Ultimate Paper Mache

Animal Sculptures and Advanced Paper Mache Projects.

Archive for May, 2009

Paper Mache Horse, Day 6

May 31st, 2009

Paper Mache Colt, Getting Closer

I can see now that I really need to build a solar dryer if I’m going to continue making larger paper mache animal sculptures. It’s warm enough on my front porch to make wild yeast happy (that’s why paper mache paste gets that watery grey liquid on top if you leave it out for a few hours in this nice weather. The Alaskan gold miners called the alcohol in that liquid “hooch” and considered it a benefit of making sourdough bread).

However, it’s not warm enough to dry my horse fast enough to suit me, so I’m going to build myself a solar dryer. That’s next week’s project…

But I am making progress. The modeling on the body and legs is pretty much done, and I will do the face details tomorrow out of Super Sculpey.

I found a great website today that show the bones inside the legs. I wish I had found it sooner. It would really help in modeling those bumpy joints. I also found a site that shows an entire horse skeleton. It’s interesting that the horse’s backbone is actually straight. The curves at the shoulders and rump are not caused by the spine curving, but are long protrusions of the vertebrae for the attachment of large muscles.

I hope I have a foal’s head modeled for you tomorrow.

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Paper Mache Horse, Day 4

May 27th, 2009

Oops. I missed a day in this series because the paper mache horse had to spend the night in the ER with a cast on her ankles. The plaster board legs were, (I now realize), a bad idea. Fortunately, even when things break with paper mache you can almost always fix it.

The water in the joint compound soaked into the plasterboard, and then migrated towards the lower section where the legs are really thin. I felt the rump area and it seemed to be dry, so I started sanding the rough spots. This giggled things a bit, and caused enough stress for the still-damp back legs to bend, just above the hoof.

I caught the problem in time and wrapped the area in paper mache strips, which I then allowed to dry overnight. No need to shoot the horse and start over.

I just got off the phone with my dad, and he had a great suggestion for next time. He said I could use rebar safely if it wrapped all the way from one leg to another over the horse’s back. I’ve always avoided using rebar because it’s so hard to bend, but he said it’s easy if you heat it up first with a small propane torch. This is definitely something I’ll try if I make another sculpture with delicate parts, like this colt’s legs. (My father knows all about rebar because he worked with concrete for so many years. Now he makes concrete garden ornaments and benches. You can see his tutorial that shows how he makes those really nice concrete leaves that you see in fancy garden magazines here.)

Anyway, here’s what I’ve done so far:

Paper Mache Horse - Rounding the Legs

Two days ago I attached the plaster board legs, and in this photo you can see that I rounded the corners with a serrated knife. This is something that needs to be done very carefully. You don’t want to slip and slice off your thumb!

Adding Joint Compound

I now added joint compound. I could have been a little neater about it, but it’s kind of like frosting a cake.

I may have been able to avoid breaking the hind legs if I wrapped the plasterboard with Scotch tape, then put on on layer of paper mache to strengthen the legs before adding the joint compound. Or I could have been more patient, and I could have remembered that water flows downhill. Live and learn…

Legs Ready for Paper Mache

Once the ankle casts were hard and the joint compound was completely dry, I sanded the rough spots off the legs.

At this point I’m not worried about getting things “right.” There’s still a long way to go before this appaloosa colt is finished. The only thing that matters at this point is to not have anything sticking out that will need to be cut off later. Adding more material is easy – removing excess material can be done, but it’s a lot more work.

Legs Wrapped with Paper Mache

The legs have now been wrapped with the first layer of paper mache. I will use at least four more layers, using brown paper. Since paper mache is as strong as wood, I think this will be adequate.

I’m letting this layer dry with the legs up in the air because the water from the paste will soak into the layer of joint compound underneath, and it may weaken the legs again. As soon as this layer is completely solid I’ll add a few more layers of brown paper, and begin to model the head. Since the piece won’t fit into my oven, it will take a while to dry so it may be a few days before I can do another post. I’ll see you then.

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Tags: armature paper mache animal sculpture paper mache horse

Paper Mache Horse, Day 2…

May 26th, 2009

Yesterday I started to make a paper mache horse. (See the first post here). To be slightly more accurate, it will, I hope, look like an appaloosa colt when it’s finished.

