Strangeface; Experiencing the Workplace

Working with Russell in the Strangeface workshop has been a very interesting time. I have learnt from all steps of creating a Strangeface mask, and in the process was presented with the fantastic opportunity to make my own from scratch. To best present my experiences in being in the workshop, I will go through each step of the process section by section.

Sculpting
Russell has a great deal of knowledge and years of experience in sculpting effectively. He sculpts all of his masks using basic white studio clay, intended for firing, but instead vacuum forms over it before it dries out and cracks. He has taught me a lot about sculpting theory, such as the importance of lines in a sculpt, and how e.g. parallel lines are uninteresting to the eye, where as a line which curves slightly or intercepts with another line will catch the viewer. Russell starts all his mask sculpts by making a maquette, and I gave this a go. It was difficult trying to capture what I wanted from the character within the 20-minute quick 'sketch' timeframe, so the maquette ended up being a very rough guide.

The character I want to present is a naive schoolgirl who happens to have a third eye, which she is somewhat ashamed of. When I started the full size sculpt over the top of a vacuum formed life cast of a face, I got a much better idea of where I would go with her expression. The Strangeface masks are designed to show different expressions dependent on not only the actor's movements and sounds, but also the angle the mask is viewed from. They are sculpted in a way that leaves them widely open to the interpretation of the viewer, and forever in a state of trying to decide which expression the mask is pulling. This is a part of a human's instinctual drive to empathise and understand other things it reads as being a face, hence why some of Strangeface's masks are rather abstract and quite far removed from being a human - but still read as one.

Here is the sculpt after a few hours of work on it. I find the process exciting but also a little intimidating. Whilst I have done some sculpting, I feel hugely inexperienced - especially being shadowed by Russell's 1000+ sculpts - but the learning curve is challenging. I want the mask to read as different expressions especially from each side - one side being a little apprehensive, a little sorry for herself, and the other being a shy, possibly even a little bit coy or even cocky smirk. I was worried about the sculpt looking a little bit older than I wanted at this stage, and was recommended to smooth her out more - the smoother a sculpt is, the younger it looks, making younger sculpts actually harder than folded, detailed, older characters.

Here is the sculpt after it has been smoothed out, neatened up and finalised for the vacuum former. I have taken out the pupils as they are no longer needed as a point of reference. I am relatively satisfied with the sculpt, but the dissatisfaction is really down to my lack of experience in sculpting, not because of something that can be immediately fixed.

Once the sculpt is finished, a drill with a piece of wire is used to burn holes in the plastic form under the head. This sucks the plastic into the small details and crevices such as in the corners of the mouth and eyes. Russell then sprays his sculpts with WD-40 as a mould release, which also helps with any last-minute smoothing.

Vacuum Forming

For the single mask commissions, Russell will complete a sculpt then just take two vacuum forms of it - one for the mask, and one as proof, which can be filled with plaster and fixed up to make more copies of if anything happens to the original. Vacuum forming is a simple process, when the plastic has been fixed into place in the metal bracket, a heater is slid over the top. The sculpt sits on a moving platform underneath the plastic.

When the plastic is supple enough and droops under the heater, the sculpt is lifted up via a lever to press into the plastic, and the vacuum is turned on. This sucks all of the air out between the plastic layer and the sculpt, so it takes on its form well. A soft cloth can be used to push the plastic further into the crevices.

The Mask in the vacuum former. The plastic we used was a clear BPA, the same used
for making water bottles. It has good strength and flexibility.

Once the shape has been formed, some brute force is required to get the mask off of the sculpt. This is worse in masks with a lot of details and especially those with undercuts, which may require the sculpt to be destroyed in order to get the mask off. Once it has been removed, it is cleaned with rubbing alcohol to remove any clay and WD-40 residue, and a buffing cloth keys the surface lightly to allow the primer and paint to grip it.

Painting

A layer of yellow primer is sprayed onto the mask as a base for the acrylic. It is a better colour than black to cover. Flesh tone acrylic is then sponged over the top in two layers, to form a base coat with a 'stippled' texture. Russell painted my mask because I have very little experience in using an airbrush, so he could paint it to reveal it's best potential. He uses no black - a few shades of red make up the blushing and warm tones, and a muted dark green is used for the shadow. Even the 'black' parts, like around the eyes and in the nostrils, are done with a very dark blue. This prevents the flatness that can occur with using solid colours.

