Rachel and myself sculpted the body and leg above. We then covered the clay sculptures in masking tape in a paper mache fashion and drew on the 'pattern' following the contours of the Rhino. Next we cut all the pieces off the sculpture and put them on an overhead projector to enlarge them onto a wall. We pinned up paper and drew the new pattern on. There are about 200 pattern pieces for half the Rhino. Above shows the foot pattern pieces and the head pattern pieces laid out on paper. Now ready to make the real Rhinos out of plastazote. The horns will be scultped separatly out of poly foam to achieve a perfect point.

50th post

Me and Rachel have finished sculpting the Rhino now. It is in 3 parts-head, torso and leg. I have used photoshop to assemble pictures of our clay sculpture to get an idea of what it will look like. now we are covering the clay in masking tape before we draw on the pattern. tomorrow we will be charity shopping for second hand rucksacks to create the harness for the puppeteer.

final rhino head sculpted

Here are different angles of the final rhino head. We have only sculpted half but half mirrored the image in photoshop to check the shape works. Sculpting the body and leg next.

day 3 rhino

today we moved the eye and built exaggerated wrinkles onto him. thoroughly enjoying working with clay.

progress-sculpting the rhinos head

this measures about 30cm long. we are just sculpting half the face to then make the pattern off and times it by 3 making the final heads almost 1metre long. (the male will be the biggest) made a lot of progress after just 2 days.

Noahs ark begins

contemplated making vultures instead above shows a griffin vulture. love the right angle shape.

rhino is go. but me and my partner are making 2 rhinos but only the heads, torso and front legs like showen above for one puppeteer to operate. The puppeteer will use his legs inside the rhinos and operate a puppet head of the rhinos with his arms. For comedy the back of the puppeteer will be seen wearing a rhinos tail. This gastronomic rhino will be sculpted in clay and we will use a pattern cutting technique to make it all out of plastzote. Im looking at making a simple mechanism for getting the ears to move also.

portrait of rhino above I have done looking at an image on www.robotnine.com artist is unknown.

begining to sculpt a small version of the head first.