Yesterday I made a full-sized sketch and cut legs from plasterboard, using the sketch as a pattern. Today I used the same pattern to cut out the torso, neck and head of the colt out of cardboard.

Torso, Neck and Head Cut From Cardboard

You can see that I began to build up the volume of the chest and abdomen areas. I then used masking tape to attach the legs that I cut out yesterday.

Legs Attached

Legs Attached, Shown from Behind

I made sure the piece would stand up on it’s own, and it feels fairly stable.

Then I began to build up the muscles of the legs, shoulders and hips using newspaper and masking tape, and put more crumpled paper on the abdomen to round it out. I have not even started thinking about the neck and head at this point, although I am starting to get a bit worried about what I’ll make the mane and tail out of. But that’s a problem for tomorrow.

Then I put one layer of paper mache on the torso area, using newspaper strips and paste made from flour and water. The modeling isn’t even close to being finished, but I put on the paper mache because it holds much more securely than the masking tape. Once the paper and paste has dried hard I won’t have to worry about the legs moving. It also covers up the sloppy masking tape, so I can more easily see the true shape of the form.

Torso with First Layer of Paper Mache

Tomorrow I’ll round off the lower part of the legs a little, and use joint compound to finish the modeling of the muscles on the legs. I’ll use the compound instead of the paper because it’s heavier, and I think it will help make the sculpture a bit more steady on its feet. I also hope to get started on the neck and head, and figure out what to do about the main and tail – any suggestions are welcome.

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Paper Mache Horse, Day 1

May 25th, 2009

Sketch for Paper Mache Colt

A recent visitor asked for some tips for making a paper mache horse for her daughter. I’ve never made one, but I think my grandson would love one for his room, too.

I chose an appaloosa foal for my sculpture for two reasons -

I love the long legs on a new colt, even though they’re going to cause some problems with this project.
And the spots on an appaloosa are so adorable!

I decided to go ahead and let you “watch” the project in process so you can see problems as they arise. This will show you how I come up with ideas that, hopefully, make things work. Of course there’s never just one good way to do things, and I quite often try things one way and then end up doing them over. For that reason, you might want to hold off on copying my project until the final post…

The beginning of any project is always a bit scary, because there’s a lot of engineering involved – and I didn’t pay much attention in my math and science classes.

In the photo above you can see that I made a sketch of a colt, using as inspiration an art book that I’ve had for years and some photos I found on the Internet. In the sketch you can clearly see the shoulder and hip bones, and how they affect the shape of the body. (For more info on this issue, see my recent post on basic anatomy for paper mache animal sculptures).

Whenever you do a three-dimensional sculpture based on two-dimensional photos, you need to find as many photos as you can so you can see the animal from all sides.

Another thing to pay attention to, especially with a young animal, is to make sure all your models are about the same age. Of course if you have an actual colt in your backyard, be sure to use him for your model. I’m not so lucky…

My Sketch of an Appaloosa Colt

I don’t normally make a full sized drawing of my sculptures. In fact, a lot of times I don’t make any sketches at all. However, the legs on this colt are going to give me difficulties so I decided to make a drawing the exact size of the finished piece. I’ll be using the full-sized drawing as a pattern for the legs.

To make the original drawing larger, I drew a grid on my original sketch with one-inch squares, and then drew a grid with two-inch squares on a large piece of brown paper. Using the grids, I reproduced my original drawing twice as high and wide as the original. The second sketch is about 23 inches high. I thought this would be a fairly respectable sized paper mache horse for a little boy’s bedroom.

Leg Problem #1 – Stability:

I know I can’t make the legs hollow and pour plaster in the bottom of the legs to keep the colt from falling over, like I did with the giraffe, because the legs are too thin. That means the sculpture will be top-heavy and it will fall over at the slightest nudge unless I find a way to make the legs heavier than the body and the head. It would be even better to just make the bottom half of the legs heavy, but I couldn’t figure out a way to do that.

Leg Problem #2 – Safety:

Since the legs are thin, they need to be made quite strong in order to hold up the sculpture. However, many options I considered for strengthening the legs got rejected because the finished piece may be in a toddler’s bedroom, and safety is my primary concern.

