At the Berkshire Theatre Festival, I was given the task of creating 5 wolf heads on sticks. They had to look ferocious, but slightly cartoony, and needed hinged jaws so that the mouths would flap open when you shook them. I was really proud of my work, and I took lots of process pictures. Enjoy!
Step 1
We had a lot of things to make for Peter Pan, so we bought a huuuuuuuuuuuge block of foam to carve everything from. I mean, HUGE. It took a whole afternoon to cut up the foam into manageable chunks to work with.
Step 2After I got a decent sized cube, I sketched out the wolf head on it, then used a small handsaw to cut out a very basic shape. |
Step 3
Once I had the very basic shape, I used a large rasp to start smoothing it out. Supposedly, there are foam carving tools that exist for these purposes, but I used what I had available. Sometimes I used a utility knife to do small chunks, like around the eyes and nose. With each wolf, the head structure changed a little bit. I used lots of references pictures to go off of, and I carved the lower jaw separately, since it was to be hinged later.
Step 4
For the teeth, I used Sculpey formed onto toothpicks. After backing them, I placed them in the upper and lower jaws, and used Sculpt or Coat to secure them in place (and to shape the gums).
Step 5
Once all the teeth were in place. I smothered the heads in several coats of Sculpt or Coat to seal the foam. The last coat was a bit thicker, and I used it to make texture for fur, and make angry eyebrows and more defined eyes.
Step 6
Once the Sculpt or Coat was dry, I attached the lower jaws to the heads by shoving 3 inch drywall screws into each side (merely because they were lying around for use, I’m sure another means of attaching them would’ve been just fine). I then used cheap acrylic paint to start a base coat.
Step 7
After painting them, I attached fur. They only had black and white fur at the fabric store, so I used spray paint for highlights. I also sealed the faces with acrylic satin, and gloss for the noses and eyes (so they’d be shiney).
Step 8
I had a lot of finishing up things to do. For this production of Peter Pan, the designer made everything in neverland bright colors, so my wolves needed a few bright color highlights. I then attached the heads to PVC pipe with Gorilla Glue, and attached the pipes together to make a structure that could be held by one person.
