After Milo was invited to develop plans for a carousel he was stuck. The budget was only enough money for a small, simple, plain carousel with every figure the same. So he really had to think about it. He took a trip to Paris and looked at all the carousels in Paris. They were beautiful. He went to the Paris flea market and bought some old ornaments that he could use on his carousel.

But he knew that making figures in his own art style would be too elaborate--the carousel would be too expensive to make. Then, one sunny afternoon when he was making drawings in his sketchbook and hanging out with some friends, he saw his young friend Julia make a drawing of a carousel horse and the idea came to him. "Kids are sloppy!" he thought. "I can use their drawings to make bulbous, lumpy carousel figures that would be funny and charming and wonderful, too."

This is a kid's drawing.

This is a small model in a box.

So, working with several little kids, he made seven models based on their drawing to show the committee what he meant.