Papier Mache Mad!

Recently, I seem to have reverted back to my joyous primary school craft days, and have been especially loving papier mache! I had forgotten just how satisfying it is glueing all of those layers of paper onto a balloon (most traditional) or any other item I fancied modifying.

The thing that started my first papier mache session, was that I needed to make a puppet parrot (Captain Flint) for our school Treasure Island production. This parrot needed to have a moving head and wings, be light, and be able to be controlled by 2 of the girls in the play. Therefore, papier mache was the first thing that sprung to mind, as it's light but really strong, and very easily to manipulate, so I got to work making parrot puppet no.1.

How to make a parrot puppet out of papier mache

As usual, I got too excited and too engrossed in my creating that I forgot to take any photos, but basically I covered a normal sized balloon in papier mache for the body, a small balloon for the head, then added on a beak, and moulded some claws around a long balloon. I then made the wings out of wire and newspaper strips, and attached the head to the body with elastic bands and fabric. Here is the finished prototype:

The girls played around with parrot no.1 for a few weeks and let me know the issues with this model, and anything they thought could be made differently, which was really helpful. So armed with all this knowledge, it was time to start the real Captain Flint. 

He had the same head and body shape as before, only no.2 has a slightly larger beak, a slightly shorter neck, and the neck fabric is attached much more securely to both the head and the body. I have used the same thickness of papier mache base, and then once he was dry I have painted him with a few coats of poster paint. 

The bits you can see sticking out are the cable ties which I have attached on the inside, which will be used to hold the feet, and back and head sticks in place securely. 

For the wings, as the newspaper kept ripping, I have opted for a felt base, cut into feather shapes, with dyed feathers I bought from Amazon stitched and glued into place on top. In keeping with how a real Scarlet Macaw would look, I have used red, yellow, turquoise and blue feathers to create the wings. I started with the bottom row, and allowed the glue on each row to dry before adding the next layer of feathers to make them looks as authentic as possible.

Aside from using stronger wire to attach the wings, using screw hooks in the end of the dowels to keep them attached to Captain Flint, no.2 is much the same as no.1, just with a lot of added paint and feathers. 

Here he is finished and ready to fly....but don't fall for his soft exterior, he is a blood-thirsty, knife-wielding pirate parrot really on the inside....watch out!

No. 2 has fabric strips wrapped around wire to make more flexible feet, as the papier mache ones on no.1 were too rigid.