The brief of this next project was to make a biggature!
As i had never sculpted on this kind of scale before, I thought it would be fun to create a world that would require lots of sculpting.
As i found it very difficult to draw the desired shapes, i figured i'd do a quick sculpt model as a design basis.
For the main piece, insulation foam panels were built into a curve and expanding foam was used to stick the panels together. more expanding foam was used to bulk out the shape of the piece. The foam was then cut into and WED clay was used to sculpt the tree texture over the foam shape.
The clay was then sealed using PVA and clear laquer. Once sealed the piece was then fibreglassed, this was fun as i hadnt done much fibreglassing before. Only three layers of tissue was used as matting would have been difficult to use, there were too many intricate indents in the sculpt and the matting would have risen out of them too easily.
mushrooms were made using insulation foam because this was SO nice to carve into and gave some really nice detail. these were not painted as they were already pretty mushroom coloured, instead, to seal in the foam so it didnt flake off over time and to add a slight tinge to the mushrooms, they were painted with liquid latex.
mushroom lights were made using fairy lights. The fairy lights were decorated to look like mushrooms by wrapping them up in clear bathroom silicone that had been coloured using watercolour paint. The silicone and lights were wrapped up in cling film untuil cured so that the silicone kept its shape, wrapped around the light cable and bulb. The caps were made the same way but were wrapped up in cling film over a ball.
The dripping fungus was made using clear bathroom silicone too but the tips were spray painted white to make them stand out more.
The resin river was made using orange dyed wax, which was then sprayed with clear laquer so it had a wet sheen.
the piece was flocked tp look mossy and the doors of the buildings were made with copper sheeting that i etched.
The bridge and the buckets were made using matchsticks. The paint job took quite a while but the more layers that were added, the deeper the tree colour appeared.
A mould was made using a lino mat that had been cut into and liquid latex was scraped into the moulds surface to create the strange fungus mushroom on the right of the piece.
fibre optic lights were threaded through the large mushrooms to look like little window lights.
This was a really fun project that taught me lots of new methods and gave me a good opportunity to mess up and experiment. would love to do it again :)
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