The Finished Hyena, Hah!

Esme did a great job putting a handle in the hyena, sewing it onto the hat, gluing on the fabric, adding the goat hair main and braiding the tail. It works so well! It really gives off the illusion of the hyena's hunchback, and looks complete, whilst being really easy to wear with perfect vision.

The handle inside the hyena head.
After the deadline I will be painting
the insides of the hyena heads black.

The hyena mane has natural flair! 

Funky Zebra Manes

Alex had some free time today and decided to help with some work on the zebras. As I was working on the elephant's head attaching tusks and fabrics, I was overseeing and trouble shooting on them. She attached the fabric drape with hot glue, then also glued on a paper rope base for the mane to sit on.

Alex wearing a zebra mask with the fabric drape attached, but no mane. 

Alex forming the mane whilst I wore the zebra mask, so she could use my back to press against
and ensure the mane was central.

 After some trial and error Alex found the easiest way to attach the mane was to cut off a section of paper rope, unravel it, then fold in half over the rope base, using hot glue to secure it centrally. Then it will be painted by dry brushing and sponging with acrylics.

A mane nearing completion, needing just a forelock and the other end.

Meeting, Chunky Tusks & Elephant Legs!

This morning's meeting went great - everyone was feeling awake, positive and ready to go. I went around the group, asking each person what their plan was for out 3 remaining studio days was, and how they intended to go about doing it. The list (for those who turned up to the meeting) was as follows:
Amy - hyenas; attaching ears, covering them in gum tape, painting them, adding handles to the inside of the heads, adding eyes and attaching the fabric manes both to the heads and to the baseball capes, complete with fabric scrap manes.
Connor - finishing all three of the bird kites by mounting them on the carbon rods that have just arrived, then helping Melissa with the Mufasa head.
Melissa - finishing the Mufasa head by upholstering all of it with muslin, adding a wadding or cotton wool mane and painting it with both brushes and an airbrush.
Becca and Ollie - the finishing of Pumba via finishing touches such as more goat hair along his back, and a protective coat of PVA.
Naomi - perfecting the pattern for the antelopes along with cutting the remaining pattern pieces out, sewing them up and stuffing them, with a minimum of one antelope being completed including paint and arm straps in time for Tuesday's deadline.
Andrea - working between creatures to help with any small parts that need doing, including helping with the elephant's legs, attaching Zazu to his respective baseball cap and sewing up the antelopes.
Lorraine - continuing work on the antelopes, also attaching fabric to the various animals that need draping e.g. cheetahs.
Esme - helped to finish up at least one zebra mask, along with any help needed on the elephant and Giraffes, including painting.
Myself - Attaching various masks to hats, working on the elephant and guiding and helping out with any small jobs that others ask for guidance on.

The group worked well throughout the day, making good progress with only a few members leaving early. A lot of people had other project commitments to see to. Before taking lunch after the meeting I unpacked the elephant's leg tubing, cutting it into four quarters and experimenting with the movement and height of it needed to work effectively as legs.
After lunch I took to working on the elephant, upholstering it with the newly arrived sparse jute and some tighter-weave jute that I had as leftovers from another project.

I decided to use cable ties to secure the fabric onto the willow structure as it was so sparse and it created a secure attachment the same way that the structure itself had been created.

I created more solid panels with the denser jute in the parts of the face that didn't need to be looked through. This also provided a good base for painting and a great way to attach the tusks - by pulling the fabric around them, securing it with cable ties then folding the fabric around it and hot gluing it.

The unpainted face with the fabric sleeve ear, testing the placement of the eyes. I am looking forwards to painting the piece in a way that accentuates the contours of the willow and gives it a big impact on the stage. Tomorrow I intend to paint the fabric and attach the eyes, so I can focus on making it comfortable and secure to wear. The girls will have their heads in the see-through portion of the top of the elephant's head, with the backpacks or other straps on their fronts to secure it whilst they give piggybacks to the younger girls waving the ears.
Here are pictures of two of Connor's colourful bird kites, before and after being attached to the carbon rods. Attaching them was done simply and effectively using cable ties above and below the bird to prevent it from flying off whilst still allowing it to move and spin freely.

