Zebras & Hyenas, Oh My!

Today Esme and Andrea finished up the sculpt for the zebra masks. It looks great and I think it will really be solidified design-wise when the ears are added to the masks. We decided it would be easiest to add the ears after the basic mask shape has been made, by cutting a sheet of rhenoflex into individual ear shapes, heating them to form them and then gluing them on.

Today I made a tape pattern for the hyena to be cut out of rhenoflex. We decided to do a tape pattern instead of a basic newspaper trace because it could easily be cut out of a thicker card, and therefore have the durability to last until all ten of the hyenas were cut out. I added a seam allowance to the pattern pieces but after cutting this out and making a sample first hyena that this allowance was not required in the same way that it would be for a fabric pattern - rhenoflex only seems to need a millimetre or two to form a secure bond between two pieces.

Here you can see how I added ~8mm of seam allowance to each tape piece, which was later removed as it wasn't required.

Post Easter Meeting & Thermoplastic Heaven

This day started early and heavy on the first day back after Easter. We met with Fiona - a few people showing up late as I had unfortunately grown to expect - and she went around the group discussing the next steps for everyone present. We discussed in depth the new decision to make the head pieces out of a thermoplastic called rhenoflex. Popular with cosplayers, it is highly versatile, and a cheaper version of the 'warblr' and 'wonderflex' brand versions. 

We went ahead in ordering eleven large sheets of the 1.55mm rhenoflex, with the intention of covering it in a single layer of gum tape to gain the look of the gum-tape-only masks without the time consuming layering and potential lack of durability.

BJHardware, our source of rhenoflex, shows how rhenoflex can be used to make masks in their product sample image.

Rhenoflex is a cheaper alternative to Worbla because it is usually used to make the plastic core of shoes, instead of being a cosplay/prop-specific material.

The thermoplastic can be heated by very hot water, or, more desirably, a heat gun. It is reinforced by a fine plastic mesh, similar to how modroc is reinforced plaster. This makes it incredibly strong and flexible without being brittle. It has a rougher, matte side and a slightly smoother, shinier side which is more adhesive. It sticks to itself well when heated thoroughly, and can be re-heated and re-shaped if a piece is done wrong - reassuringly, the heat required to bend it is so high that it will never be adversely affected by a hot day in the sun, or under the heat of stage lighting.

Worbla is more commonly used for cosplay because it doesn't contain the reinforcing grain that rhenoflex has; it still has a texture, however, and makers tend to use a filler like Gesso or wood glue over their armour pieces before sanding and painting. Here are some examples of cosplay pieces made with Worbla.

Enayla's GLaDOS (Portal 2) costume made from Worbla and fun foam. Yes, there is a person inside there!

Progress pictures from an article by Svetlana Quindt on making armour pieces from Worbla.

An Adjutant from Starcraft 2, created using Worbla by Chrisx Design.

This evening Nala's sculpt also got finished up, joining Scar in the ready-to-rhenoflex group. I look forwards to trying this tomorrow.

Bold Faces

The Wodaabe ethnic group, who use makeup and expressions to attract women. Not only is this practice light-hearted and amusing, but the face painting they use is aesthetically very attractive; the bright colours, dots, circles and lines capture the health and vibrancy of the individual. The bright yellows, reds and oranges are colours I wish to include in the palette for the costumes.

Pre-Easter Sculpting

Today Tasmin finished the gum tape prototype of the hyena mask. It feels fairly solid, but has taken many hours of layering to get a good level of strength. Because of this, I don't know if it's a viable way of making the ten hyena masks we have been asked to, even after the list got revised, and the grass head dresses and a few of the other animals got cut out for budget reasons.

If the mask is removed without enough layers of tape, it is wobbly - no good at all. With all of the layers on, it has to be cut off the sculpt to be removed, then gum taped back together. It currently has no eyes! I will need to add these to the sculpt before we solidify how we are going to make the actual masks.

We continued sculpting, Nala being done by Andrea and the cheetah being done by Rhian. I helped both with some feedback and Rhian asked for me to help flesh out the shape in a way that corresponded to the concept art well. I enjoy sculpting and find the biggest challenge with it to be getting the sculpt symmetrical - having multiple people working on really helps, because there is always a fresh set of eyes to pick out any imperfections.
I managed to get Nala finished in time for the easter holidays, with Claire having finished Scar and Esme having made great progress on Mufasa. Simba is also underway but due to a lack of headform to sculpt him on, he is currently a little flat. I am hoping that I will be able to source a headform for him to sit on over easter.

Scar, completed and looking suitably moody.

Nala, completed.

Mufasa, nearing completion. 

Simba, who is a little flat at the moment.

Becca and Ollie have begun cutting out the head for Pumba using a cardboard stencil on polystyrene, and maquettes have been sculpted for the zebra (Naomi, Ollie) and antelope (Lorraine). Jake finished soaking a bundle of willow, which is now ready to use, and Shona is busy creating an antelope's body from styrofoam. I'm not sure how she plans to duplicate it as carving takes a long time - just like the hyena, we will have to refine the process.

Withies & Hyena Struggles

Today started out with a quest for willow withies. Whilst we initially thought we'd have to order these, we found out the university had quite a large stockpile that we could just replace nearer the end of the project. This meant that we could jump straight into soaking them, without having to worry about waiting for them to arrive.

Without the professional equipment (aka a bathtub) required so soak willow's full length unbent, we had to resort to using a large plastic bin. By soaking the bottom half of the withies first, we were able to bend them to fit entirely in the bin with a weight and a piece of MDF on top to keep them all in.