If I used wire as an armature in the legs and my grandson fell against the sculpture or jumped on it, the wire could break through the paper mache and poke him. Not good.

The same thing could happen if I cut wood pieces to go inside the legs – if my grandson fell against the colt the wood inside the legs might break, making them sharp and potentially lethal.

The solution I came up with is not the best, but I think it will work. I’ll be making the legs out of plaster board (wall board) inside the paper mache. Plaster board is a little bit heavier than cardboard (another option), but it’s not very strong and has no real structural strength, especially when it’s cut so thin. However, I think the paper mache layers on top will make it strong enough to hold up the colt.

And if my grandson does break one of the colt’s legs there won’t be anything inside that could cause him an injury. The plaster board will just bend or crumble.

Legs Cut from Plaster Board

I used my full-sized drawing as a pattern for the legs, which I cut out of a scrap of plaster board with a jig saw. Now my problem is to round off the corners without breaking the legs, since all the strength in this material is in the paper that holds it together. Tomorrow you should be able to see if I succeeded, or if I have a pile of plaster on my work bench… Wish me luck.

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Tags: appaloosa foal colt paper mache animal sculpture paper mache horse

How to Make a Paper Mache Giraffe

May 23rd, 2009

Paper Mache Giraffe

I’ve mentioned my giraffe in a previous post, but I skipped over the directions because this was an experiment for me. This is the largest paper mache sculpture I’ve ever done, and part of the process wasn’t very pretty. In fact, I stopped taking pictures before the project was complete.

There were many times during this project that I didn’t believe it would ever work. I’m glad I kept going, though, because I’m very happy with her.

Today a reader asked for more detail about how this project was done, so here goes. I’m afraid you’ll have to use your imagination towards the end, because I don’t have photos of all the steps.

Making the Neck

The project began with a cardboard tube that I made from pieces cut from a cardboard box. I cut several notches out of the tube in the areas where I wanted the neck to bend, and then taped it all back up again. You can see the progression from a straight tube to a curved “neck” below.

Giraffe Neck, Step 1

Giraffe Neck, Step 2

Giraffe Neck, Step 3

Giraffe Neck, Step 4

Before adding the head or any paper mache, I needed to weight the neck. Otherwise, the head would cause the sculpture to fall over. To do this I cut a circle of cardboard and cut notches into it, then folded it up to make a bottom for the tube. I then cut the tube almost all the way through about eight inches from the bottom, and taped the new circular piece inside.

I put some plastic cut from a kitchen garbage bag into this bottom piece of the neck and poured in some plaster. When the plaster was hard, the bottom piece was taped back onto the rest of the neck. The photos below show how this was done.

Giraffe Neck, Step 5

Giraffe Neck, Step 6

Giraffe Neck, Step 7

Giraffe Neck, Step 8

Modeling the Neck and Head:

As you can see in the photo above, a lot of crumpled paper and masking tape was added to give the neck its tendons and general shape. Once I was reasonably satisfied with the shape, I added several layers of paper mache. The first layer was made with strips of newsprint and flour and water paste, and the second layer was made from brown paper and paste. Some additional smoothing was done with joint compound, not shown.

- When I first discovered that you could use joint compound to smooth a paper mache sculpture, it made things so easy I thought I was “cheating.” Now I can’t imagine not using this inexpensive product, which you can find at any hardware store. You can see this being used on several other tutorials on this site.

Giraffe Neck after Adding Paper Mache

The photo below shows that I first tried to add the head, made from crumpled paper and masking tape, before adding any paper mache to the neck. I can’t remember why I removed the head, although I believe it was because the shape wasn’t quite right and I wanted to do it over.

Anyway, at some point a basic form for the head was added using paper and masking tape, and I then used Sculpey modeling clay over this basic form to build up the details of the head.

In the second photo below you can see this in process. Unfortunately, this is where I stopped taking photos. I had decided at this point that I wouldn’t be writing a detailed tutorial. And frankly, it was so exciting at the moment when the Sculpey suddenly became a giraffe that I didn’t want to stop and take photos. The sculpture was finally working, after spending days wrestling with the cardboard to form the neck.