On quizzing Russell on how he developed his style, he explains that it's taken him ten years to get to where he is. I find this reassuring because I don't feel like I solidly have my own style; there is plenty of time to develop it. He also mentioned that because his style has had to become commercially reliable, he feels it has become stale to him. I can see this happening often in a business that is run off of a created object, especially when each new product is sculpted from scratch.

The completed mask, in need of a wig. I am really happy with the paint job that Russell did, it definitely helps to define the emotions I was trying to capture. I have ordered her a wig to complete the look and will be updating this post with pictures of the mask being worn when it arrives.

Blind Summit @ Latitude Festival 2015: Citizen Puppet

Blind Summit did their 'first professional performance' of this show at Latitude Festival near Ipswich, which I was lucky enough to go to. They presented a parade of realistically portrayed individual puppets, with characters so three dimensional that they broke the fourth wall and made fun of the way puppets are often portrayed as silly, simple, uncomplicated characters.

Puppets for 'Citizen Puppet' in the Blind Summit workshop.

Suki (left) and Tina (right) expressing their digust.

The show was a very contemporary interpretation of 'Jack and the Beanstalk', with there being no Jack, or beanstalk. The story followed the residents of a run-down town called 'Massiveville', and their shock and trepidation the day that the giant from up the beanstalk fell, dead, across their town. Their recollections had a charming realism from them, from the descriptions of the giant's leg lifelessly blocking everyone down the centre of the high street, to the awful traffic backed up around the town and disrupting their day-to-day lives.
Blind Summit challenge traditional puppetry values and transform puppet shows into a platform for adults to enjoy. By presenting 'Citizen Puppet' as a docudrama based entirely on verbatim from the characters, they turned a silly, light hearted children's tale into a very believable and surprisingly tangible collection of the struggles and experiences of the characters.

The puppeteers seemed to 'melt' away
during the performance.

The set of the show was nonexistent, relying on the sheer presence of the characters to provide atmosphere. The puppets sat atop tall benches, chairs and wheelchairs, allowing the puppeteers to freely operate them and avoiding the 'floating puppet' issue. These benches helped set the mood for the town as well - it really was reminiscent of the likes of a dodgy park in the middle of Maidstone or some other exceedingly average British town. The way this production was prevented was completely unexpected; the entire show was fantastically observed and was a huge highlight of the festival.

Work Experience at Bay Productions

I completed two weeks of work experience for Bay Productions in Cardiff in June, and it was definitely a learning curve. It is such a great experience to be involved and treated as a professional in a proper, industrial working environment. Although a lot of the work was highly repetitive - as you would expect when working on something on such a large scale as real size sets - there were elements of it that were both challenging and enjoyable. I plan to go into more prop- and costume-orientated work elements in the future, but it was still wonderful to work with a team of such like-minded and creative individuals on making such beautiful Opera sets.
Here are some examples of the sets that Bay Productions have been created, images from their facebook page and website.

The set of 'Don Giovanni' at Lyric Opera in Chicago.

Houses for the London 2012 Olympics Ceremony.

The Production - What a Show!

On Friday the 10th July, I ventured to Mid Kent College to see the production of Pride Lands by Razzamataz. I had also helped out before the show was performed, making adjustments to some of the masks for them to fit smaller children, sewing fur on leotards and generally assisting in the costume department.
The first half of the show was a series of numbers from different musicals and fairy tales, remixed into short and cheeky dances, songs and stories. This is when most of the younger performers of Razzamataz strutted their stuff, and the length of some of the pieces they remembered was impressive.
The second half of the performance was what I'd truly been waiting for, and seeing the work I'd been so heavily involved with being worn and enjoyed by all the talented actors was amazing. I got a bit emotional! I was blown away by the style and coherence of the play, boasting a fantastic mix of song, dance and narrative that was truly complimented by the massive range of costumes. To top it all off, nothing fell off or broke - I'm sure this would be a concern for any costume and prop maker's first production..!
It truly was a fantastic, inspiring night and the whole experience has lead me on to want to be involved with this type of work for the rest of my life. After working with such a fantastic team, it would be a dream to be a costume, prop and set designer and maker for Razzamataz, or any small, energetic theatre company.

