are you sure? cause most puppets of seen have been about that scale. what size would you recommend then?

Fair enough, how do you blend the colours to hide the join lines? If you could let me know how well it works out for you, that would be awesome.

Scottdaros, the reason I chose 6 inches is because that conforms to the scale of 1:12 given that they would be 6 foot tall in real life. this means I have access to a lot of doll house items for props.

Have you made your puppet yet? Looking at your design, I'd go with foam. Your chicken has quite a fat body, and clay would perhaps be too heavy. If you glue the foam to the armature and trim it to look how you want, you could finish it by sticking individual feathers on - I think that would give a great effect. Although, this would not give you brows like Gromit. I don't see why you couldn't make the head from clay and the body as described above (but make sure your armature is strong enough to support the extra weight up top). Your design has a distinct neck line, which could work to your advantage. Rather than speculating the pro's and con's, best thing to do is pick a method and try it. See how it goes and change it if you encounter problems.

Personally, I'd make it all from foam, using wire underneath foam/cotton/feathers for the eyebrow movement you're after. I'd use liquid latex for the arms and legs, but if that isn't an option, I'd make them from clay. To stop your armature cutting through and protruding the clay limbs, you could wrap the wire in foil and tape or something. Sorry if I'm stating obvious points, I don't know how experienced you are with this stuff.

On a side note, I can see potential problems with wanting your puppet to be able to sit. You haven't shown its rear end, but chickens usually have a big booty and feathery tail, so unless it's sitting on the floor or something, you're gonna need a big old chair! Of course, this all depends on your design.

Best of luck.

Ps Like the avatar! In 20 some years of gaming, Fallout 3 is probably my favourite game.

Oh, right, so you were meaning foam rubber - like foam latex, urethane etc? I thought you meant like cushion foam build-up. That's why I suggested adding feathers, to cover the unsightly trimmed foam. Okay, personally, I'd go with the flexible urethane foam that expands in a mould. This doesn't require baking, so is probably easier than foam latex. This isn't really my territory, so I can't help a great deal. If you're still planning a clay head, I don't suppose it matters if you paint the foam or mix the colour of the clay to match. It sounds like you want the difference in materials to be unnoticeable, so the best option would be making it all from one or the other. I'd definitely bulk out the puppet with foil if you go the clay route.

In my experience, you can research until your head pops, but you learn a hell of a lot from actually getting your hands dirty and doing it.

Skyrim looks good, but I can't afford to put in the hours that such an RPG requires (I think I was approaching 200 hours for Fallout), and I'd rather be doing something creative and constructive, like making stop-mo films.