Franklin Square student creates claymation masterpieces

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After watching a special starring the popular children’s video character Morph last March, Tony Pugliese decided to do some research on Morph, and discovered that he was made of clay — as were the characters in one of Tony’s favorite Christmas movies, “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” 

Tony started sculpting his own figures out of everything he could get his hands on, and took a virtual claymation  — clay animation — class when Franklin Square schools switched to remote learning last spring. Now, at the age of only 7, Tony’s work has been featured on U.K.-based Aardman Studios’ Twitter account. 

He submitted his work to the studio — which has created a number of claymation shows over the years, like “Morph,” “Wallace and Grommit” and “Shaun the Sheep” — using his mother’s email because, he said, he was proud of his work, and earlier this month, his mother, Gina, received a call from the studio asking her if they could post a photo of Tony’s Super Morph character on Twitter.

“I was so excited,” Tony said of his reaction to seeing the tweet on Jan. 5. 

He does not find sculpting to be difficult, he told Franklin Square school district Superintendent Jared Bloom, and likes to make characters he is familiar with.

Tony’s first clay creation was a character he named Tommy Truck, and now, Gina said, the Puglieses have an entire box full of his clay figures, including SpongeBob SquarePants, Mickey Mouse and Tom and Jerry. 

Each figure can take up to an hour to make out of molding clay that never dries out, Tony said, but the two stop-motion videos he made with the clay figures took only a few minutes. The first one was of Morph dancing, and Tony made the second one for his cousin, who, Gina said, is a big fan of the “Baby Shark” television show, based on the popular song.

“It’s not a traditional extracurricular for children his age,” Gina said, noting that Tony doesn’t like to play sports, and instead spends hours making his clay sculptures on a tablecloth on their ottoman while watching television. He has now gotten other children in his second-grade class at the John Street School interested in the art, Gina said, during “a crazy time when they can’t do anything.”

Tony is now working on a third claymation short film, Gina said, which will feature the characters from the “Baby Shark” TV show performing scenes from the musical film “The Greatest Showman.” He has sculpted a top hat and outfit similar to the one Hugh Jackman wears in the film for the baby shark, Gina noted, and is changing the words to the songs so they’ll be appropriate for the shark family. 

“He has a fast mind for that kind of thing,” Gina said, adding that the film Tony is “really, very funny.”

And his work will only continue to improve, Gina said, as he is planning to take a young sculptors’ class from Aardman Studios at the end of the month.