26 vertbrae

14 teeth

1 Mandible

1 Cranium

2 Scapula

10 Ribs

2 Femur

2 Fibula

2 Tibia

22 Foot/ankle bones

26 Hands and Wrist

24 Pigtail bones

1 Pelvis

2 Humerus

2 Radius

2 Ulna 

  

    

 

The next few weeks were spent deciding what to do with it.  The possibilities were nearly endless.  Could it become:

• A french maid?
• A monster?
• A sexy nurse?
• A character from any number of movies?

But the answer became obvious.  Since the age of about 7 or 8 I had developed what some may describe as an unhealthy obsession with all things Superman.  It was clear that my new mannequin needed to become Supergirl.

First thing was to clean it up.  Then I got all of the applicable paint colors: blue, red, yellow, and flesh tone.  I sprayed the head and legs the flesh tone.  It was paler  than I had wanted.  She looked a little like a meth-addict.  But it would have to do.

Next, I masked-off the collar where the costume meets the neck and the legs where the boots would meet the legs.  I sprayed the boots red and the torso and arms blue.  Those colors looked great.

For the Superman "S," I began by masking-off a diamond shape in the center of her "fun bag" region.  I painted this yellow.  Using some red foam from the craft store and a razor knife I cut out the outline of the "S" and attached it to the chest so the yellow diamond was the background.  This looked pretty good.

Yes, I do have a vinyl copy of Beauty and the Beat

I used black paint and a brush to add detail to the boots.

At this point I was done painting and needed to move on to the fabric.  I went to the fabric store and bought some red fabric that matched the paint pretty well.  I got enough for the skirt and cape.  The problem was I have no idea how to sew.  But there was one person who could.  My step-mother-in-law is a home-economics teacher. She is very talented at all things crafty and is exceptional with fabric and stuff like that.  She said she would help me.  She came over and took some measurements and started right away using a portable sewing machine.  It was far more complicated that I had imagined and  would require additional time.  In fact, the cape still is not done yet.

Sewing is Complicated

For the belt, I used a piece of yellow craft foam.  I attached it using Velcro.  I used more foam to make the yellow "S" insignia that will emblazion the cape, when finished.

  While the mannequin is not completed yet, I can still enjoy her company.  Once I get the cape finished, I'll take more pictures.

 

 

 

"It's Grim Reaper"  

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"Genetically Modified Organism"  

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"Pac Man (with Ghosts)"  

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"Killer Bass"  

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I feel compelled to bring attention to a webiste I stumbled upon.  It is the site of an artist called Gene Fenton.  The site caught my eye for a few reasons: 1) he is an artist in Pennsylvania, like myself 2) He uses paper and paper mache, like myself 3) He mainly makes monsters, which I like 4) He photographs his sculpture with female models, which I also like.

That's right.  He gets girls to pose with his paper mache montsers.  How cool is that?  I'm lucky if I can get my cat to pose with my sculpture.  Now, not all of the girls are 10's.  Some of them are actually sub-6's.  But it's still a fantastic idea and makes for a great website.  I plead with you to take a look.  It's my new favorite.

"That's Hot..."

Here is Gene's website: My New Hero, Gene 

Here Gene's gallery of "Scream Queens" with his paper monsters: Scream Queens

 

 



 

• The first thing I did was make some sketches based upon the card.  I can draw OK.  But please don't judge my abilities from this picture.  I used a small ruler to get the proportions and used the proportions and the dimensions of the doll's head to determine the size of the sculpture overall.  I figured that 1cm on the card equalled 7.7cm on the sculpture.  Even though I am in America I usually use the metric system.  It just makes more sense.  I believe that the US should adopt the metric system officially.

            

 

• Much of the sculpture is made of newspaper.  I like to use "The Nazareth Key," which is a free weekly newspaper that comes in the mail.  I don't read it.  But I save all of the issues in a bin for times just like this.  'The Key' isn't really a "newspaper" since it doesn't actually report any news.  Mainly it is just full of advertisements and announcements for Kiwanis club meetings, Dean's list, etc.  But since it is printed on newsprint, I will call it "newspaper" from here on.

  

• Here is where the first thing unwittingly went wrong.  For the sculpture's body, I needed balls of newspaper of various size.  I tried to estimate the size of the "body" balls as best as possible with the understanding that the head is slightly larger than the torso.  I made the ball too big because I did not take into consideration that the newspaper ball is going to have several additional layers on it before it is done.  Thus, adding to the overall size.  Bonehead move.          I said earlier that I don't read 'The Key.'  That's not completely true.  While I'm taring it up and crunching it into balls I do read some of the ads.  Here is one of my favorites.  It is for a company that provides a novelty service for birthdays, childbirths, graduations, etc.  They will fill people's lawns with zany and wacky plywood cutouts of cartoon characters while the "victim" is away at work or sleeping.  Then, when the victim comes home or goes outside to get the newspaper (not The Key, that comes in the mail) he will be shocked and delighted to find 50 wooded penguins adorning their lawn to remind him that it's his 50th birthday.  At that point, hijinks are bound to ensue.

     

 

• I fashioned the balls together to form a body piece and tail piece.  I use lots of masking tape to fix them together.  Then I use a piece of wire clothes hanger to give the piece a bit more structural integrity.  Then I cover the whole thing with lots of masking tape.  I go through a lot of tape.  Remember the movie "Mommy Dearest" with Fey Dunaway playing the role of Joan Crawford?  Well that movie must have really had an effect on this country because wire clothes hangers are really hard to find nowadays.  Whenever I do see some, usually at a garage sale, I buy them all.  I recommend that you do the same.  But for the love of God, don't use them to hang clothes.

