Papier maché II

	Jumping spider This jumping spider is also made in papier maché - at least in part. Its body is made from papier maché and coated with some fur, which origin I do not know. The fur of the cephalothorax is very odd. The limbs are made from large pipe cleaners. They have been painted with white at the joints. The small eyes are black pins (not recommended for small children). The large eyes are red plastic half pearls painted black at the back. That creates a nice effect.
Container for party songs In 1994 I got the assignment of making a container for party songs to be used at a confirmation. The girl to be confirmed has a tortoise. I only had a week to make it. First I claimed that it was impossible, but after one nights sleep I knew how to make it in time. I did make it. There is a small door in the carapace that can be lifted to access the folded songs.   Unfortunately no pictures exist from that original tortoise. I know that some of my guests are searching for how to make such a thing, so I decided to build another. This time I used more time as I was in no hurry.   There tortoise is not made to be perfect. It is rather made to be possible to build in one week (one week of intensive work though).   See here how it was made.
	Mummified head This gruesome head is one of my early works. It is not build on a skeleton but rather on a lump of paper. That is the explanation for the strange proportions of the jaw etc. The teeth are cut from wood, the larynx is made from cardboard to look rigth when viewed from below. The neck also displays vertebra and cut wessels.   I think I will make a better one some day.
Devil's horns These horns were made on a plasticine model. It was covered first with newspaper, then with toiletpaper. Dried, painted and laquored. They were stitched to a black hood. Used for a demo against the EU in 1986.
	Shrunken head Another shrunken head (tsantsa). This one is less like the original thing and more like a caricature of a certain person. The skin is lightly coloured but with livores (an original shrunken head would be darkened with soot or ashes). The lips would also not be that red. The hair is a very cheap party wig cut down in size to fit. See how it was made here.
Mammoth This model of a mammoth is rather small, height above the shoulders is 23 cm. The tusks are made from heatsetting plastic (FIMO clay). They really should have been slightly more curved. The mammoth is constructed upon a simple skeleton from steel wire soldered together. The tusks have an internal steel wire and are soldered to the skeleton. The larger part of the body were then made from crumpled newsprint and coated with layers of paper strips. Pulp was used for shaping the animal and modelling the trunk and other details. Trunk and tail were also reinforced with embedded twine. The nails are made from acrylic gesso. They eyes are small eyes intended for teddybears. The eyelids are carefully modelled using pulp and toilet paper (perfect!). The tip of the trunk demands careful work. NB, the tip is slightly different from that of an elephant (look up the difference).   The fur was modelled from pulp using various steel modelling tools. I recommend that one experiments first to learn a good technique. Perhaps on a piece of wood or on a spot of the animal that can be covered over later. It is not too difficult.   And then I painted it using oil paint. The "furry surface" made it possible to have one colour for the deep parts (grayish) and another (reddish-brown) for other parts. Pink tones for tip of trunk, eyelids and mouth. And some "nondescript dirt colour" here and there to make it look like a wild animal with a tangled and dirty fur.

Other sites with papier maché:

(c) Ditlev V. Petersen/Potemkin 2003-2019