Reflective Evalution: Lions in the Mirror

This project, as all do, started out with excitement and enthusiasm, and it retained a good amount of that throughout. It was a huge project - it started out even bigger before the budget and costume list got revised - and I definitely got used to working under pressure, which is an important workplace skill to have. Deadlines will always exist, and I think are one of the most important things you must always adhere to in creative work, even if it means staying up all night to finish.

The first and most daunting challenge we faced on this project was getting the head dresses to fit the actors in a way that was secure, light, cheap and adjustable. This was my main source of stress from the beginning of the project all the way up to when we finally got Scar anchored on a hat. At that point I was stunned at how easy it really was, relieved that we didn't have to rely on flimsy peaks and happy that we'd pinpointed a way of making the weight of the masks sit on top of the wearer's head, preventing any discomfort. On my last project I had not balanced the mask so well, and a lot of weight rested on the wearer's forehead and nose - so I was very concerned with not letting this happen again, especially since this was a commission for a real performance, with lots of people relying on the group.

Another challenge we faced that I feel was not perfected was making the different lions all read in a cohesive style, even though there were different people working on each of them. When the sculpts were finished, I noticed they had some rather different qualities - for example, Mufasa's muzzle is much shorter than Scar's and Simba's, even though he is a fatherly figure. It does not look incorrect or like a mistake - it's just a different sculpting style. When we first approached the project I wanted to aim for geometric, but this proved impossible when we started sculpting with the clay because it tends to 'flow' quite organically. Computer assisted design would have been much better for getting the geometric, low poly look as I outlined in my research post - and I would loved to have pursued learning how to 3D sculpt on the computer had we had the time and training. 

With such a big group working on so many different costumes, it was always going to be difficult as project leader to keep everyone on the same path and heading forwards in the same direction. Overseeing people's sculpts helped with this, such as having a small amount of input when Scar and the cheetah was being sculpted even though other people were the 'main' sculptors for those animals. However, this was harder with non-sculpture based elements of the project, such as painting and the big pieces like the mufasa head. Some team members had quite different choices when it came to painting style - even down to simple things like line differences and choosing colours - and this had quite a big impact on the finished pieces. For example, Simba is quite a simple paint design, with fine lines and large sections of gum tape still visible, whereas Mufasa is a lot bolder, with no gum tape visible, and chunky dark brown lines. Even though I had preferences and wanted to guide the team towards one particular paint style, I didn't feel it was in my place to tell someone to redo their work - although I was the team leader I wasn't the boss or commissioner, and Hayley was very open to whatever design choices we wanted to make.

I knew from the start that even though there were 18 people in my team, it was highly unlikely that I would have all 18 people in one place after the first team meeting. This was true, and to an extreme on some days, when only 3 or 4 would show up for the entire day, leaving the brunt of the work to the few truly committed people. It is harder in university because so much of the work is self directed - as much as I tried to convince people to come in by using the facebook group and messages, people would only turn up if they wanted to, there was no way I could force them. The imbalance of dedication from some members was a little disappointing - especially team members for whom this was their primary, or only, commission, collaboration and community project. However, you have to move on from these issues, and work with the people that have shown up - there is no point in wasting energy on people that are not even there to put the work in.

One of the difficulties with working with multiple heat-activated materials - namely the thermoplastic and the hot glue gun - was that a lot of people got their fingers burnt! Lots of plasters were used throughout this project. Also, the cable ties on the willow proved sharp if not cut off at a good, flat angle, and I really wish there was an alternative to cable ties that was just as quick, easy and cheap. Tying the joins with a rope or thick thread works well and is cheap, but is particularly time consuming and with only 7 weeks to complete all of our creations, was not a viable option.

Hayley was a great lady to work with and in that sense I think our group got really lucky. Throughout the project we'd been hearing horror stories from other teams about the person they'd been working for refusing to order the materials in time, ignoring their emails or otherwise being difficult to deal with. Hayley was always extremely polite, grateful and punctual in ordering fabrics and being sympathetic to our budgeting requirements throughout the project, and her visit was extremely humbling and encouraging. She is a great contact to have and I really hope to work more with her in the future.

