Wow, this was a really awkward way of asking for help. How can a movie be "coming up" if you haven't even got the puppets made yet? Do you have a storyboard, a soundtrack, a script? Made any sets yet?

Hey asrts,
nice character designs.

You are probably going to need a costume person as well as a puppet maker, as the costumes are pretty complicated.
How big do the puppets need to be,  what do they need to do, and how long is the estimated running time of the film?
These are some of the questions that the puppet builder will need to know to build the best puppet for the film's situations.

Best of luck with the project.
Tim

24 minutes is a lot of animation, if this is your first film, I would suggest you try something a little more modest.

Are you are going to have to have ball and socket armatures?  My guess is that you don't have the money for ball and socket armatures, so you will have to go with either multiple wire armatures for each character or more than likely some kind of plug in wire armatures, so that the joints can be changed when they break.

The set will have to be a bit larger to accommodate the size of the puppets, hope you kept that in mind. Usually when I design a puppet I know how much space I have to shoot in, and I figure in what the puppet has to do, and how much detail the puppet needs so I can figure out what size to make the puppet. I also usually start with the puppets, but everyone has a different way of working.

Your puppets don't have to be that detailed, just the heads and hands, so that can save time, but you will need to find a person who can sew those costumes. I myself can't help you, as I am too expensive, unless you have big bucks, but I'm sure that you can find someone to build the puppets once you have it narrowed down to exactly what you want. So much of stop motion happens on paper, which saves time and money.

There are some simple way to make puppets as well that you might want to check out, if interested I will post some links next time.

Tim

Here are some links for 12" (one sixth scale) clothing for action figures:
Sideshow Collectors
One Sixth Warriors
Store Rooms

jahnocli are the cloths at http://www.store-rooms.com/ good for animation