Casting the body experiment
https://youtu.be/voFRL-BSvwY
When i made the boyfriend puppet his body was too small and he was out of proportion for the lower half of my body. This ruined the illusion so i was keen to measure myself to have a rough guide on where the joins will be and how wide the proportions needed to be in 3D.
I had planned on making a body form from duct tape as ive seen cosplayers do often. They cling film them selves and then cover that in a thick layer of duct tape. they cut this off and then fill the form with paper for support, to create a simple mannequin that is the perfect size of your body. i wanted to use this former to make a cast for each of the puppets. Its a cheap and really simple way of casting a performer. I also thought this would be useful to create a form to quickly cast each puppet body from rather than sculpting each from scratch. i could use this body form as a base for each of them saving me a lot of time.
i started this process in the paint shop and Rorie suggested i try using mod rock if its only a simple shape i need. he said it would save on time and money which i liked the sound of. HOWEVER it was covid regulations still and i couldn’t get someone else to cast me so i had to attempt to cast my self which proved to be very challenging.
I was now concerned about ruining my clothes so i donned a set of overalls and got going. this worked but was a far less detailed shape than if i had been wearing less clothes.
managed to get a half decent basic shape as a size guid and started building up a paper former to fill it.
once i was happy with the shape i cling filmed it to keep the shape together then added my top to see how the fit was.
The width and shoulders was good but there was no depth so i adapted the form with paper and tape to create the bust shape. now i had my maniquine shape.
I then experimented with using latex and scrap calico fabric to cast the shape like paper mache. I decided to use this technique as id watched a video of some people talking about their time attending the Bread and Puppet theatre company’s summer residency and used latex and fabric to sculpt puppets from. Similarly Natacha Belova has been used to sculpt texture over foam with this technique. I love paper mache and latex is used to cast forms with a lot so i figured it could work, and would blend with the performer really well.
