My final designs

Taking everything on board at the Moving Tides meeting I have redrawn my final designs thinking more in detail how the children can make sertan parts and and really understanding my design more. I feel not really doing to much design work before this was really a learning curve because its really easy to design something but then thinking of how to make it what miterers to use and how to constructed was really a different thought process that I am not that use to. And to on top of that think how the children are going to make it. I found I quite hard to do. But overall I am really pleased with my design and the feed back I got from the schools were posotive. There was only really one concern which was that the leges might be slightly to far down the children's backs and make it harder to move. When I make and wear my prototype I will test out wether this would be a problem and how to fix it as I feel it is only something to sort out when you have a prototype.

Meeting with head of Moving Tides

To make sure Moving Tides are happy with our ideas and thoughts for the carnival we gave a short presentation on were we are up to and our designs and they inputted there ideas on what they thought of our designs and how well they think they can be transferred into a class room environment.

I took along my little prototype to help explain to them what I have designed.

My feed back from this meeting was, to make the the hole costume bigger. I was going to do this anyway as it was only a little peace to show my ideas but I could defiantly see that they eyes would have to be bigger as when it was tried on by some one there head could touch the eyes and it did not look very cumftable so this was defiantly something to consider when building my actual prototype.

Maybe they need something on there heads as everything is senters all around there backes. They serjested bandagers that could be teye died at the same time as the T-shirts. I thought this was a really good idea and defiantly worth thinking about and even emailed my teacher to ask if they wanted anything on there faces inberticuler as my design had nothing to cover there faces at all. But she seemed happy with where the costume was going. S o I thought just adding the head band would be a nice touch.

Thinking about doing stencils for the eyes to make them all the same and simpler to each other as this could be something that just looks wrong as they are such a vital feature of the costume. I thought this was also a really good idea as I had not thought about this aspect of it at all that they would all be very different so will defiantly try different stencil ideas to make the eyes easier for them paint.

It was also mentioned that if I could not find purple plasterzote that maybe yellow plasterzote would do and having the spots on the legs purple instead.

All these ideas were really helpful and made me think much more about the actual taking the costumes into schools to hake and how they will achieve the final out come. My over all feed back was posotive and really only needed a few things ironed out which was good, and I was really pleases with there reactions to the design.

Almost prototyping

The ideas that I took foreword from my experiments with metals were the plastizote legs and doing it in a thicker plasterzote would be the best way as it would be more defiant and be seen form a large distance. witch is what I was trying to acheeve. As I want my designs to stand out and be noticed in the crowd. So the 12mm thick platerzote would be more aropreut for this. and I tested it out with some even though it is not the right colour you can defiantly see that it is a better idea than the other options I came up with.

The eyes needed to be more light wait that the plastic ball I had picket up form the scrap store so came to the conclusion of paper mashing ballons which worked really well so much better as there is less wait and strain to hold them up and something the children can do in there lessons that envolves them as well.

The sticks to hold the the eyes up I have demonstrated hear with willow and this works realy well I think also using centre cane like for the antenna's but just using 3 peaces on centercan and 1 wire would hold the eyes up but this would need to be experimented with.

The antennas can stay the same with centre cane and wire as they work really well as the children can mold them into there own shapes they want.

The back pack its self will all be contend in corex plastic that will be spray painted purple to match. The width of the plasterzote inbertween the corex means that there is enough room to but the antennas  and poles for the eyes so its is all neat and encaged and they tied up with cable ties.

Experiments

I found it really hard to come up with ideas on what to make my costume with so decided the best way was to go shopping and get ideas.

A visit to the local scrap store was the first thing to see if there was any think there that I could use.

Then round the local shops like 99p store, wilkinson and G&T's

Then I started to experiment with the different materials I had found to create something I had envisioned.

Theses are some of my first ideas. I really wanted the eyes to droop and dance around when the children walked along. So I thought garden hoes pipe with wire inside would do the job. This was not strongnuf so a rethink hear was in order.

The antenners could be made out of centre cane and wire then raped in purple scraps of fabric to get the purple colour. I think this worked well and really court the essence of what I wanted out of the antenners.

The legs needed to be a bit more of a bold than the ones made of different materials although they can move and look more realistic you have to remember that I am designing for a carnival and carnivals need to be big and bold. So I think the plasterzote side worked better and the children can put yellow spots onto them. I would defiantly be thinker that the plasterzote that I have demonstrated with to have a big impact on the costume.