The method of attaching the masks has been perfected at this point and is now a quick and easy process. Mufasa, Simba, Nala, a cheetah and all of the zebras are now attached to hats. It is done by using the industrial hole puncher to neatly punch three to four holes in each front side of the mask, or in the cheetah's case 4 at the front - it depends on the shape of the base. The hat is then inserted, placement marked in pencil and then it is sewn on using the thick linen thread and a large needle.

Claire wearing a cheetah head. Eyes have been added, made of
scrap acrylic sheet with one side sanded and painted black. 
Upholstery foam is used to make the mask sit 
more upright on the wearer's head.

The Draft Antelope, Elephant Legs & Others

After running up a small draft pattern, Naomi took a few hours to size it up and draw them out of £40 of calico purchased out of the £60 antelope budget.

The pattern I drew, sized up by Naomi and placed on the calico ready to be cut out.

However, before I could suggest we wait until the first is sewn to see how it came out, she had already cut out 3 of them - but it turns out the legs are very, very thin making them difficult to turn out and stuff. If we had only done one of these cut outs, it would be possible to modify the next ones - but we will have to work around it by adding more fabric into the pattern.

The jute and legs for the elephant finally arrived today - a big relief as we had been waiting quite some time for them. After various members of the team had toyed around with the 6 metres of matte grey ventilation tubing, I cut it into four equally sized sections of 1.5 metres with a little help from Jake. Because of the spiral construction of the tubing, I had to cut through the fibreglass wire with pliers and then used a hot glue gun to seal and smooth this end. Andrea showed an interest in finishing the elephant legs by placing bottoms on them, toe nails, and a couple of straps to allow it to stay on the actor's arms and have the feet move. Here is a picture from the process, where you can see how perfectly the grey ducting works for elephant's legs, with EVA foam toenails painted white;

I attached Nala to a hat this evening - it was very simple because of her smooth and simple jaw shape. I used a heavy duty hole puncher to cut holes through the gum tape and rhenoflex structure of the masks and used heavy linen thread and a large needle to sew it straight onto a baseball hat with the peak cut off. This is a really sturdy way of attaching them because the weight sits on top of the wearer's head, and is supported by the thick thread, instead of a glue.

The heavy duty hole punch makes light work of creating
holes to sew the masks onto hats with.

Stitching Nala onto her respective hat. We used a heavy duty
linen thread to ensure it was strong and wouldn't snap.

A rather tired picture of me wearing Nala to show how she sits.
The mask is very lightweight, secure and comfortable. Now all
she needs is her fabric drape.

The next step for Nala is to add an understructure for her fabric drape, then she will be completed.

I also took some time to converse with Naomi in the sewing room about making the elephant ears. By referencing the size of the entire head and pictures of real African elephants, we managed to make the most of the small amount (1.5 metres) of fabric we had to make both ears. By folding them in half across the diagonal, they had the right drooping shape for a real elephant's ear.

Eyes & Manes All Over the Place

Today I attached Zazu to his hat, using the same method as the lions. I also made some holes in Mufasa for him to be attached, which Claire did whilst I was fiddling with the elephant's head. Because of the shape of the Mufasa head, in order to sit him comfortably and in the correct position on the hat, there was some of the hat's band still showing. However, we fixed this after a little brainstorming by hot gluing paper rope on. This worked so well that we decided to use paper rope across the whole mane, supporting the shape of it with rhenoflex behind it.

This method worked much better than the difficulty we'd had toying with how to create scar's mane. By attaching the mane straight to the inside of the face, it removed the worry of having to create a 'frame' for the mane to sit on, because instead it was directly attached. The fabric drape could then be put inside of the mask, over the hat and upholstery foam. You can see what we had planned for Scar below, but it just hadn't been working as we'd planned.

After some scavenging I found a panel of clear vacuum formed plastic which had 12 'nubs' formed into it. I figured these would be perfect for zebra's eyes and, like the elephant's eyes, sanded the back of it and painted it with black acrylics. I used a zebra mask to make an eye template, then cut the pieces out ready to be stuck into the masks.

A pair of painted zebra eyes. They work really well because the curved, shiny surface reflects the light perfectly.

Elephant Eyes!

