to make silk flowers. I also built a shirt and tie for the tall man. If you look closely at the photos of the puppets in their clothes you will see they are propped against a sleeve board and are next to an iron; this should give you a sense of their size.