It's official. All the little bits and pieces needed to create the puppet character 'Nabalu' for The Hive, have now been sculpted and formed. Other than the clay used to make her face and hands, Nabalu is made entirely of recycled household items and materials - as is always the aim at Human Zoo. (Tin foil, plastic bags, bubble wrap, bamboo sticks, gardening wire, scrap fabric, lots and lots of glue and a second hand baby-gro, to be precise.)

(We're not sure why the image is showing up a bit squished!)

Florence, Nabalu's creator, is still putting the finishing touches on this special puppet's face, but for now, here's a look at her miniature hand. We can't decide if it's seriously cute, or a little bit creepy. Flo's just happy to have finally found something with smaller hands than her. There are lots of much bigger puppets to be made for the piece, and we are already scouring for the materials that will make our large-scale mechanical monsters. These will be partly formed prior to our first week in Banbury, where we will then spend our time animating and operating them, and adapting them for the cast.

And they call it puppet love...