The Evolution of the Monster

So as many of you know, my life for the past few months has been monsters, swamps, witches, and living trees.  For some crazy reason, I decided to put on a play at West Point Jr. this year.  I put on J. Omar Hansen's "The Horrible Monster of Danky Swamp."  Omar was one of my professors at BYU-Idaho, and I actually acted in Danky Swamp during my Junior year there. Deciding to put this on was a little risky because it would be the first play West Point had put on for many years.  It was hard to go through all the set design, sound design, light design, and rehearsals by myself, but it was totally worth it because I had amazing students to work with.  I also had awesome support from my parents, Soren, faculty members, and community members.

The most challenging/fun part of the project was building the monster.  The monster in the production I was a part of was operated by one actor who was harnessed into a structure that sat on his shoulders with the monster head on top.  I wasn't sure I wanted to try to tackle that and I also wanted to incorporate more actors, so I decided to do a Chinese-dragon style monster instead.  This way, I could have 3 or 4 actors play the monster, instead of just one.  So, I gathered a dryer box (courtesy of Charlie Fuller's Appliances), a bolt of free shiny green fabric left from the previous drama teacher, chicken wire from Home Depot, extra fabric from Joann, two hula hoops, paint, and glue, and got started.  I had no idea what I was doing.

Here's the dryer box.  At this point, I had already cut out the mouth

This is his back.  The fabric is greener and shiner on the other side.

Here's the start of the chicken wireing

Chicken wiring all done.  He went for a test drive this day with the actors.

Soren came and began the paper mache process for me.  It was a big help.

This was the first primer coat.  I was amazed how far I was able to stretch the paint.

Here the paint was pretty much finished.

I finally got the back attached so the actors could use it even though I still had to finish sewing the little scraps of fabric onto him...the little scraps were to hide the actors' feet more and to give him that "swampy" feel. 

This is a picture of the finished product, courtesy of Black Hat media.  I was really pleased with how he turned out.  the cast named him "Gus." 

Here's a front view of Gus, with Lily the tree and Becca the Witch.

Me being eaten by my creation.

It was such a fun experience.  Unfortunately I had to send Gus's head to the dump when I finished, but I still have his back.