WARNING, THE END OF THIS POST IS A BIT GRUESOME, BUT I PROMISE NO REAL PIGS WERE HARMED :)
A while ago a teacher friend of mine asked me to make a severed pigs head for a school production of The Lord of the flies. My instructions were to be as gorey as possible, but to pretty much do what I wanted!
I decided to use a method I learned at uni, as it would make a strong but light head that could be flung around by a bunch of teenage without getting damaged or damaging any of them. (Health and safety!)
The first step is to make a rough sculpt of the shape you are making. If you were making a detailed, complicated shape, sculpting it out of clay would get the best results, but as a pigs head is a fairly basic shape, I made it from scrunched up paper held together with Sellotape.
Next I covered the whole thing in clingfilm, this lets you take a pattern of the shape off.
Then covered the clingfilm in parcel tape to the pattern holds together.
You then mark out a pattern on the sculpt, dividing it into manageable bits. Dividing along any obvious lines in the shape helps to keep its shape once it is re assembled, and the more pieces you divide it into, the more accurately the shape will transfer.
Next you will need to mark the pattern so that you know which piece goes where; putting a few labelled dashes across the edges of each pattern piece will let you match up each piece really accurately.
Now comes the fun part! Cut out each pattern piece along the lines you've drawn.
My pigs head is made of plasterzote, which is a thin dense foam, so the next thing I did was trace the shapes I had cut out onto a sheet of plasterzote and cut them out, marking all the little dashes on. I traced them face down so that when I stuck them together the writing would be on the inside.
Now to stick it all together! I used contact adhesive; you basically spread glue onto the edges of both pieces you want to stick together, leave it to dry for a few minutes, then carefully match up your dashes and push the edges together, until you have your shape! (The final piece is always quite tricky)
I then added some ears to my pig and marked out where its eyes would go.
To get a piggy colour and to add some texture and cover the joins, I covered the whole thing with strips of fabric, pasting them on with liquid latex mixed with acrylic paint.
Meanwhile I made some eyes from super sculpey and painted and varnished them. I then stuck them on using the contact glue and added some eyelids made from more fabric and latex.
GRUESOME PART NEXT!!!
Now for the 'decoration'! I mixed up some really bright red acrylic paint and latex and painted and dripped on some horrific wounds!!
Then 'deepened' the wounds with a darker paint and latex mixture.
