Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Children's Books Display - Part 13

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I knew that I'd need characters for the accompanying window display. While some of them would later be incorporated into the main display, some would not. This monster was one of extra characters.



Unlike the other characters, this one was not an original creation. It's based on a monster from the old Japanese television series "Space Giants." I love the design of the Japanese monsters from the 60s and early 70s, including the weird cyclops Belzor (seen here in vinyl toy form courtesy of this set of flickr photos ).

My six-year old son is also a big fan and has a really large Japanese monster toy collection. This monster was done as a tribute to him, and in fact he's already claimed it for his room once the window display is taken down. So much for putting it on ebay.



This was made in components which were assembled once dry. The body was simple a loaf shaped construction of newspaper, with garden hose (with coat hanger wire insert) legs, and scrap wood scrap feet. The arms are built up cardboard which were screwed into the sides of the body and up and down articulation. The three tubes on the head are simply long narrow newspaper cones. The eye socket is built up using the paper pulp/wheat paste mix described in previous entries.


The eye itself is merely a ping pong ball which was painted with several coats of white and a black pupil. The entire thing was painted the same color green as the leaves on the tree, with pink highlights inside the head tubes.

All in all, this was a pretty simple creation and he stands really well on his own without any additional support.

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