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<\/p>\nThe original Wallace & Gromit, Shaun the Sheep and Feathers McGraw puppets have been auctioned to help fund “opportunities for emerging filmmakers”.<\/p>\n
The auction in London on Thursday, local time, featured pieces from nearly every Aardman production across the British claymation company’s 50-year history.<\/p>\n
The top-bid item was a puppet of the infamous Wallace & Gromit nemesis, Feathers McGraw.<\/p>\n
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The Feathers McGraw puppet is made of clay, crafted over a fully jointed internal metal armature.\u00a0 (Supplied: Propstore\/Aardman)<\/p>\n
The stop-motion puppet was used in 2024’s Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl and fetched \u00a356,700 ($106,884).<\/p>\n
Other highlights include a screen-matched Wallace stop-motion puppet, which sold for \u00a350,400, a Gromit puppet, and the early Aardman duo, Morph and Chas.<\/p>\n
The Morph and Chas puppets were made by Aardman co-founder Sir Peter Lord, with Morph first appearing in 1977.<\/p>\n
Claymation films, a painstaking process, can take years to create.<\/p>\n
The 2005 film Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit took five years.<\/p>\n
Aardman creator Nick Park has said some of the studio’s bigger films now include “a crew of up to 300 shooting on 25 sets at once”.<\/a><\/p>\n One Gromit puppet up for auction on Thursday hinted at this meticulous process.<\/p>\n The Gromit is characterised as “the very apogee of ‘man’s best friend'” and “crafted from silicone with malleable arms to facilitate repositioning during animation”.<\/p>\n It was made clear the items were not toys but clay puppets, and that “exposure to extreme temperatures may cause damage”.<\/p>\n Bidders could also get their hands on hand-drawn art of a visit to Aardman Studios in Bristol.<\/p>\n