Armadillo Making - Body

I needed to work out a way of making the shell of Antonio. In the seagull workshop I was showed how to create curves, bit obvious but hadn't thought about it before. Anyway just putting slits I could create this dome type object below. This is in my sketchbook.

 

 

I didn't feel this was quite right, look it slightly curves underneath. I'm lying just totally lying. I left this at college over Easter. So made a new one at home but I did prefer the second attempt.

This one had far too many slits cut into it and was not the right shape.

This one was the same.

Not enough.

To bigger slit.

Nope.

Just ignore this one.

Perfect.

I had cut this out the wrong way but does show you what shape I used. I used a domestic sewing machine to  sew up each one, just held right sides together and sewed as close as I could.

Getting the tension right was a bit of a pain to start with. 

These were the new strips I used for the middle of it, the biggest one is 17 inch and goes down to 14 inch and are about inch and a half wide. I chose this sizing because it fit correctly onto the shoulder plates and back plates. 

This here was me weighing to see how heavy using this rod stuff would be. I was going to use this on every single strip but it worked out to be too heavy for an actor to carry around all day. So I needed to find another solution. 

I was thinking and decided that plastic boning would be a good idea as it is strong and would be easy to attach. When I got to the shop I noticed this, it is metal boning with a plastic cover. I bought this cause thinking about it plastic boning isn't shapeable. 

'Your next mission is to work how to this stick this onto the leather. Go Go Go Go. This message will self destruct in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Boom' 

I had a bit of difficulty working out how to stick this to the leather. I first tried glue gunning it straight on nope didn't like this, came straight off. Then tried it with glue gunning fabric to it but that just looked messy and still didn't stick. I then thought of how I could make make the leather rough for the glue to latch onto. I first found some iron on interfacing. I first tested it out, 'Anna you have completed your mission. Error. Error.' The test worked with ironing it on and then glue gunning the boning to it. So decided to to get on with making all the strips like this. Then disaster struck. The interfacing wasn't happy sticking to the leather and individually, one by one they fell off. 'You have one more chance to complete this mission.' I decided to try super glue, the glue that stick nothing but skin together. It only went on bloody worked. I had left the interfacing on the boning and that stuck to the leather. Must have been because leather is skin. 'Mission Complete'

Next I had to work out how to attach the patent band onto the edge of the shoulders and back. My dad suggested pop rivets as they are cheap and strong. I didn't really know what else to use and they are quite discreet.

Here I was working out how what size pop rivet and how many/what size washers.  

Gotta Giggle. The head shape of this wasn't cut out properly and didn't have any intention of using this shape.

Too loooong.

This was the shape I used after practising with paper and it working. I sewed this the same as the head.

Whaaat? Ear Example. I still need to work these out.