It has been reported stop-motion animation studio Aardman is running out of clay. According to a report in the Daily Telegraph, there is enough animation clay for one more feature film after the manufacturers of its favourite material closed down earlier this year.

Newclay Products – which started as a company run by art teachers who operated out of a garden shed in Chislehurst – ceased production back in March, which resulted in specialist animation clay, Lewis Newplast, being longer available.

Lewis Newplast is described as “an exceptional non-drying, re-usable modelling material … sufficiently malleable to model into shape, but is also firm enough to retain its shape”. Valerie Dearing told the Telegraph that Aardman bought a significant amount of the remaining stock “to keep them going”. “She added: “They got what they said was two years’ worth. It came to about 40 boxes, which must have been around 400 kg.”

The, presumably, final stop-motion from Aardman’s is a new Wallace and Gromit film, involving an out-of-control “smart gnome” and will be directed by Nick Park and Merlin Crossingham. The film is due in 2024 on Netflix and the BBC.

Paul Dearing told the Telegraph: “We ran the business for 16 years and it was thriving, but we couldn’t find anyone who wanted to take over the firm after we retired so we sold off everything.” However, this may not be the end of the clay as the company’s IP will remain on sale until December.