Next alien creature mask for Return to the Planet : experimenting with a race genetically derived from big cats – in this case, a jaguar. The mask base is instamorph, draped over a clay sculpt, with the teeth moulded separately. The whiskers are re-purposed old ukulele strings. The painting (in acrylic) is still rough, just to work out the idea.
That sensible reason being that Cyclops+Unicorn=Cylicorn. The alternative result of using an Earth based myth-referencing concatenation system of nomenclature is Uniclops. And, somehow that doesn’t have quite the right ring.
Cylicorns are just one of many species that could inhabit The Planet in May.
Plastic shells for the next two aliens. All this series are being made as half-masks, so the performers wearing them can speak. Or Meep, as the case may be.
Day two, Instamorph stage alien mask for a show next year, start of the paint job.
My first mask of the season, the clay draft of a stage alien for a show next year. Yay!
The requirement was to quickly come up with a poster image for a WIT show in next year’s Fringe Festival. Battle of WITS is a fun improv team-on-team sort of show, with zero budget. So, “look scary” I told two friends, in five spare minutes before a class. And they cheerfully hammed it up. A moderate amount of exploding backgrounds and death laser eyes later that evening . . . pure Photoshop corniness.
Improv, impro, improvisation: however you say it, spontaneous theatre reached soaring heights and delicious joyful nadirs at the 2013 New Zealand Improv Festival in Wellington. There were lovely improvisors from around NZ and Australia and beyond, I got to be a “wonderfully wide-eyed” villainous spider demon queen in a Doctor Who adventure. I sang in a choir that sounded magnificent despite that. I was duty photographer for some of the shows, and at times it was hard to keep the camera steady due to laughing so much. And, and, and . . . hope they do it all again next year.
