Final finished Prototype!!

After all of my drama with the plaster cast mould of the mask and the plastic to make the masks, as well as the time consuming task of making the collars and tentacles (actually a lot quicker than I would of thought) I have finally finished my prototype and all of the mass producing of the components for the costume too!! :) I feel so pleased and relieved to of completed this and now feel satisfied with my Squid design. I always said that I wouldn't feel completely assured until I had achieved the 3D version. Doing this project has really made me aware that I need to at least have samples or visions in front of me to in order to be certain and content with my designs. I feel that as a practitioner I have improved in becoming more confident in my own designs which people have always told me to do but for some reason I never end up thinking that I have done that well. I think it is important to feel  self assured when creating or designing in this industry as you need to be able to talk confidently about them but at the same time able to take constructive criticism. I believe that receiving criticism makes me a better designer and more likely to achieve a successful project because it will be more related to the clients brief and exact specifications, who are the people you ultimately want to impress... 


I have taken on board all advice that has been given to me during the whole process and have made relevant changes where necessary to make my design better.... 

Head shot of the mask decorated with paint, latex and bits and bobs from the  scrap store.
The plasterzote has turned out a lot more successful than the plastic ever would of. I am so pleased that I had an alternative, even if I didn't plan for this to be an alternative when ordering!

Tentacles made thin free plasterzote then using System3 paint  and PVA mixed together to  cover the white. Hopefully the children do well with painting and decorating them to make them all look consistent and bold...

Experimenting with materials for collar piece..

Like I have said previously I find it hard to vision what a design looks like until I start it in 3D first, so I have started to try out options for the mask and collar piece. This is mainly to work out sizes and wondered whether garden wire would work or not. In our workshop on the Kinetika weekend they showed us this wire bicycle collar which I thought would be great for my design and would be really effective to add to in order to create tentacles coming off of the collar which creates height behind the childs head and frames their face...

<< This collar was created using garden wire from Wilkinsons, I am so glad I tried it out because it actually was far too flimsy for my design and I dont think it would withstand children playing around with it or the wind during the actual carnival....                                                            

I tried using a different type of wire >> which is called galvenised        
wire which can be purchased from B&Q this was a lot thicker and hard to bend however so much more sturdy than the one I had used previously. This is the wire which I will use to make the collars for the lessons, and hopefully be able to use the spot welding machine in the workshop so that I can mass produce them which will be less time consuming (considering I have to make 30!!) in terms of bending the wire around itself to stay in place the spot welder will clamp the metal together and melt it so it is one complete structure...




One section of one of the lessons for the children will be to paper mache these collars with yellow tissue paper. Experimenting with this prototyping has really helped me understand how long things actually take and predict how long they will take the children to do. I feel that I take for granted how quickly I can make things, but understand that they may not be able to do it as quickly as me, so whilst doing this prototyping have taken note of timings and in what order everything has to be done and what needs to be planned before. For example, the best way I have realised to paper mache this collar is to rip up quite large strips prior to the lessons and then they have to paper mache the collar in sections and wrap around each part to make it stronger..  I am really pleased I have started doing this before collating the lesson plans... 


These are the plasterzote tentacles that I have made using the Vac form machine. First of all I did a clay sculpt of them and then Vac Formed these using plastic and then made Plaster mould of the tenticles so they will be able to go in the Vac forming machine over and over again. On Each collar there will be 4 tenticles meaning I have to create 120!!!! Before the lesson, this again, has been beneficial in curating lesson plans, as I know that this will have to be a later session in the month so I have enough time to make all of these before they decorate them...




This photo is an example of how the the face will be framed by the tentacles around it, I feel that the structure I have created with wire is not wide enough yet and doesn't rest on the shoulders correctly, so may have to alter the pattern of the collar so that I get the shape I want...