Reflecting on our budget of £725, I was surprised that we came in a fair amount under that and there is a possibility of everyone getting paid a little bit for all their hard work. However, when discussing this with other team members the problem arose that it would be hard to divide up the money fairly - some people put far more time into the project than others, so a tier system would have to be used to pay everyone, which could result in some quarrels. A solution to this problem in the future would be for people to check in and out on their work, marking down how many hours they have worked on each day and doing what. Had we known that there may have been budget left over, this would have been implemented.

I struggled with getting the sketch down for the flower festival poster initially, which lead me to stalling a little bit and producing the poster later in the easter holidays than I would have previously liked, but such seems to be the way for creative endeavours that revolve around a particular central drawing. It was really challenging to work with Adobe Illustrator on such a large scale and I hadn't before, but now I have more experience in using it from making the poster I am far more inclined to want to use it again in the future. This is great because it's a really important piece of software not only for graphic design, but things such as technical drawing too.

It was also a great surprise to find out that after a private auction on the poster at the Flower Festival, it had sold for £60 to the Vicar's husband, who planned to give it to his daughter, a dancer, for her wedding present. This made me really happy - not only had my work sold to support the church, a great local cause, but it was also going to be in someone's home, as an important gift. I am touched by this notion and it's definitely spurred me on to do more drawing and poster design over the summer.

Learning to blog consistently has been a really helpful skill to get on board with, though I wish the workshop for blogging had been at the start of the course, not a few weeks into it. I had to go back and add entries for days after they had happened because I had no idea that a blog was wanted, as it wasn't on the brief. Also, when I found out that a blog was wanted, I started with tumblr because it is a sleek and attractive platform - after the workshop with Jordan Buckner, hearing that blogger was the industry standard was a little disheartening because it is incredibly outdated and can be hard to use, offering fewer layout features than even Microsoft Word has to offer.

I feel that by leading this project, I have matured in myself and developed my skills in guiding and informing people. Leadership is an important skill job wise, and I feel like I can say that I have good leadership skills after being able to point the group in the right direction with some wonderful outcomes. It can be tricky to try and guide people without acting like an authority figure - after all, I am a peer of the group of students I was nominated to be in charge with, not a boss - so I could not be as demanding as I may have otherwise been in a more authoritative situation, for example taking action on poor attendance and making more changes to different parts of people's individual project parts. It definitely wasn't without it's challenges - not mentioning any names - but I would do this sort of project again in a heartbeat, and it's made me feel like I could even do a job where I had to manage multiple people on creative projects.

The Team: An Overview of Roles and Commitment

This blog post is about evaluating each person's role in this project. It can be a little tricky, because in the first stages of the project each person had a very set role, but as the project went on and some people didn't come in much, or had other projects to work on, the more committed members of the team had to spread themselves across many areas.
Because this project was largely a case of trial and error and many people spreading themselves across different roles, it is difficult to categorise them in an industry-standard manner. I have, however, noted whether they contributed more to design or making, and if they displayed good 'soft skills' such as management and budgeting.
I have very loosely ordered the team from who I felt put the most time into the project, to the least, and why I feel this way about their performance. However, it was a close call for some people on who put more time in.

Esme came in a little later in the project after she had finished other projects, but when she had the time, she was an invaluable team member. She did not contribute design work due to her later joining but put in an awful lot of highly skilled effort into sculpting, rhenoflexing, painting and finishing off animals such as the zebras, cheetahs, lions, hyenas and giraffes. Esme also created a final budget sheet towards the end of the project.

Claire is from a more costume-orientated background and whilst she initially wanted to work more on the costume elements of this project, quickly stepped up to the mark when more prop-based skills were needed. She had great input on both designing, sculpting, rhenoflexing, painting and decorating, especially on the lions. Claire was also good at finding creative solutions to problems we encountered.

Rhian was a hard worker even when she fell ill partway through the project, taking home the giraffe heads to work on them from her sick bay. She sculpted the cheetah head from scratch with minimal input, and developed good skills in using the rhenoflex. She was consistently present during the project and worked well under the pressure of the creation of the giraffes, being such a difficult creature and design.

