Captain Caveman Gets His Coat

 Season 10, Episode 4

With the Teen Angels safely recruited and apparently intent upon solving mysteries through the vigorous application of firearms, it was time to return to the small matter of Captain Caveman himself; more specifically, it was time to confront the issue of the hair.  My original plan had centred around the Saintly Mrs. Awdry's cake decorating tool, a device which had already shown considerable promise when pressed into service for purposes entirely outside its intended remit. The difficulty, however, was finding a suitable material to force through it.

The elderly Milliput used during the proof of concept stage had proven rather too crumbly, so I turned instead to Green Stuff, that ubiquitous modelling putty found lurking in hobby rooms throughout the land. If it could be sculpted, reasoned I, surely it could be persuaded through the decorating tool; best beloved, it could not. There followed a frantic period of archaeological excavation as I attempted to remove rapidly curing putty from the Saintly Mrs. Awdry's cake decorating implement before awkward questions could be asked. Whilst I cannot claim the operation was entirely successful, I am pleased to report that diplomatic relations between the Kitchen and Hobby Room remain intact.

Fortunately, disaster was narrowly averted and the decorating tool survived to fight another day; my dignity, however, was less fortunate.  Admitting temporary defeat, I invested in some superfine white Milliput and turned my attention to another pressing problem, the cloak.  Unlike the hair, which merely covered approximately ninety eight percent of Cavey's anatomy, the cloak represented something of a mystery. Tin foil was briefly considered, as was card, before my attention settled upon an old blister pack lurking in the pile of shame.  The inhabitants were duly evicted then a little cutting, some cautious heating with a Zippo lighter and...

Well the first attempts filled Awdry Towers with enough acrid black smoke to suggest a papal election was underway.  Eventually, however, I discovered a happy medium whereby the softened plastic could be persuaded into convincing folds before rapidly cooling and retaining its shape. Better still, it would remain lightweight and flexible whilst avoiding some of the fragility associated with thin metal.  For once, a plan appeared to be working.

The cloak was carefully trimmed, repeatedly offered up to the model and adjusted until the fit seemed right. The trick, I realised, would be layering a foundation layer of hair first, then the cloak, before finally burying the joins beneath yet more hair to create the illusion that everything emerged naturally from Cavey's luxuriant pelt.

With the club attached and the remaining wire concealed beneath putty, only one final detail remained, the whiskers.  These wonderfully unruly appendages seem to possess a life entirely of their own in the original cartoons and so fine wire was drilled directly into the shell and secured with superglue. Once in place, they immediately transformed the miniature.  Quite suddenly, Cavey was no longer a collection of experimental components.

He was Captain CAAAAAAAVE MAAAAAANNNNN!