Alternative miss world-the finished project I forgot to post

So after looking at carnival head dress i started looking at other headdresses. I gained inspiration from figures such as Lady Gaga who was famous for her out-landish wardrobe. I found that the designers used similar materials to what i had previously worked with like feathers. 

I wanted to make something quite geometric as i had an idea to do something with a cardboard box (at this point i didn't know what) to wear for sew hat so i needed it to complement that. i came up with a a simple design of squares around a headband but i knew it wasn't going to be quite so simple to actually make. 

My original plan to make the headdress was to make the base out of wire then to wrap cotton thread around the wire. The wire base was relatively easy to construct, minus the scratches. however, wrapping the cotton around the wire turned out to be quite a lot harder and time-consuming than i'd first antisipated so i needed to come up with a new idea to get the colour on the frame.

My first alternative was to wrap the wire in masking tape then colour it. it started out well but when i eft it for the night and came back to it in the morning it had started unravelling. so it was back to the drawing board.

After the light disaster I decided that i'd find some art straws, cut them to size, colour them with the desired colour then cut them up the centre so they were unwrapped. I then wrapped them around the frame and glue gunned them on the back so they were securely attached. this thankfully worked and was quite secure.

After looking at some of Lucy Mcrae's work i got an idea to see how paint could be dripped off an object for later use in a costume. i started with two maniquin heads to experiment with. i added PVA glue to acrylic paint in hope that it would thicken the paint and stick easier. At first, it looked promising...

then a little, tiny disaster happened. the paint was not thicker, it almost slid right off and didn't cover the heads as solidly as i wanted. it was far too opaque to what i envisioned. 

 if i wanted to make a consume with this 'technique' i needed to think of a way to really thicken the paint.

And then i did. 

Thickener. this was the answer and it was in its own name.

I got my cardboard box, painted it white, cut it to shape and started dripping paint off of it. This time i mixed acrylic paint with a little PVA glue and a bit of thickener. 

yes it still dripped off of it but this is the style of drip that id wanted and designed for my box. 

But when it dried i felt it was a just a little bit boring so i added my favourite thing to jazz something up: GLITTER.

The glitter really did make it look ten times better and i was extremely pleased with it.

my original idea was to make this into a dress to wear from the neck down. But i accidentally made the hole too big so that it fell down my shoulders. For it to hang off my hips as a skirt i needed to make some simple braces. this was relatively easy to do with the box being quite stable. 

The finished outfit ready for sewhat:

Sewhat selfies:

Carnival head-piece

When I was researching Carnival I decided on creating a traditional looking head-dress. I found the basic shape i wanted and started thinking about how to make it with the materials I had.

The base around the head was created using strong wire and then the rest of the frame was made using thinner wire to shape and then covering with art straws. The art straws look nicer than exposed wire however when they're bent they do look rough and unprofessional.

 I'm happy with how it turned out and i got the desired shape. 

The frame started looking a lot better and more fitting when the glitter was added. Although this was messy and i had to re-apply it after attaching the feathers because it rubbed off when i was handling it, I'm happy i chose to change the colour of the feather within different sections instead of integrating them together because it looks authentic.

The rhinestones were difficult to add and get right with how small they are but with a little, or a lot, of time i got there. Without the rhinestones it wouldn't look as authentic. I think i may add large ostrich feathers to the back to add height and interest to the headpiece but i'm happy with the progress so far,

 

I intend on looking at other headpieces and even going a little crazier with head-dresses, getting inspiration from people such as the designers who attract figures like Lady Gaga.

Childs-play and the Carnival

The Alternative Miss World  events have had themes for most of their shows and since they encourages creativity we were given the theme of "child-like". This was meant in the way that children see objects completely differently to adults. A cardboard box may be a spaceship and a roll of tin foil may be their astronaut suit.

I started thinking about costumes that kids films had and how fun they looked. From this I looked at events such as Rio's Carnival and Mardi Gras. I absolutely loved the bright colours and how fun they all seemed. I'll definitely be looking further into these events as I would love to create a costume based on them looking closely at their headpieces.

Tribal Make-Up

 Inspiration from Wilder Mann made me want to look further into tribal face art. I really like the patterns and the colours as they're applied as though the features aren't there.

I found editorial looks devised from tribal looks but i preferred the originals from the tribes themselves.

I quickly sketched down some ideas I had using oil pastels. After deciding what colours and vaguely what kind of patterns i wanted i created some more defined sketches. When i'd decided on the design I wanted to use I then chose to use normal acrylic paint for this. I chose this from looking at Boo Ritson and Alexa Meade's work. 

I'm really happy with how it turned out and wouldn't change a thing. I'm happy that I decided to give the face a grey base as it adds to the tribal look.

Andrew Logan's Alternative Miss World

As we'll be starting a new brief at college soon I've done a little research. Andrew Logan's Alternative Miss World started in 1972 where it was held in Logan's studio in Hackney. As the years went on the shows got bigger and themes were introduced.

1975-Wild

1978-Circus

1981-Royal Imperial

1985-Water

1986-Earth

1991-Air

1995-Fire

1998-Void

2004-Universe

2009-Elements

2014-Neon Numbers

The show embraces the "anything goes" culture with contestants being encouraged to dress up as anything they like. It has been described as "A riotous, queer celebration of the art of dressing up, the competition sees men and women disguised as telephone boxes, poodles and fried eggs. Anything goes."

The mask: an update

I wanted the background of my mask to be a grey-like colour so I researched and did some swatches of the kind of colours I was thinking about.

I painted my mask a basic grey around the main area and then a blue-grey around the base to create the sense of depth.

I began adding the detail I wanted to the mask around the eyes, nose and cheek bones. I still need to add further detail and add a wig to my mask.

Talons are harder to make than I thought

So my idea for adding talons on to my fingers for my Wilder Mann costume didn't go according to plan.                                                     When I was adding the clay it was extremely difficult to reach around each finger as they were so close together. I got the idea then to do each finger separately. I got one of the thumbs from one of my broken casts and tried my idea on that. it worked so much better that I'm considering cutting my other cast so I can work on each finger separately. 

Hands and falling fingers

I was introduced to the material alginate and really wanted to work with it for some hand casts. I decided i was going to make one, add clay to it so it looked like talons then paint latex on to it. After doing this i planned on attaching the latex on to a part of my body so that it looked like it was coming out of my body or was attached. I got this idea from looking at wilder Mann.





I really liked my initial cast because the alginate gives you a really detailed cast. Unfortunately I had pressed me fingers into the bottom of the bowl so the tops of them came out flat. Despite this I find the first cast interesting because of the detail, you can even see my fingerprints. I also like the position of the hand and how it's curled up.

(Photo of curled up hand) 

I started changing the position of my fingers in the alginate because of my idea so that they were straights. However after I'd allowed the plaster to set and was taking the alginate off the fingers kept breaking off due to how fragile the plaster was. This happened 3 times before my final cast. 

(Photo of broken fingers)

For my final cast I took longer, a lot longer, to peel away the alginate. An hour later, I had my final cast ready to start building! Now to wait for the clay to arrive...

(Picture of the final cast)