Using my time-tested hand and glove puppet design caused no major problems, so the basic build of Alex was straight forward (if not exactly easy). It was the costume itself that proved to be challenging. In the film Alex wore a sort of gang uniform - white trousers, a collarless white shirt, white braces, black boots, a greyish codpiece, eyeball shaped cufflinks, a fake eyelash on his right eye and a bowler hat. Tracking down all the correct items was essential as I wanted to ensure that I had all the details as accurate as I possibly could.

The white trousers and black boots were easy. I bought a pair of kid's white jeans and took in the hems so they were the right size, and I bought a small pair of kid's black boots. I tracked down the white braces from eBay and the bowler hat from a costume shop. The white shirt posed far greater problem than I first thought. It was simple to get a child's school uniform white shirt and cut off the collar, but taking in the hems of the arms so they were not too baggy was difficult as the material was very thin. After messing up the job when attempting to do it by hand, I got a friend to take them in with a sewing machine. Alex's shirt also has a pocket on both breasts, but the school uniform only had a pocket on one side. I bought an extra shirt, cut off its pocket and glued it onto the first shirt to give the correct look. The codpiece I sewed together out of grey stretchy material with some foam inside. The eyeball cufflinks were made from ping pong balls, cut in half with red felt glued around it to give the blood splattered appearance that was needed. To my delight, the glue I used caused the ping pong balls to melt slightly, making the cufflinks even more visually stunning. Top finish off the costume, I sewed the puppet's fingers together on his right hand, so he could hold a plastic truncheon as a weapon and made a stylised eyelash out of black felt.