Here is a quick update on some elephant eyes, and Esme's fantastic progress on a zebra head. In this picture, I am gluing cardboard eyelids onto an eye lens I found in the vacuum form room scraps, which I sanded and painted the back of. The zebra mask isn't even attached onto the hat yet - the peak of the baseball hat is just folded enough to keep it within the zebra's muzzle, and I believe it will only need hot glue to make it really sturdy. The next step on the mask is gluing it in and giving them a chunky mane and their fabric necks, and for the eyes I need to paint them and add eyelashes.

Elephant Frames & Painting Faces

Today has been progressive, but exhausting. With only six studio days left until both this project and the essay's deadline, I have been working completely flat out. I started the day by sketching out my plans for the elephant's head, then fabricating them in willow. It is a time consuming material, but is excellent for creating organic, flowing shapes with a good amount of durability.
I had some useful physical labour help in making the tail and trunk. They are simple circles cut out of some salvaged EVA foam mat, with a hole for a piece of paper rope. The paper rope is a fantastic material - it retains some rigidity whilst having a realistic swing to it, making it move realistically with a pleasing swish. It's also really cheap, which is always a plus.

The beginnings of the elephant's frame, with the trunk Emily made sitting underneath it.

The elephant's tail after being assembled including the goat fur tuft, but before the rope is painted and the backpack straps are added.

I looked at lots of anatomical pictures of elephants and their unusual head shapes in order to get a good representation of the elephant's head on the almost life-sized scale. The head has to fit two people side by side in it with the girls on their backs waving the ears, so not only does it need to be big and wide but it needs to be held on by some form of strapping. I think the next step for the elephant head is to attach the trunk, and fashion some tusks with some form of sheath to them to secure them realistically to the head.

Here is a brief timeline of the masks from the beginning to the end of the day. After spending some time on the elephant, I took a couple of hours in the afternoon to plan out and start painting Nala's head. Claire and Esme had worked on Simba and Mufasa who were looking great, however there are varying opinions on whether they look best with the gum paper showing or not showing. I personally prefer the gum paper to be covered, but with a limited range of colours in order to not over-complicate the design. On feedback of team members I am going to modify the orange colour on Nala a little to bring it down a shade of brightness, and then line her other markings with dark brown.

 Simba, with his partially raw-gum-paper design.

 My painting work on Nala for the afternoon, with the spots, eyes and lower regions still needing painting.

 Mufasa, who is personally my favourite so far. I think the boldness of his design and colour scheme works very well for the production style and character.

Scar's Baseball Cap Crown

After a lot of deliberation we finally managed to get Scar attached to a hat as the first working example of a secure attachment. It really was surprisingly simple - a few holes, thick thread, and a block of upholstery foam to hold the mask upright, all attached to a baseball cap with the peak completely cut off. Whilst we were worrying about balancing the masks on the peak and concerns over it drooping and overshadowing the actors heads, the simplest solution was right under our noses - or, peaks, should I say.

Scar securely attached to a hat. A huge relief for everyone involved!

Stuffed Antelopes

It was with huge regret today that I had to take the weight of the antelope leadership into my own hands. I was really enjoying Shona working with us on this huge project but her other project has taken both her and Tasmin's time completely, so I have had to plan around this and work out an alternative to complete and duplicate the antelopes easily.
I did a lot of brainstorming - the options I came up with follow;

• finish the styrofoam body, make a head, attach the legs and then cover the whole shape in foil and rhenoflex it for each antelope (there are six)
• same as above, but with gum tape instead of rhenoflex
• create a cardboard slot-together antelope in the same way that Rhian has been doing the giraffe's heads
• create a pattern from scratch for a stuffed, soft toy type structure out of calico to be sewn together and painted

After some deliberation and input from the group, we decided the last option would be the best to play with. I drew up a simple antelope pattern, using basic skills I had from past projects in creating simple stuffed toys. I first made a 2D drawing of an antelope, then cut off the legs and horns, so they could be duplicated with a fold down the middle to create four legs and two horns instead of a totally flat 2D antelope.

My initial pattern design sketch for the antelope plush. The ears were to be made separately then sewn on after the main
body has been assembled.

The miniature test antelope. It was around 30cm long in total. Because of this small sized it proved impossible to turn
out the front legs, making it look a little bit like a T-Rex antelope. This shouldn't be an issue when the pattern is sized up!

The horns. For such a simple pattern I think they work well.

The hind legs, which have come out great. I think they may be the
best part of the entire pattern.