     

 

• The body and tail were just balls of newspaper and didn't really have any structural integrity (if I sat on them, they'd flatten).  So to make them hard, like rocks, I covered them in paper mache using newsprint.  It's not really paper mache that I'm did here since I'm not using any paper pulp.  But since I'm calling 'The Key' a newspaper when it really isn't I can probably call this technique 'paper mache' even though it really isn't.  I started with a large bowl and put in some bleached flour and add warm water.  It was important to me that the water be warm because my hands were going to be in there and warm goo feels better than cold goo.  I used a wire wisk to beat the flour and water into a paste, removing all lumps.  I made the consistency like that of a crepe batter (a thin pancake batter, for those of you in the mid-west).  Now I needed to tare strips of newspaper.  Mostly, I made wide strips, like half a page wide.  But I did make some narrower strips too. 

         

 

• Now the fun part.  Stealing liberaly from the techniques in Dan Reader's books (see Literacy Campaign list to the left) I got my hands completely wet with the paste and messaged the paste onto the ball so that the ball was completely wet.  Then I covered the wet ball with a strip of DRY newspaper.  Then I wet that piece of newspaper and applied another strip.  It was important to 1) not put the paper into the paste, instead put the paste onto the paper 2) not apply the next piece of paper until the layer underneath is completely wet.  I repeated this until there are about 8 to 10 total layers of newspaper on each piece.  I made sure not to make 7 or 11 layers because those are "bad" numbers.  I put the pieces on a cookie sheet and placed them outside to dry.  In the hot Summer sun it took about two full afternoons for them to dry completely.  When they were dry, they were very hard.

 

• While my balls were drying I set off to construct the sardine can that Sally would spend most of her time in.  Using the proportions determined from the sketches, I made a template out of cardboard for the bottom of the sardine can.  The stuff that most people refer to as "cardboard" isn't actually cardboard.  It is called "corrugated paper."  You know when you buy a notepad or notebook there is usually a stiff piece of board in the back to give the pad some stiffness so it is easier to write on?  Well that stuff is "cardboard."  The material that makes-up a "cardboard box" is actually "corrugated paper" and a "cardboard box" is properly called a "corrugated carton."  "Corrugated paper" is a piece of convoluted paper (i.e. it looks like a wavy line) sandwhiched between two pieces of paper.  I learned all of this while I worked at a corrugated box factory for two summers during college.  But since I am calling 'The Key" a newspaper and a 'paper layering technique' papier mache I have no problem calling 'corrugated paper' cardboard from here on.  Why break precident?  I found some scrap plywood in the garage and, with the help of a jigsaw, cut out the bottom of the sardine can.

           

        

• At this point it was time to remove the head from the original doll’s body.  To do this, I like to light some candles and turn the lights down.  I then lay the doll upon the alter.  The actual head removal takes only a few seconds so it is best to draw it out as much as possible with theatrics.  The heads of these dolls are attached with a regular nylon zip-tie.  So a quick snip with a razor and the head is removed.  I seems very painless and peaceful.

 

     

• Since my balls were now dry I could attach the body ball to the tail.  With a razor knife I cut a hole in the tail piece to accept the body ball.  I used some glue and lots of tape.  It was important to give the body a nice hour-glass shape.  Next, I marked and fit the hole for the head.  I couldn’t make the arms quite yet because they needed to be a specific length so that the left arm would touch the sardine car correctly.  So I had to work a bit more on the sardine can, particularly the roll and key.

        

  

• To make the roll I used a piece of posterboard rolled-up and taped.  Then I used more wire clothes hanger to create the key.  I covered the wire with newspaper and lots of tape.  I closed both ends of the roll with a circle of cardboard and inserted the key into one end through a hole that I cut.  The key was glued and held in place by lots of tape.  Now I could determine the length of the arms by positioning the body inside the sardine can and holding the roll in place.

 

  

• Now that I knew how long the arms should be I balled-up some newspaper: 2 balls for each arm and 1 ball for each hand.  I taped each arm together in the correct pose as per the card.  For fingers I used some balls of Scupey instead of paper.  On my last GPK sculpture I  used paper and did not like how the fingers turned out.  Each finger was then held in place by hotglue and lots of tape.  I did not yet attach the arms to the body because I still had a lot to do with the tail and did not want extra nonsense getting in the way.
•       

• To create the fish-tail I used pieces of wire clothes hangers to create the “skeleton of the tail.  I then used techniques popularized by Dan Reader to cover the tail with a piece of old bedsheet soaked in thinned white glue:  I cut a piece of sheet to size and dipped it into a container of slightly thinned white glue.  I squeezed out the excess and carefully laid the clothe over the wire frame.  I pushed the clothe in a bit with my finger between each piece of wire to create a realistic effect.  I let this dry overnight.  Once dry, I trimmed it with scissors to make the shape of the finished fishtail.

         

• For the scales on the tail I again used Dan Reeder’s techniques.  I cut about 150 3cm squares out of old bedsheet.  I readied my container of thinned white glue and hung the body from a wire on the ceiling to make it easier to work with.  I soaked a handful of squares in the glue and squeezed out as much glue as possible.  Each scale is a single square, with two corners folded in, to create somewhat of a triangle.  The scale is placed on the tail with the folds down starting at the tail end and working up to the torso.  The residual glue holds the scale in place.  This was very time consuming and was done in three sessions, allowing some to dry overnight and then proceeding the next day.

 

• Once the tail was dry I could attached the arms.  I did this with glue and lots of masking tape.

 

• Using glue I attached the roll/key piece to the sardine can itself.

 

• At this point the body and sardine can are ready for the paper mache skin.  For this I like to use wallpaper glue and paper towels.  The best paper towels I have found are made by Kimberly Clark.<