Naomi was the leader of fabrics for this project and did a great job at it. She showed strengths in designing her screen print, creating the fabric, and also physical skills in sewing together parts for the antelope and sizing up the pattern. She has proved rather invaluable on the team, consistently working hard to create all of the different colour combinations for the animals and sourcing fabrics.

Andrea showed good input into both designing and making in this project. She was one of four team leaders including myself and showed some good 'soft skills'. She created initial design drawings for the hyena, elephant, Zazu and the antelopes, which were all useful in deciding how we were going to make them. She showed some good initial sculpting skills and developed her skills in rhenoflexing throughout the project. She spread her help wherever was needed throughout the project, and turned the cut ducting into elephant legs herself.

Amy was another team leader and proved invaluable in team management. She wrote up the initial learning agreement contract and was excellent at communicating with the team. She also developed her sculpting and rhenoflexing skills with input on the zebras, lions and hyenas. She had a good general level of commitment to the project, turning up to most working days and all meetings, including note taking during discussion.

Becca did excellent work both designing and making Pumba. Although she had a lot of commitments to other projects, she completed the role she chose in good time and also with minimal budget spent! She had very good attendance to the group when not working on other projects.

Ollie worked with Becca on making Pumba, and they were a good team. Ollie also created some designs, and helped Melissa with some finishing touches on the giant Mufasa head. He also did some sculpting work on the zebra maquette. Like Becca, he had a lot of commitments to other projects, but outside of this had good attendance and commitment to the group.

Lorraine was the fourth team leader and usually had good attendance outside of flights home surrounding easter. She showed good sculpting and rhenoflexing skills in making an antelope maquette and one of the cheetah masks. She also helped Naomi in some of the screen printing and sewing on the antelope. Whilst she was present for a good amount of time on the project, I feel she could have used her time more effectively in some instances.

Kristina was present for a large amount of the project and showed good developing skills in rhenoflexing and gum taping masks. She also had some small input on sculpting. She spent time pattern cutting and rhenoflexing for the large amount of hyenas in the group, whilst also working on other projects.

Melissa took on the role of leading the making of the whole giant Mufasa head, but I feel she lacked confidence in her work. She completed the work set to an ok standard but had difficulty communicating with the group.

Connor did a good job in completing three bird kites for the project that matched his concept art well, fulfilling his role chosen at the start of the project. Although he had attendance issues, he was a hard worker when he was in the studio.

Charlie joined the project at a late stage after completing work on other projects, and was helpful in providing scrap materials for the project - she sourced and donated the large amount of goat fur we used on many of the masks. She also showed good practical skills in making the elephant's trunk and rhenoflexing.

Shona started this project with a lot of enthusiasm, but was sadly whisked away by tight deadlines and high pressure in her other projects. She made an excellent start on the antelopes, producing good designs and a promising initial body, but unfortunately could not spare any time towards the end of the project.

Alex dipped in and out of the project dependent on workloads from other commissions, but showed promising practical skills in helping on sculpting the lions and creating the manes and attaching the fabric drape to the zebras.

Tasmin also entered the project with a lot of enthusiasm, but like Shona was whisked away by other high-pressure projects. However, at the start of this project she showed promise in designing and making two gum tape prototypes for the hyena heads.

Everyone's Outcomes

I wanted to make a post to show the things that other people have been doing in the group that I haven't been involved with, outside of overseeing the entire group.

Cheetahs! Outside of helping with the initial sculpt and attaching the first mask to a hat, the cheetahs have mostly been worked on by Rhian, Esme and Claire.

The completed cheetah sculpt. 

A rhenoflexed cheetah mask.
Rhian and Lorraine both did work
rhenoflexing the cheetahs.

Claire painted the first cheetah mask. They look
great with the paint on!

The wet underside of acrylic eyes, cut,
sanded and painted from a scrap of
clear acrylic found in the bin. 

A completed cheetah mask, this time
one that Esme painted.

Pumba was made exclusively by Ollie and Becca in their time outside of working on the Fame project. He sits on two backpacks, and has a hinged jaw so the actor can make him talk. He came out really well! He was initially carved from polystyrene, then covered in gum tape and painted. His body is willow with fabric accents, and carved polystyrene and paper rope back legs. Because the costume requested for Timon was so minor (ears, a tail and some paws) we have decided to complete it after the deadline.