Giraffe Head, Step 1

Giraffe Head, Step 2

When I was satisfied with the clay sculpture, I added several layers of paper mache and allowed it to dry.

I then performed a very delicate operation to remove the clay from inside the head. I felt the weight of the head would make it too easy for the sculpture to be knocked over by one of my playful dogs, even though the bottom of the neck was filled with plaster.

The head was cut in half, the clay and crumpled paper was removed, and the head was immediately put back together with strips of brown paper and paste. If the pieces are not put back together immediately they warp as they dry, and the two halves will not fit together.

With the underlying Sculpey and crumpled paper removed, the head is completely hollow.

Finishing the Giraffe

The ears were then added, using cardboard pieces cut out of a cereal box. I made the mane from four long strips of corrugated cardboard. I spent a long time cutting “hair” into the strips by cutting almost all the way through the strips a few hundred times. I then notched the side of the two outside strips that would attach to the giraffe, so I would have tabs to tape over. The two inside strips were cut narrower, and glued to the outside pieces. The mane was then attached to the neck with strips of brown paper and paste.

The sculpture was then covered in several layers of glue based gesso, which I made from:

2 parts PVA glue (Elmers or Carpenter’s glue)
4 parts water
8 parts calcium carbonate (marble dust)
And 1 part titanium or zinc white pigment, by volume.

Don’t feel you need to run out and buy these items. Ordinary gesso from the art store would work fine.

I then added the spots by mixing some home-made gesso using natural pigments – but acrylic paint would work for the spots. The eye was painted black with acrylic paint, and then a finish coat was applied.

You can see the mane a bit more clearly in the photo below, plus the odd shape that the head has when seen from the top:

Giraffe Mane, Ears and Horns

Giraffe Head, From Above

She looks very strange from the top.You can see that the eyes bulge a lot, and you can’t see the actual eyes at all from above. I think this allows the giraffe to have eyes focused on the ground, where their natural enemies might be lurking.

I used a lot of photos from the Internet to see how giraffes are built. I learned some interesting things while doing my research. Of most importance to me as an artist is that every species of giraffe has a different pattern of spots. My giraffe is a total mutt, and does not reflect any particular species or geographic area.

I also learned that biologists are still arguing over how many vertebrae giraffes have in their necks. You would think they could just count them after a giraffe dies in a zoo, but what do I know?

If you make a giraffe of your own, please let us see how it turned out.

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Tags: giraffe sculpture paper mache sculpture Super Sculpey

Paper Mache Animal Sculptures – Some Basic Tips

May 17th, 2009

Paper Mache Goat Kid

I just completed a paper mache goat kid. It’s a study for a larger sculpture I hope to do this summer. I thought it would be a good subject to use to discuss the leg bones, and how they affect the finished sculpture.

The Importance of Leg Bones…

If you find a photo of an animal you want to sculpt, but it isn’t in the right position for your project, just keep the following guidelines in mind. As long as you get the proportions right and remember how the leg bones are attached to the spine, you can position your animal any way you like.

Remember:

The front legs begin at the spine and float over the chest.

The back legs also begin at the spine, but there is no rib cage separating them. The legs will come together at the back, creating the butt crack (there must be a more polite way to say that…).

The legs really begin with the shoulder and hip bones, which cause bumps to show on the finished sculpture. The bumps show at the top of the shoulder and hip bones, where they attach to the spine, and there’s another bump where the first leg bone is attached to the shoulder and hip bones. Take a look at the next photo to see what I mean.

I’ve labeled the joints on this kid as though she was human. It makes it easier for me to remember the way the joints bend.

Leg Bones for Animal Sculptures

Note: This newborn baby goat has a pronounced curve of the spine, at the back. Most animals have a straighter spine from the shoulders to the tail, but it does vary from species to the next.

Some general guidelines:

The elbow and knee joints are often on a line with the bottom of the chest.

Humans have very short bones from the heel to our toes (our feet) and from our wrist joints to our fingers (our hands). That tends to confuse us when we look at animal legs, because we think of the hoof or paw as the equivalent of our feet and hands, but that is not correct. For instance, this goat kid appears to have a knee on her front leg because it bends in the same direction as our own knee. However, this is really a joint that corresponds to our wrist.