We plan to use these withies for sculpting the elephant's face and body, and the giant mufasa head's separate pieces, to be formed and held together by the child actors.

We also began sculpting on the armatures we'd found and made. Rhian started on the cheetah, Andrea started on Nala and I did some work on the hyena on a sheet of MDF. It wasn't important for the hyenas to be on a 3D armature because they weren't masks to go on a hat - the design showed them as hand held puppet heads, with a fabric drape and mane reaching up to the child's head. This also worked well for the children - being young, they didn't have to worry about having a weighty mask on their head, or not being able to see well enough.

The Armature. It doesn't look much more than a blob of foil, mainly because it was. It's purpose was to give the sculpt structural integrity and to use up less clay.

My design for the hyena's face.

In the afternoon I met with Amy, Andrea and Lorraine to discuss materials with Fiona. There were some things we were definite about - such as the elephant being made out of willow withies with a fabric covering - but others remain up in the air awaiting prototypes. After some discussion we set out on a mission to make some material prototypes. I finished the hyena sculpt that day in order to be able to experiment with materials on it. I finished the day by typing up a materials list for each of the animals that was as comprehensive as I could make it at the time.

The sculpt after some intensive work on it.

After I had finished the hyena sculpt, I tried out some ideas for easily replicating the masks. This proved challenging and I was battling with the hyena until the university shut in the evening.

 

Above is the sculpt with clingfilm applied to keep it moist, and a couple of layers of masking tape over the top. Drawing on the shapes helped to emphasise how the mask would come out, and I felt it matched my concept art well. However, it was problem solving on how to actually sturdily and cheaply replicate this sculpt that was puzzling.

The masking tape pattern after being removed from the sculpt.

I decided to cut the pattern into the pieces I'd drawn on and tried to cut the shapes out of cardboard to see if we could glue them together to form the mask. However, I found the cardboard too rigid by nature, and getting it to fit together was a challenge that was taking far too long. Had we received the training for it, my dream way of making all of the masks in this project would be to sculpt them on the computer and render them in a low-poly style, then use software to 'unfold' the sculpts into a 2D pattern to be cut out of our chosen flat material.

The cardboard lower jaw sitting below all the other pieces. As you can see by the way it sits, the tape pattern is rather rounded and curved due to the nature of hand sculpting clay. The lower jaw sits very rigid.

With the failure of the cardboard mask being put behind, I ended my evening with another layer of clingfilm and started gum taping on the mask. This preserves the shape very well - and we will see how sturdy it is after a few layers.

A Quick Update

Today was spent designing and reflecting on how to sculpt the masks. I started by investigating our options on sculpting materials, and after a lot of hassling staff found out that we could have free use of the scrap clay from the clay rooms - this clay was wet buff clay with the occasional lump of hard clay in it; perfect for our purposes, since we didn't need a highly polished finish due to the nature of how we planned to create the masks.

I also investigated what we were going to build the masks on. After a quick visit into town I bought 4 baseball caps in a sale, with them being only 50p each. It made sense for the lions to be built onto them, as they were cheap, sturdy and adjustable. We could either glue or, preferably, sew the masks directly onto them.

We found a few life casted heads to sculpt some lions on - this was the perfect set up, however there weren't enough for all of the animals - so I also came up with a way of padding out a plastic bucket with foil to make a decent base for sculpting on.

Hayley's Visit: The Adoption of Simba

There was a bit of a mad rush before Hayley arrived to get all of our designs coherently together and mounted in a way that look professional - we also tidied up the studio. When Hayley arrived, she was very happy to be there - she adored our designs, and even looked a little teary when we gave her the baby Simba to show her students. It was incredibly reassuring that she was so happy with where we'd got at that point on the project. This spurred everyone on to work really hard - immediately after the meeting we sat down and worked out who wanted to do each element of the project.

Excuse the poor quality photos - my designs include Mufasa,
Simba, Nala, a hyena and the zebra.

Jasmine: Simba, zebras, leading hyenas, leading elephant.

Amy: Mufasa, giant Mufasa, costume/fabrics, elephant, Zazu.

Claire: Scar, costume/fabrics, hyenas, elephant.

Becca: Leading Pumba, giraffes, elephant.

Oliver: Pumba, giraffes, cheetahs.

Rhian: Timon, leading cheetahs, elephant.

Tasmin: Leading zebras, antelopes, cheetahs, elephant.

Shona: Leading antelopes, zebras, elephant.

Kristina: Zebras, antelopes, giraffes, elephant.

Lorraine: Costume/fabrics, cheetahs, Timon, elephant.

Esmé: Elephant, hyenas.

Naomi: Leading costume/fabrics.

Melissa: Leading giant Mufasa, elephant, antelopes, hyenas.

Connor: Leading bird kites, costume/fabrics, elephant.

Andrea: Nala, leading Zazu, hyenas, elephant.

The next step is to start refining the process of making the masks. We have toyed with materials a lot - the possibilities as of current stand at layered gum tape, gum tape over a cardboard structure, rhenoflex and possibly vacuum formed plastic for some of the simpler mask shapes.

Whilst gum tape and cardboard would be cheap, I'm not sure if we will be able to make it sturdy enough for use by children yet. Rhenoflex would be great, but it is quite expensive - the budget will have to be revised and considered.

Here is my first design for the elephant, which I sketched out initially whilst we were watching the girls performing it at MidKent.

The first drawing I did for this project, before we even had the brief - a one person giraffe. Sadly benign as a design
with the news that the giraffe will be a person with a child on their shoulders, therefore they will not have any
hands free. Certainly a challenge for the group to design!