Making Miniature Trees Part Three

I started working on two leafy type trees recently for a miniature Skull Island jungle film set. They both are around 20 inches high. They are made to scale for the  King Kong stop motion puppet that will be used in the film.

After building the trunk armature up I covered it in a paper mache mixture. The top layer was covered in paper cloth impregnated with mache.

                After covering the tree in the paper cloth I gave it a roughened bark texture.

 Here is one of the wrapped wire tree limbs with a covering of cotton and liquid latex. The wood block on the end will  attach to a slot in the main trunk.

                             Applying a mixture of tinted liquid latex to the branch.

                                            The finished branch after it has dried.

                      The main trunk with the slot I mentioned earlier to accommodate the branch.

The birch wood block base of the larger tree, I added some roots into the Apoxie clay base before it cured.

Aluminum wire forms the upper tree branches. Apoxie clay is added at the base of each branch to   firmly secure it to trunk section of the tree.                                                                                                                                                                   

After painting a coat of liquid latex on the wire I wrapped it with cotton twine to build it up.

                                 Cotton and additional liquid latex was applied to form the branch.

                          The base of the trunk with Aluminum wire and Apoxie clay roots.   

                                       Covering the wire root with cotton & liquid latex.

                      Some smaller roots made with tinted liquid latex over floral wire.

                   Adding the thinner roots to the main root section. This week I look forward to begin creating the leafy foliage for the tree tops!

Kong Spider Pit Finished

I have been working on my interpretation of the stop motion puppets and spider pit from King Kong (1933). I thought I'd share some photos of the completed work.

Here is a full view of the ravine.

A detail view of the right wall.

View of the top of the left wall.

The lizard creature slithering out of the cave in the ravine.

The lizard attacking one of the convicts.

The crab snatching one of the survivors up into its claws.

The lizard and the crab fighting over one of the convicts.

The spider polishing off a victim.

Convicts being menaced by the spider.

A view of the ravine shot through the cave opening.

The tentacle creature on the attack.

The inhabitants of the pit waiting for something else to fall into their lair.

Making Tentacles for a Stop Motion Puppet

The stop motion puppet I'm designing will have six tentacles. I sculpted one tentacle and made a two piece mold of it.

From the two molds I made six sets of latex skins. Six top sides and six bottom sections to cover the finished tentacles.

The tentacles were made by taking a section of aluminum wire and wrapping it in cotton string. I tacked the string in place with a bit of liquid latex rubber.

The thicker portion of tentacle that attaches to the body of the creature was built up with sections of foam rubber.

Then after dabbing on a bit of liquid latex I began wrapping the entire tentacle with athletic foam wrap.

Here is a top section of the latex skin for the tentacle fresh from the mold.

Here I'm test fitting the skin to one of the foam wrapped wire tentacles.

Next post I'll begin assembling the tentacles.

Spider Pit Ravine WIP Photos

I've been chipping away at getting my spider pit ravine finished but it has been slow going. The weather has been constantly rainy, humid and foggy for the last week.

Because of this the rock work I am doing on the ravine walls is taking forever to dry! The picture below is the wood and hardware cloth frame covered with mache and wood putty. I've just added a section of styrofoam board to build up the rock face.

This is the styrofoam rock face before I added my mache/wood putty mixture.

This is the rock face about 75% finished. I just have to refine the cave entrance a bit.

Here is the pit lizard stop motion puppet sitting on one of the finished boulders waiting for its final coat of paint.