The placement of the legs can set the overall character of the piece – playful, restful, frightened, etc. When you’re making a paper mache sculpture of an animal, it’s worth taking extra time to get the posture and proportions right before you lay on your first layer of paper and paste.

If you know how the bones fold at the joints, you can use this knowledge of very basic anatomy to build a sculpture of any animal that has four limbs.

That includes mammals, birds, reptiles, whales – and even humans.

In fact, I often forget exactly how bird wings fold up, so I simply fold up my own “wings” to remind myself which joints bend in which direction. We are all related, and nature repeats patterns that work.

How to Use This Info on Other Animals:

If you were to stretch out the neck a little, you’d have an okapi. Stretch the neck a lot, and make the front legs longer, and you would have a giraffe.

If you made the legs much shorter, and stretched out the body, you’d have a dachshund.

Stand the creature up on its hind legs and fold up the front legs, and you’d have a bird.

Leave the animal on it’s hind legs, extend the tail to the ground, and make the front legs a lot shorter, and you’d have a kangaroo.

Give the animal fins instead of feet and merge the back legs together to form a tail, and you’d have a whale.

I thought about doing this with our baby goat in Photoshop, just to show you that it really works – but I think your imagination can do this much faster and better than I can.

This Even Helps With Imaginary Animals

Imaginary or mythical animals almost always have a basic form of a real animal, or perhaps two or three real animals glued together – like a Griffin made from a lion and an eagle. Some mythical animals, like dragons, have too many limbs. Usually the extra limbs are wings.

Even though mythical animals don’t follow the basic patterns that nature designed, you can still create realistic-looking creatures as long as most of the critter looks the way we expect animals to look. Knowing how their legs (and wings) would be attached to their spine allows you to build a believable, (but totally unreal) animal, from scratch.

So – have fun bending those joints and positioning the legs on your next paper mache animal sculpture!

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Painting Eyes on Paper Mache

May 2nd, 2009

Painted Eyes on Paper Mache Giraffe

The last thing I do on all my paper mache sculptures is paint the eyes. This is when the sculpture really comes to life. How I paint the eyes depends on what mood I’m in, and what I’m trying to achieve with the sculpture.

Very Simple Eyes:

The piggy bank and flying pig both have very simple eyes. The junco and the bluebirds (not shown) also have very simple eyes – but even though there isn’t anything there except a dark spot and a tiny pinpoint of light, these little sculptures still seem to have personality. The one thing that I always add is that reflection of light. If the eye is really small I use the end of a pin as a brush, because it’s easier for me to control than a real brush.
	The baby whale also has very simple eyes, painted with a pin. This is a fairly large wall sculpture, but the size of the eyes needed to be quite small to indicate the total size of the huge animal the sculpture represents.
More Realistic Eyes:

The orangutan mask, giraffe, and dragon have more detailing around the eyes. The dragon has the most realistic eyes of all the sculptures on this site, which is ironic since it’s one of the two animals represented that aren’t real. The modeling of the sculptures adds considerably to the detailing on these pieces – the giraffe’s eyelashes cast a strong shadow over her eyes, for instance. The mask’s eyelid modeling makes her seem quite human. And the heavy brow ridge on the dragon, modeled after an eagle’s “eyebrow” bone, casts a strong shadow and lends realism to the piece.

The two rabbits on the site – the lop-eared bunny and short-eared bunny, have semi-realistic eyes. The short-eared bunny’s eyes actually look more realistic in person because the modeling was done with plastic clay and the paper mache was added over the clay. This allowed me to be quite precise with the shaping of the bunny’s eyes, as well as the light-colored band (the upper and lower eyelids), around the eyes. I was in too much of a hurry when I made the lop-eared rabbit, so the eyes don’t have the roundness they really need to feel realistic. But, as I said in the beginning, how I paint the eyes really depends on what mood I’m in. It’s really amazing how a simple spot of color will appear to be a realistic eye, simply because we know an eye is supposed to be in that particular place on a face. But to make eyes shine, they do need that little spot of reflected light. That’s the “secret” that makes a paper mache animal sculpture come to life.