Jul 26, 2015

Vally of the Dolls

I'm not sure what production it will be for but we were asked to create 2 giant pill capsules that are needed for a photo-shoot for some of Nearly Naked Theater's marketing and promotional materials for next season.  So to make these I really plumbed the depths of my resourcefulness.

Juicy Couture had done some elaborate jewelry packaging some years back.  One had a sculpted bust of a woman from the 18th century meant to put a necklace on and then she was inside a plastic bell jar or done.  Their was a different statute under a similar jar that was used for earrings. So a friend was somewhere and they had 3 of these that had been damaged that they where tossing and she nabbed them for us.  We took 2 that where the same size to use as the translucent half for each of our two capsules.

For inside the clear dome I wanted little pellets of medication like you sometimes see but couldn't find gumballs or any other round candy.  What we had that was perfect where some paint balls.  They were in these plastic tubes that had flip lids and could be attached to a belt.  We bought them at a goodwill for the containers which I fill with nails or screws.  But hoarders that we can sometimes be we still had a tube of these that still hap paint balls in it.  There weren't enough to just fill each capsule so I used a paper towel type cardboard tube and stuck a ball pit pall on the end (doesn't everyone keep a trash bag of ball pit balls on hand just in case they are needed?).  I painted that and glued the paint balls on that and put this inside the dome.

Finally the other side of my capsules I made by doing something similar to the base I made with the tube and ball pit ball only larger.  Then to make it smooth and uniform I did a coat of joint compound which I was then able to sand down.  It still wasn't quite right but I didn't want to make it heavy with more joint compound so I took some leftover air dry clay Jay made some months ago that we had a little bit of leftover after the project he mixed it for.  That clay was made with school glue as the main base.  That left my capsule with a nice smooth look.  Blue paint and 2 layers of acrylic clear coat enamel spray and I was done.

Jun 16, 2015

Masks for Clive Barker's History of the Devil

For the spring season of 2015 Nearly Naked Theater did a production of Clive Barker's History of the Devil.  There are nearly 30 characters in all in the play but these are played by a cast of maybe 11 actors all together.  The author intended for masks to be used to help the audience distinguish which character an actor is portraying at any given point.  So our biggest job was to create over 20 masks.  For this we got to work with a great product for the first time.  It is called Fosshape and feels and looks like a thick felt.  You can sew it or pin it to the curves and contours you want for the final piece then apply heat with a heat gun or hair dryer.  The fibers are plastic and when heat is applied the material contracts slightly and gains a fairly rigid quality very much like molded felt hats but accomplished easily and quickly by any novice.  Below are some examples of our masks.  I have included images done for publicity purposes for the show for which I will be adding a citation and securing permission for using.























Props, set and costume elements for "Angels in America"



Nearly Naked theater is producing both parts of "Angels in America" to round of its 16th season.  We created a number of elements but by far the most exciting was to create the angel's wings.  They were to operate using a bunraku style puppetry technique with one stage hand on each wing.  Here are some pictures of  the wings in process and a video of the test run on the completed set of articulated angel wings.











Another success for this production was our angel statue that remains on the stage for the entire production and is the center piece for all scenes in central park.  It is of course meant to represent the Bethesda Fountain statue.