Cut two three inch lengths of 3mm (thin) pipe cleaners to create a body frame for your miniature raccoon. Use a pipe cleaner color which is some shade of the animal you are trying to create. This will create the large 1:12 scale (dollhouse scale) raccoon in the introductory photo. 3/4 inch back from the ends, wrap the pipe cleaners together to form a body, keeping the ends separate. When the body is one inch long, stop wrapping the pipe cleaners together. This will give you rear legs that are longer than the front legs.
Raccoons have a distinctive body shape that makes them look like they are always sloping downhill. Your frame will look like an H with one side longer than the other.
The photograph shows the frame standing so that you can see how the body is proportioned. In the next steps you should lay the frame flat to make felting it easier.