This was defiantly a good way to experiment with the materials for me as I couldn't imagine what the costume would look like in my head. Imagining what the different materials would look like. so for me this was defiantly the best way.

Design Development

Looking at everything that I have researched I started to design my final designs.

Carnivals

Researching into Carnivals I found Peter Minshal who is one of the leading carnival designers. He makes effective costumes for large scale processions, getting as much detail into the costumes as possible but still being really effective and not over powering. he has been apart of designed three Olympic games 1992,1996 and 2002. Looking at his work really made me think that the detail does matter.




They do have to be big and bold but also have the individual touch off the person making it and that it is more of a journey than I first thought. making the the costume putting all the love and care into it, then the joy and fun of wearing it on the actual carnival day. Walking down the street feeling proud of what you have managed to achieve.

Rio Carnival really made me think about how colour blocking is really effective and as we have been assigned a colour I think I will try and keep to Purple as much as possible with only a few hints of the yellow and blue.

Project Officially Starts

Today the project officially starts.

I have thought a lot about what sort of shape I want to create for the children and with the shrimp I have chosen to draw inspiration from the leg's, antenna's and eye's. I have decided that the best way to incorporate all of these into the costume is to have a Corex backpack I saw at the Kinetika weekend.

Sea Life Centre

I felt to get inspiration fro this project the best place to look was the sea life centre. So a visit to the birmingham sea life centre was on the cards as I went home for the weekend. After speeking to the teachers and deciding that we will be going with a shrimp costume then I really focused my idears on shrimps although there was not the Pederson Cleaner Shrimp at the sea life centre it was really good to look at all the colours that are found under the sea and I did find pictures of the peppermint shrimp and as they have very similar shapes and body forms.

Willow Workshop

Willow work shop was such an interesting workshop to do as I have never done anything like this before and it really interested me. Although I do not feel I would be confident enough to take it into Radipole School and teach it to a class. It was such a good experience and maybe in other projects I will incorrect it.

 The willow needs to be soaked in a bath at leased over night to be wet enough to shape.

To succour the willow in place use masking tape.

 You need to get the shape you want with the willow easing it round with you thumb. No sudden bends as it will snap. Willow does not like straight lines.

To cover willow you need to put cling film over the top of it to make the shape stronger.

Once covered in cling film you can the cover with whet strength tissue paper

Plasterzote Workshop

Plasterzote is a fome material. This is such a good material to make head dresses with and masks. The children can get involved with it and use it in the classrooms which is so good. We had some demonstration with it was was told how to make head dresses. The plasterzote I was using would probably be a bit to thick for the children to use them selfs as you would have to use knifes to cut it. I would have to contact the schools and see if it would be allowed. But we also used centre cain and wire together and this made some interesting shapes on my head dress. This is a really good combination of materials to use and you can get a solid shape but it can be bent and wont really snap, it just doen't look that grate and would have to be covered if I was going to use.

This is my head dress I made and by sticking on beads and flan circles really adds texture and something the children can really go crazy with.



This is a good place to get plasterzote form www.trylon.co.uk
This is a good place to get centre cane from www.fredaldous.co.uk

Kinetika Workshop

Kinetika is organising Moving Tides this year. This was a weekend to get more of an idea what is expected by Moving Tides and also have a look at other events that Kinetika have run.

The best part of the week end was to meet the teachers that we will be working with. This was so existing and really helped kick start all the ideas I had for costumes. The teachers had so many ideas and were I feel the really worked well bouncing ideas around and with the designated colour of purple we managed to work with the ideas that I had come up with before the meeting.

We finally came to the conciliation of working with shrimps and even found a blue/purple shrimp called Pederson Cleaner Shrimp. These lure fish with there antennas and then pick parasites from them. This is such a good staring point and I feel this gives me lots of different ways I could go with the costumes.

We also looked at lots of different costumes Kinetika have made for all sorts of different events and carnivals. This was so useful and gave me so many ideas.

The bicycle pack was so good how it didn't attach to the body and the only way it was succour is that the wire goes underneath the arms. This would be cumpftable and easy for the children to wear. It also gives a lot of hight around the back of the neck.

Another one I really liked was the corex backpack. This is a light wait simple plate tied around the shoulders and waist to mount wings or rods onto. This is such a good idea and out of everything we were shown that day I really think this is some thing I would incorporate into my design, as it can give the costume hight with out putting strain on to the children.

The head dresses was also really interesting because I will be making one of these for the teacher to wear in the carnival.