I have now handed this over to Naomi to size up in the traditional manner, by using pattern paper and a ruler.

Emily had some free time and decided she wanted to help our group, so I set her off on cutting out and stringing together circles of the found EVA foam matting to create a trunk for the elephant. She did this surprisingly quickly and it looked great. However, I found that when I attached the trunk to the elephant's head frame, it needed more upwards shape instead of lying totally flat on the frame - so I added another line of paper rope down the centre of the trunk. This worked really well, giving it form as well as retaining great flexibility and movement. Once I was finished with the construction of the trunk, Jake painted the paper rope grey to match the EVA foam.

On Paper Lanterns & Elephants

Today has been busily filled with cutting and heating to form thermoplastic over the clay sculptures of the four lion's heads which are all coming along well. The 'rhenoflex' material is proving to be extremely versatile, strong and lightweight and is something I will definitely want to work with in future projects; see Nala, Mufasa and Simba below with Scar in the background;

But this evening I've been looking into some inspiration for the looming eleven-person elephant shell we are creating.
A little lost, my first port of call was willow sculptures. They are beautiful but are very built up to create the illusion of weight - we need the elephant costume to achieve this also but in a way that allows the actors to see out, whilst also being low on budget and with a fast turnaround time. The naturalistic forms that the willow creates smooth curves and tight angles that organic creatures have.

 Sarah Gallagher-Hayes' Willow Lion

Steve Manning's Willow Elephants

We will be using willow as the frame as we have with the giant Mufasa head and also the smaller, lightweight and dainty bird kites that will soar over the audience. In a similar form of lightweight structure, traditional Chinese lanterns and from this, lantern celebration sculptures. They come in fantastic, artistic forms and are the sort of thing I'm hoping the team can emulate with the willow sticks and sheer jute and muslin fabrics.

Traditional Chinese Lanterns

Dog Lantern from the 'Illumifest of Light'

'Burning the Clocks' Festival

Russell Kirk's Lantern Parade Creations

As the jute is so loose-weave it will allow the young actors to see through it with ease, so they can perform their routines without any collisions. I feel it is most important for the life-size puppet to create the illusion of form and having ease of movement. To aid this I have begun creating the body panels as two separate hand-held pieces, so the performers can allow the puppet to 'breathe' - a movement fundamental to Handspring Puppet Company, and particularly notable in their production of 'War Horse'. To be believable, the alive animal's vital signs must be met; in the haste of puppetry this mostly translates into a believable design, and movement that mimics the characteristics of the creature.

Stretching My Rhenoflexing Fingers

Today I tried using the rhenoflex myself for the first time on the finished sculpt of Nala. I first covered the sculpt in small, contoured pieces of foil to protect the buff clay underneath and stop it from cracking from the heat of the gun and plastic. It can be challenging because it is so hot - using heat proof gloves is only relatively better than getting burnt, because they are so huge that it's difficult to have the dexterity to even pick the pieces up, let alone form them - and the adhesive in the rhenoflex loves to stick to the fibres in the glove's material.
Regardless, I set about patterning Nala's finished sculpt by holding newspaper over the area that I wished to cover, then using a thick marker to feel out the edges of the shape. This was then cut from the plastic, heated up and formed onto her.  I found it easiest to join pieces by using a wooden tool to press the edges of the top piece of plastic into the lower piece, melding the two together.

Nala after being covered in aluminium foil to protect the sculpture.

Cutting out the upper nose section of Nala's head. The rhenoflex cuts fairly easily with scissors.

The first three pieces of Nala's head formed over the sculpt and attached to each other.

I also did a paint test on the sample Fiona had created to show us how to use the thermoplastic. She had shown us the process on Lorraine's antelope head maquette, and I wanted to use it to help us decide how to paint the finished pieces. I covered one side of the piece in gum tape, and left the other side raw, just coating it with a layer of acrylic. From this it was clear that we would have to cover all of the masks with gum tape - it looked so much neater and smoother, as well as being more natural and a more appropriate base colour than the light, slightly glittery blue of the rhenoflex. It also proved quite difficult to get an even coating of paint on the raw rhenoflex surface; the embedded mesh made it too easy to create inequalities if the paint either pooled in a section of mesh, or bubbled over the surface and popped, leaving it bare. It would have taken many coats to get a good covering.