Heads and Three Tales - Foundation Art and Design Final Project 2022
The idea for the cardboard cutouts were, if I am honest, incredibly last minute. My teacher had mentioned that he had seen an artist that had reminded him of my work - they designed characters and turned them into real cutouts and placed them in public places, took some pictures and then left them there. When he told me about this artist, I instantly knew that I wanted to do a similar thing. I had thought about it for a few minutes and it made perfect sense to me – I was already trying to make these characters come to life, what is better than actually creating them in real life for people to actually meet.
I have had some past experience with making cardboard cutouts, I had made an accurate lifesize cut out of an anime character my friend liked for her birthday a few years ago. My only problem was that I did not have enough cardboard. I have a little bit lying around from a past personal project but not enough to make three cut outs. So, I did some digging and realised that we were actually running out of cat food AND my mother had an event with her students so she needed to get food and drinks. So, I took this opportunity to propose that we go to Costco since we needed to anyway. The last time I needed a lot of cardboard, I had asked someone working at Costco if I could have some cardboard because they through it all away and they did not mind at all. I did the same thing again, I told the worker that I am an art student who needs it for a project and they were more than happy to give me some. Furthermore, some of my family members went to IKEA and had also asked them for some cardboard.
I was fully set on making these cutouts.
Box’s cutout was the first one I made since her picture was already digitised and ready to be printed. Box was a lot of A4 sheets and I was a bit intimidated on how to approach this. I did not fully remember how I had made the cardboard cutout for my friend because it was about two years ago. I trimmed the white border left and started sticking the panels together – this was a mistake. Well, no. I would not say mistake. Mistake is a harsh word. It’s not like Box looks any different to the other two. It just made the process harder. I thought by having all of my panels already perfectly arranged, it would be easy to stick down. I was wrong. The mistake was that I had just made it more difficult for myself.
To get the cardboard to not bend and flop over, I used a piece of bamboo that you would usually use to help prevent plants from flopping over. For the stand I just used some more cardboard that I had lying around (I was drowning in cardboard).
Unfortunately, I could not get Box to be her canonical height of 6’3 but she is still taller than me (5’6) and is the tallest out of the trio.
For Grey, I had tried a new method. I was also looking forward to creating Grey’s cut out since they were a lot shorter than Box. I managed to get Grey’s height to be more accurate the Box – the service I was using was free up to a certain size so I had to work around it. Instead of sticking all of the panels together first, I assembled them as I stuck them down. This was a lot easier and also faster since I did not have to go through the process of sticking everything down individually. In fact, this whole process was a lot faster because Grey is the smallest cut out. This method also used a lot less glue. I was running low on PVA but I am also running low on money so I was determined to finish this all with the limited amount of glue that I had left. Grey’s canonical height is 4’11 but I believe the cut out is actually taller.
Again, to make sure that the cardboard does not flop, I used a piece of bamboo again.
The process of creating Lux was nearly identical to Grey’s process, except this time I used the cardboard I got from IKEA which was in one big sheet and a lot more fragile and thin than the other pieces of cardboard. That was not a problem though because of my bamboo method. Lux’s canonical height is also 6’3 but this cut out is short than Box - again I would have had to pay to get to be extra but their heights are irrelevant. It is just something I came up with to give them more life.
I wanted to add the personalities into the project title card along with the playfulness of the characters. That’s why I let them draw and doodle and write all over it. I thought it would make it more appealing to look at and to see all of the comments that they have written.
One last point I want to make on these characters and why I made the design choices that I did. As previously seen, the pictures that these were made from were originally pencil drawings. I had never coloured them in before. The only thing I was certain of when it came to colour was the colour of Box’s dress since it is based off of a dress I own in real life. So when it came to colouring them in, I decided to turn off my brain and not overthink it. I just did what came naturally.
I avoided being specific about as much as I could – gender, sexuality, race etc. I wanted everything to be ambiguous and for the reader to decide what they want.
The character who is probably the least ambiguous than the other two is Grey – their pronouns are he/they and in the making of book Box has drawn hearts in the colours of the nonbinary flag. Furthermore, in the summer photo, you can see top surgery scars peeking out of Grey’s shirt. But that is mostly it. Grey was there to make sure everyone can feel included in this experience. Race and sexuality is all up to the reader to decide. I, of course, have my own opinions on them and my friends and family have other opinions on what they are.
As for Box. She looks very feminine – small waist, big breasts, long hair etc. Some people might view this as slightly sexist, her appearance is very stereotypical. Think Barbie back when she was first created in 1959. Yes, she looks very feminine. But that does not mean she is any less pathetic. In Box’s story, her appearance is only commented on once. Throughout the story, the reader keeps seeing how strong she is and that her appearance has nothing to do with her ability to fight. I re-claimed the hyperfeminine look by having Box be strong and aggressive. I was fighting this idea that hyperfeminine people are fragile. That is just not true.
Lux is interesting. Lux was meant to be very masculine but as time went by he just evolved into what he is today. I think Lux is very feminine as well but that does not make him any less of a man. He is just a guy who also enjoys makeup (makeup is not gendered anyway, ANYONE can enjoy makeup) and has heart tattoos. That does not make him any less of a man. I think subconsciously, I created someone who I would deem as the “perfect image of masculinity”. Someone who is clearly very comfortable with their gender and sexuality that they can just be themselves. Lux likes having big muscles but does not like being called an ‘alpha male’ since alpha males are often part of a misogynistic culture and Lux does not agree with that at all.
Let’s talk about ‘alpha males’ for a second. ‘Alpha males’ in today’s culture are seen as these extremely masculine men who are rich and get loads of women – let’s not lie here, so called ‘alpha males’ are sexist bullies who hate women. What makes this even more bizarre, is that the term and idea comes from the animal kingdom - mostly apes and wolves. The ‘alphas’ in the animal kingdoms are usually the leaders but only because they are the caretakers of the pack as spoken about in Start the Week on BBC Radio 4. In regards to wolves, the alpha is the parent and in regards to apes, they are the one who looks after the whole group. Lux is more of the correct version of an ‘alpha male’ – when you meet Lux in the story, Lux immediately starts to look after you and makes sure you’re ok and wants to spend time with you. That’s what makes you an ‘alpha male’ but Lux still hates the term.
