1. Introduction

Newport, a grubby, filthy, rotten place, a hive of wretched swine. Robbers, thieves, drug addicts and layabouts dot the landscape. It’s a place where your sister has more kids than you have dole cheques. However it is not this depravity that we are here to wallow in but rather it is ……. 

Mud!  

On the banks of the filthy river, camouflaged in the thick grey mud, they live a hidden life - or so folks around here claim. They are the mud people, and it is in Newport that we hope to pick up the trail of these shy chirpy happy go lucky little slime balls. Sightings are far and few between. Many deny their existence, many ….err .don’t.”

On the Trail of the Mud Men.

I too in the end found myself on the trail of these mud men. Get a bunch of slimy little river people (Newport Mud Men to the layman) to march past the screen and seem convincing and startlingly real. That was my eventual challenge.

This report describes the stages I went through as I moved from my original idea towards trying to discover how to best make the Mud Men a reality.