Thread: Josephine and a word to the artists..

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Hello all.. Well, I was inspired by Ecula's clown thread, so I thought I would post one of my own creations.

I would like to say a word about all the great work I have seen on this site. I consider my creations, as well as others, art. I believe that anyone who creates these things are artists. Whether it be masks, small or full size corpses, creatures, monsters etc...

I do not only do these things for Halloween, they are made for display. I have a rack in my home where most of my thngs are displayed. I encourage anyone who creates these things to not only restrict it to Halloween or showing them for halloween. If you have the room and means..why not create a rack, shelf or cabinet etc... to show off what you have made.

It has been the last couple of years that my thinking has evolved that these items should be considered art and not just a 4 week display, basically disgarded after oct 31... There is alot of great work on here, so show it off and unlock it and let it out...lol...

ok..Here is Josephine. A 5 foot tall zombie woman

Pic 1: A Head was made of aluminum foil. I used a styrofoam ball and glued it to the top of one of those styrofoam cones that you can buy at crafts stores. I then added the foil until a head and neck were shaped, then put clay over that.
Pic 2: A rough sculpting over the foil and styrofoam.
Pic 3: A basic frame was made from wood. A glue gun was used to secure most of it . You can nail the legs on and use a glue gun for added support. Next, lines of tape to build an exoskeleton, so to speak. The feet are the small wooden plaques you find at craft stores.
pic 4: Bubble wrap was wrapped around the structure and secured with tape. Then a layer of aluminum foil over everything so the mache would stick. Also, there are 2 long wires that run across the top and down through where the arms will be. Then paper towel rolls were attached to these wires. This will allow to bend the arms in the position you would want until you are ready to mache
Pic 5: Is the body after paper macheing. I just did newspaper with elmers glue and water.

continued........

Pic 6: the head is painted. Originally with an eye pupil, but I later decided a dead, grayinsh eye looked best.
Pic 7: After attaching the head and painting and making shoes out of clay. The head was attached using a glue gun... Also, clay and paper mache were used to fill in around where the neck meet the body and then paper mached. The mache was pressed and smoothed so that there is not visible seem between clay and mache in the neck area. The hands where made from aluminum foil. Fingers and thumb and the hand part all made seperately, then glued together. Then snot rapgged mached. Facial tissue dipped in a glue and water mixture. where then wrapped around the aluminum foil hands. If there were any gaps, clay was used. Then the hands were painted.
Pic 8: An old plain black dress was added. Also, hair. It is real hair from a cosmetic store. It was done is sections and glued with a glue gun.
Pics 9 and 10 is the close up of the detail of the face.

Anyone who leaves a Zombie out all year is OK in my book...Lol.. I do!! I agree about displaying things, it feeds the creative process every time you walk by. A lot of people think I'm weird, but so what...their just boring.
've got a mask collection that is too big to display everything. I pull mask's out of storage and rotate em around though. Lately I've been making a lot of stuff and having to store it though. My brother has a large home and most of my art (paintings) hang over there. Its cool to go over and look at them once in a while.

Cool tutorial..its always interesting to me to see people methods of arriving at a finished piece.

Wow! That is so sick! Awesome execution all the way around.

She's a scary zombie and I agree...keep 'em out all year!

Looks awesome, you did a superb job. The paper mache work is great and the head is just amazing.
Thanks
Phil

Awesome Work!

Thanks for the compliments everyone...

chop shop....Ya, my mask collection sits i nthe closet for lack of room..Have everythign I've made out and viewable though.

Great Zombie! How will she hold up in rain...meaning what did you use to seal her? I agree, if its possible let those props breathe! I wish I had a place I could display my creations...I would have them up all year long...for now they lie in wait at the storage shed till they are awoke to haunt again...muhuhuhahahah!

Hello baboomgirl.... It would probably hold up for about 5 minutes outside...lol...I made this for indoor viewing. I consider the things I make more like art pieces. Things to be displayed indoors and not only on Halloween....

Also, I use a certain air hardening clay that is actually very pouros. Ironically enough, since it doesn't look like stone or ceramic, it is this cheap quality that makes the things look realistic. Also, not glazing the clay portions makes it take on a more flesh tone. Glazing sometimes makes the piece too shiny and looking like ceramic, instead of flesh.