Carving Pumba from polystyrene.

Pumba covered in gum tape and mounted to a
backpack.

Pumba after the gum tape layer was first painted.

Pumba's body and back legs being
assembled. 

The finished Pumba, being worn by Ollie.

The Giant Mufasa head was made almost entirely by Melissa, bar a little help from Ollie towards the final stages. It is a willow frame with muslin and wadding glued on, and painted with acrylics.

A willow face frame, held together by
cable ties. It is similar to the elephant
but lacks 3D qualities. 

Muslin pinned to the muzzle frame before being glued down. It is a
straightforward process because the pieces are so flat. 

The upper and lower muzzle pieces.

One of the face panels, with the small wadding
border as a mane. 

All four of the pieces making up the head. It
has some symmetry issues that I think we will
need to address before the production.

And finally, the giraffes. This part of the project was pretty huge and it was brave of Rhian to work on the making process alone. I had done some research and found a great giraffe head online that was made out of corrugated cardboard pieces that slot together, and Rhian decided to make these as the full heads. They are really lightweight and, due to being covered in gum tape, pretty sturdy. She initially toyed with putting it on a hat on the smaller child's head, but it was too weighty. We later discovered a solution - having the head sit on a shoulder with a strap. The cardboard neck runs down the wearer's back. This animal was as challenging as the elephant due to the incorporation of lifts in the actor's routine to make it - the two people making up the giraffe had no free hands between them!

Rhian hot gluing the giraffe's mane on, just like how Alex did on the zebras.

The painted and attached mane.

One of two painted giraffes. Esme painted one, Rhian
did the other. The eyes are made in the same way as
the elephant's.

We also had some fabric custom printed for us by Naomi with a little help from Lorraine. She took design inspiration from all the tribal research that we did and posted in the Facebook group. After doing the screen print, some of the designs were accented with more colours painted on with acrylics. Here's what she came up with, with this colour-way being for hyena (which was later darkened), and below, the giraffe;

Our Last Studio Day

I am sad that this is the last day we have all together as a team on the Razzamataz project. It's certainly been challenging, but enjoyable too! If I was offered a job doing this sort of work, I'd be over the moon.
I finished Nala today, attaching and bunching her fabric drape at the back. She is the most comfortable and possibly the most lightweight out of all of the masks due to her simple but effective construction.

Hoping to get some better photos of the finished masks after the deadline, particularly when they are performed with - we were told that there will be a professional photographer for the production, which will be great for portfolio pictures.

I'm really happy with Nala - I think she looks really good, and she's comfortable and sturdy, so should fill her role in the play perfectly. Scar and Simba were also finished today, along with a zebra which had it's mane painted. Unfortunately the black backdrop has made it impossible to see the end of its muzzle - but I can assure you it is there.

Beautiful Zebras!

Here is how the elephant's head is looking. The exterior of it is finished, but it still needs some head padding and backpacks on the inside for the girls to carry it with, since the unfortunately have no spare hands. There is also a picture of how the antelope is at the moment. I feel it looks a little bit like a corpse, with it's fabric guts escaping out of it's belly. It needs some refinement, reinforcing to stand up more upright, sewing up and painting. I will be helping with this along with Andrea and Naomi after the deadline.

Big, luscious goat hair eyelashes and tusks carved from polystyrene
with a gum tape covering, painted with acrylics by Esme.

The poor, dead antelope.

Zazu is also looking really good, needing only his fabric drape to be completed. Most of the work on him has been done by Esme who sculpted and rhenoflexed him, and Andrea who painted him. I attached him to a hat. He differs in colour to the original concept art and fabric - he was going to be mainly black and white - but has been painted blue and yellow.

The Budget List

The Finished Hyena, Hah!

Esme did a great job putting a handle in the hyena, sewing it onto the hat, gluing on the fabric, adding the goat hair main and braiding the tail. It works so well! It really gives off the illusion of the hyena's hunchback, and looks complete, whilst being really easy to wear with perfect vision.

The handle inside the hyena head.
After the deadline I will be painting
the insides of the hyena heads black.

The hyena mane has natural flair!