Constant Problemossss

I encountered a range of what may be seen as problems, but what I see as ‘learning curves’, because with a project with such a nature as Moving tides there is no specific right way to construct a costume, it is all about trial and error and experimentation with 3D materials. My first problem was designing the costume too simply. With the idea in my head that I would be teaching children how to make it, I tried to make it uncomplicated which is something I find difficult, as all my usual designs are very experimental and complicated, however, not having taught children before I didn’t know how easy or hard to make it. After the steering group said this, I knew straight away that I could do much better and went back to the drawing board and came up with a design which I thought a lot more successful and aesteciacally pleasing, and much more suited to the idea I wanted to portray – the disgusting sea monster. After this, came more problems with the mask I wanted to create. 

The design I had was inspired by various artists and characters from programmes/films and i wanted to make a mask. I thought the best way to do it was to make a clay version first, then a plaster mould and then a plaster cast because of the fact I would have to vac form 31 of these it would be better to be a more stable material. However, stupidly didn’t put enough Vaseline onto the clay and the plaster mould would not come off, with help from the technician we cracked it off, but was too complicated to glue back together, therefore started all over and made a new clay version. I altered this version slightly though as I was quite paranoid the mask looked slightly falic again! This time put plenty of Vaseline onto the clay, the plaster came off a lot easier, and then the plaster cast worked out very well !!

I practised using the vac form machine using HIPS plastic in black and it worked well, the shiny texture looked really great. So went ahead and ordered HIPS plastic in green in the right thickness. So it arrives… It was a great colour green and I got really excited that I could finally vac form these masks. Excitement over. The plastic is far too thin and brittle for the machine and expecially for my detailed mask. Every time I attempted to put it off the mould it would crack at the slightest tug. This is not appropriate for a mask let alone one that 10 year old boys will be handling!! I began to get really worried about what I was going to do and couldn’t actually see this problem being overcome as the materials had already been ordered! I considered using see through plastic for free from the workshop, (which wouldn’t have the desired effect) or white plasterzote which was free from the scrap store and painting it, again, wouldn’t look as effective as a green mask, and also really flimsy. I was counting on the green plasterzote that ordered from Hindleys to make the tentacles with and was hoping I had ordered enough!

To solve the problem: Vac formed 31 masks using the dark green plasterzote from Hindleys (because it was thin it took some getting used to using in the vac form machine as it heats up so quickly and burns easily!). This meant all of the tentacles could not be used in green plasterzote as there was not enough so made a decision to do 3 of these in free white plasterzote and 2 in coloured, as I thought the masks were more important to be coloured. Luckily all the costumes look really good and varied with the colours and the paints which I am really pleased about, and it just shows that when your on a budget, and doing the budgeting sheet beforehand its really hard to foresee how much of the materials you actually need. So for future reference I will consider really in depth and detail the measurements and qaunitites of materials I will need as well as make sure i dont order materials until I receive all samples!!!