Tutorial - Initial ideas

Basing my

Budgeting and Ordering of materials

Another reason of why I chose to do the Moving Tides project was so that it could give me a taster of managing a budget and taking part in roles like this which will be transferrable in any career I decide to take on after. The budget I was allowed to spend was £10 per student and £15 per Dance leader. This you would think was quite a lot of money considering I have 30 students to buy for, but it is quite fascinating how quickly this money went down once all the vital materials had been ordered! There is a lot of logistics involved in this project , mainly because it is a live project and other people are depending on me, but everything has to be thought through thoroughly, with the design process and budgeting going hand in hand. I feel this has really improved my organisational skills already (which is what I wanted to improve in this project!) and there is a stress upon the 'forward thinking' and being super responsible and careful about all decisions that I make. This will continue once I start the actual ordering of materials and components as I need to make sure all my receipts of expenses are collected and organised, (a role which costume supervisors usually take on so gives me a taster of this role also!) The prototype however will be financed by me, as the materials I doubt will of arrived in tie, and I want to start protoyping as soon as I get back in the workshop! Nothing will become clear in my head until I see it 3D. I honestly wish I would of started to prototype prior to doing the budget plans, as this would of made me more confident that all materials I have chosen to order will work. However, this can only be a lesson to be learnt for me for future projects, is to prototype whilst designing as it will make more sense in my head of what does and does not work, and a chance to make final decisions a lot sooner than I usually would, however I do feel its been a great experience of the processes involved in delivering workshops in schools and the timescales and order each activity...

Below is the financial information to be ordered. There are the materials which will provide the basis for the costume and also 'bits and bos' from the scrap store and Wilkinsons for the students to decorate and pesronalise their own costumes, I think this is reallly important that they have their own creative flair within the design so it is unique for them and makes them think about the placement of decoration. This is something I will include in my lesson plans which need to be done soon also,,,,

Design sent to Teacher ...

Sooo a step forward... I have now sent my developed design to the teacher at the school! This was a big weight off my shoulders as I felt a little stressed about it after the steering group comments. But seeing it drawn out on paper has made me really envisage what it is going to be like in real life and feel quite confident that a sea of children are going to look great if it all goes well with the making. I still would like to add a bit more to the design, and scan it into photoshop to add shading and also add another part to it showing the dance leaders headdress, but I think this was a good start to send to the teacher. He seems really positive about the design which is comforting and says his class are really excited about my workshops!!  However, I will not be completely confident about it until my prototype is done because knowing it works in 3D is what matters the most. So no time like the present, I am going to start prototyping ASAP!!

Nightmare with the mask mould!

After all of the technician in the workshops advice about how they thought I should make the mould, I didn't end up putting enough vaseline onto the clay version and when the plaster did actually dry it was really hard to get the clay out, which meant we had to smash the mould off the clay. We tried really hard to recover it, almost like a puzzle but the pieces just weren't making sense! So i weighed up the amount of time it would take me to make a new clay mask and how long to put the plaster mould back together, and it worked out less time and effort to make a new clay mould in the next couple of days ready for when the plastic needs to be ordered... I also decided after advice from the technician that I should use beads or small balls for the bumps on the head, as it makes the texture of the mask more consistent and the plastic is more likely to stretch over the bumps rather than my own home made clay versions. I have basically redesigned the mask all over again. But this time I am a lot more content with my decisions...

Moulding for the mask...

After the comments received from tutor and steering group and the fact that they both thought I could do better with my design I thought about scrapping the hat and making a mask which is more suited to the gloopy/scary sea monster idea I wanted to create because actually I know that the small eye mask wasn't the best idea and I was thinking too simply... I have decided to change this and make a mask which has been more inspired by my research as there are many artists I have looked at (images in sketchbook) who have used tentacles as an influence...

I started off by using clay to create a mould of the mask initially by sculpting the clay on top of a clay face. I got some advice from a make up tutor about the best way to do it and tips about making it okay to use in the vac form machine.

Above is the first test of using the vac form machine and plastic. I put the clay into the machine, it got sqaushed slightly so i knew that for the final design for the mask I will have to create a plaster mould so that it would be strong enough to vac form 31 masks.... I think this mask is quite a successful first attempt however, I wanted the head to be a lot more purtruding so it will look more monster like rather than just fitting onto the face, I want it to be coming above the forehead.



Below is the clay sculpture of the next stage of the mask with the pertruding head making it look more monster like and strange. I am going to try it out with all different types of plastic and materials to see which one works, however, think I might stick to the plastic as I know its a safe option and have found a good place to get a good price on the green HIPS plastic.



I already feel that I am learning more about my practical techniques as I have not worked with clay before and am really enjoying the experimentation side of it and finding solutions to various problems...