The caterpillar - A blast from the past

one of the reasons i found it hard to make this caterpillar was because there was a lack of information about making chharacters like this.
when i googled how to make stop motion caterpillars in the past all i got was my own previous attempts fom my blog.
I tried again just on the off chance and I found this.

It was a caterpillar puppet fom a 1949 stop motion animation of alice in wonderland.
but the first image that came up was my own concept...BINGO...that made me realise what i needed to do.

Here is an image of The puppet in the film along with alice, it was a mixture of stop motion animation and live action footage.
The way the caterpillar had been painted in several shades of the same colour for effect and the fact that he had no legs was really inspiring to me. and his shape was far more appropriate as it visually communicated the idea of a caterpillar.
This made me think, I need something round that can be covered in modelling material that is easy to work with and cut.

I was tidying my kids bedroom when a brilliant idea came into my head... plastic balls.similar to the ones you would find in a ball pit or pool.

I persuaded my son to let me have some of these balls.

I cut them i was patient, i used the modelling techniques and processes from my previous examples but most importantly i learned from my mistakes.

here he is in all his glory

You can see how I was indpired by the professional stop motion puppet and how i used similar techniques in his creation. This really helped me to make him better.
And I was happy with how he looked.

and how he compares to my original intentions?

he is fat/round
has a long shape
human like features
correct expression
suitable for audience
realistic

the most important thing is that he communicates visually that he is in fact a caterpillar, not a brick, frog or cot toy.
He is appropriate for my animation and the needs of my audience.