I've been working on a preliminary pencil-and-pen sketch of how I want my necromancer to look, I will hopefully finish it over the weekend and put it here. I will be travelling to D.C. on Saturday to participate in the Climate March and so I will be on the lookout for any objects I think may be useful to my project. So far I have managed to acquired a long, low wooden box that I will fill with dirt, and have a smaller box of dead twigs that I want to twist into the undead figures bursting from said dirt. I am still hard-pressed to find a small animal skull to serve as the face/mask of the necromancer and I am anxious to find one. However, based on how my work with the twigs go I am ready to simply drop that aspecct of the sculpture and only work on the solo figure. I'm not sure if I want it to be large, about the height of my previous sculpture, or if I should make the piece more handheld and intricate. As of yet I am still in the materials procuring stage and I will probably not begin to the sculpture itself until I am absolutely sure that I have everything I need.
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I have not yet begun to make actual work on my sculpture; I am still in the planning phase. However, I know for sure what I want to make - a figurative piece involving a necromancer raising the dead. I was thinking of finding a long, low wooden box and filling it with dirt, and having the 'dead' be distorted figures made of broken twigs and such, still half-rising out of the dirt. For the main figure I planned on finding green wood (which is more flexible), and bending and crossing it in such a way to create a frame, and then draping a large piece of cloth or wool to serve as a cloak. I also want to create a mask for the necromancer - I have been searching for small animal skulls like a bird or mouse in my spare time. Maybe a collar or staff would work as well, but I am intent on creating a mask for the character. My computer is being difficult so I cannot put the image in directly, but this image (https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/60/d0/3b/60d03bb01a04ad5a0b3d1ef6fd65f451.jpg) has been my primary inspiration. Come this weekend I hope to begin acquiring my materials and laying the foundation for the piece.
For my insecct I began by constructing the body out of taped-together newspaper forms, covered over in a unifying sheath of more newspaper. The ovular final product can be seen below with another small project of mine. I then constructed a hexagonal head using the same method and attached it to the crown of the body using wooden spikes and metal wire, wrapping more newspaper around them to create a neck. After this, I papier-mâchéd the bug wth, you guessed it, more newspaper! After it had dried I tore pages from several small copies of The Metamorphosis I had purchased and papier-mâchéd it again for thematic effect. I drew a stencil on a long piece of paper and used it to carve out a shell of cardboard, papier-mâchéing it as well and manipulating the top part to curve over the bug's back. I attached it to the back using a hot glue gun. I also poked hole's in Samsa's head and inserted long pieces of curved wire to serve as antenna, and wound other strips of wire to serve as bulbous insectoid eyes. Using brown watercolor, I gave Samsa a more realistic insectoid color. I painted the shell a slightly darker color by mixing with black. Finally, I used more wire to construct the legs, drilling six holes into Samsa's sides and inserting them, using hot glue to keep them in. I had studied beetle anatomy to bend the wires into realistic shapes for each pair of legs (front legs are usually thick and bent, middle ones shorter and curved horizontally, and the bottom legs long with inverted knees). I had also purchased a large wooden doll bed with a pillow, and cut a large rectangle of thick white fabric to serve as a sheet, placing them below Samsa as I laid him on the bed. I am happy with my final product. I think that it definitely brings a lot of Kafkaesque elements, and I am glad that my the final sculpture is both well-crafted and suitably insectoid and grotesque, in such a way that Kafka would have wanted Samsa to be.
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