PROPS, SCULPTURE & MASKS
Midsummer Night's
Dream: The Play Within the Play
A reimagining of the famous Shakespeare play called for a twist of surrealism and authenticity when the co-directors approached me about the idea and asked me to design and fabricate the masks. Below is the concept art that I created followed by the finished masks and the process.
M. VIDAL
M. VIDAL
M. VIDAL
M. VIDAL
M. VIDAL
M. VIDAL
M. VIDAL
M. VIDAL
Inspired by Disney's The Lion King's mechanical puppet masks used in their broadway show, I wanted to give this already broken character a more dramatic mask. A broken porcelain doll put together merely by "threads and tree gum".
THE PROCESS
Originally, the porcelain mask was more accurate to the sketch and rather simple, but a miraculous idea happened when I accidentally baked the clay with a plastic face mask underneath it, which had served as a base when applying and molding the clay, thus melting and causing the clay mask to shift around and break. Instead of starting over, I used the now broken pieces of the clay, and decided to loosely tether it with threads and wires to give it a more dramatic and "claymation" look and appear floating. I also accentuated certain features like the nose, cheek bones and eyelashes.
