Final Reflection

We started off with this idea and we wanted to create something related to nature. we think that the monkey is abstract and has a good meaning. The monkey represents about being unique and funky. The monkey's body and face are very strange and peculiar. Me and Mario collected our ideas and made a sketch of how the monkey would look like when creating the sculpture

The final piece with lights

We finally added the eyes by cutting out the ping pong balls in half. We drew the pupil of the eye and then attached it with a glue gun to the head. Then we pulled the green fairy lights through the body and into the head. When we switched don the lights the mouth and the body were lit up green.

Putting it together

We had to cut a big hole at the bottom of the bottle to fit the organs in. To do this we started off by taking a string/fishing line and attaching it to the organs. Then we pulled the organs through the body and attached it to the lid of the bottle. For the tail, we took a thick wire and shaped it into a tail and attached it to the body. Then we attached a bell at the end of the tail so when the hands rotate the bell would get hit by the hand. Finally, for the hands, we took a motor and attached it to the batters. we pull the motor ad battery through one of the holes on each side of the body. Then we attached a wire to the motors. This was successful but then the motor had some technical issues and it stopped working.

Attaching the head and legs to the body

We were contemplating on how to attach the head to the body. At first, we thought we should just glue it in as it would be the easiest option. However, when we checked out how it would look, it looked disproportioned. So then we decided to cut out a hole in the head. Our group was really worried that the head would crack and break if we cut a big hole. Tereza used a scissor to make a hole and then used sand paper to expand it. The sand paper was a safer way of making the hole, as it didn't cause any damages to the head.

Creating the body

 Instead of using Tupperware and layering the body with felt, we decided to use the big water bottles as the body. We decided to keep it transparent as we wanted to fit in organs of the monkey. Mario drew organs of the monkey and attached the organs to each other to put into the water bottle.

Our first idea for the body was to use cardboard or Tupperware box and shape it into the body. Our teacher then advised us to use the water bottle as it is more abstract. We had to cut in holes from the sides to fit the motors in so we can attach the hands

Finishing the head

At the point, our head didn't have a shape of the monkey. We were confused on how to get the perfect monkey mouth shape. So our teacher told us to look at reference pictures to help us out with creating the perfect side profile. So we took paper and crumbled it and attached it to the mouth to give the monkey a big mouth. Then we applied a layer of mod roc to finish it off.  Then after creating the structure of the face, for the ear, we made the shape with clay and then to prevent cracks we layered it with a mod roc. Then to attach the ears to the head we used more mod roc. I was quite hard to attach the ear as the mod roc had to dry up to be attached to the head. Then to give it the perfect look, we painted the head, brown at the outer parts and beige in the inner parts. It was hard to create the beige colour as there was not a lot of white paint in supply, but we still made it work.

structure of the head ready

The balloon dried up and we popped the balloon. After the balloon was popped, we cut out a mouth and then added clay to make the lips. We also did final touch-ups on the hands as the paints were cracking a little and there were a few white spots as well.

starting with the head

We blew up a balloon to the size of the monkey head. Then we took mod roc and applied strips of it to the balloon. After we dried we added another layer to make it strong, then we added a final layer to create a good structure so it doesn't crack. This step didn't take very long since the mod roc didn't take a long time to dry off.  

Creating the legs feet

we created the legs and feet by using clay. We first rolled out the clay in a round cylinder shape and formed it into the legs. Then we made the feet out of clay as well and attached it to the legs. The next lesson we noticed that the clay cracked and then we had to come up with a solution. Our solution was to layer modroc on top of the clay so the legs are firm and doesn't crack. We took a lesson to put on the modroc and it turned out successful. On the third lesson, we started to paint the legs and feet. The legs were painted brown and the feet were painted beige.