< the reflections didnt work but the light source through the top of the drain worked well and were defined.
Last night i decided that i did not like the way the rat hybrid looked like with the crown and cape. I didnt think it fitted in well with my initial concept and it had no fluent meaning and it crept away from the puppet theme.
Hanger idea...
I decided to change the way the wings looked and i decided that the crown was too striking. So i removed the cape and the crown and made the wings in to something separate and made mini hangers from wire. This idea was to create a wardrobe of wings and the outcome would be a pigeon winged harness and then a magpie one. Once tried this didnt work either as the wire didnt support the weight and it didnt look sophisticated as i imagined. (see above)
I also decided that i needed reference to the text that supports my idea. The Aesops tale 'The wolf in sheep's clothing' so i decided to make a little book that my rat could hold.
The new idea now is to have one photograph or series of photographs of my hybrid in Birmingham centre (going back to the very first idea) and then have my hybrid mounted on a suitable peace of wood, on a plinth.
However then I was thinking that you dont find rats on plinths (even though this is a dead rat that is stuffed!) And i came across a clay chimney that looked more like a pipe/ drain i think it would be more suitable to have this on the floor with the rat hybrid inside.
I also tried making my own felt rat as an alternative to using a real rat and taxidermy. This really didnt work and wasnt up to the standard of the previous posts as its harder than it looks...
I have also tried a polymer clay version of a rat head, towards the start of the project I made a pigeon head out of polymer clay and this was deemed to heavy for purpose. So this time round when I made the rat head for a test piece I took David Curtis- Ring's advise and use foil on the inside. I sculpted the head from tin foil and then rolled out the super sculpy over the top. I made some ears and then added some beads for eyes. I then painted it which was a huge mistake as its doesn't look much like fur at all!!
If I were doing it again I would have bury the beads inside the head instead of them sitting on the outside. I would also consider another way of doing the fur.
on a whole super sculpy is a very versatile material and is excellent for this scale of work. It is much lighter with the foil inside and would have been an ideal weight compared to the original tester.
This technique isn't suitable for what I wanted it for in the end, but it would have been ideal inside my simulated drain but alas that didn't materialise.
