Mass production to the mass!!!

Masks and Tentacles


As well as having to make the plasterzote masks I also have had to make approx 150 tentacles out of both white and green plasterzote. I obviously didn't think this through when designing because this is a lot of pre production that I have had to take on myself. If I were to do this project again I would design something which could mostly be done in the lessons because in the working world I would be getting around £200 a day to be a visiting artist and I wouldnt want this to include the pre production as well as the lessons. However, I am not getting paid this much money and IT IS for my project so I don't mind as much because I want them to look the best they can, and what I am doing before the sessions are things to do with structure of the costume which children would not be able to do...

^ Thats not even the half of all of the tentacles!!!!!

Wire collars 

I have spent the past week making the wire collars ready for session 3, and I am so relieved they are done. Having to complete 31 wire collars using the spot welder in an empty workshop when the sun is shining outside is not the best way to spend nearly 4 days sweltering in the heat. But it had to be done! At first I found it quite hard to come to grips with so took a lot of patience.


The spot welder was the best option to make these collars because it welds the rods together making it all very strong and sturdy rather than flimsy and flexible. It became easier the more I produced and after a day I realised that drawing a diagram with measurements and then cutting the rods to the exact lengths worked better and made the welding go a lot quicker. Almost like a production line with myself !! :)

The above photo Is the shape I decided on using because of the comfort when placed around the neck and shoulders because of the curve. I am glad I tried out different ways and shapes of doing the collar though because it was all trial and error to see what did and didn't work. This is an example of having to come up with creative solutions to fit a problem and especially when constructing them not knowing what method I was going to use in the end. I got the main collar idea from the kinetika workshop but didn't follow their insructions of how to make it or use the the same materials, as I wanted them not made from just brown paper and flimsy wire, but really loved the shape, so experimented with this idea and came up with my own version :)