I now have six figures in my art project, The May Parade - Scenes from an Imaginary Folk Festival. They are (top to bottom) The Jangler, Crimpy Jack (the Pasty King), The Mock Mayor, The Teaser, Denzil the Drum and the Dragon Piper.
I knew I needed to make more figures - especially musicians - but I also felt that there needed to be a centrepiece for the parade. My first thought was some kind of a float, maybe with a May Queen? But then I thought ... what about someone playing a huge carnyx?
If you're not familiar with the carnyx, it was a tall Celtic horn that was played before going into battle. The sound of a number of these roaring from their dragon-like mouths would certainly have put the wind up enemy soldiers.
As you can see from that video, it was a big horn and it would have been difficult to carry into battle. So what if I made a REALLY big carnyx - the size of those insanely large Alpine horns, for example - and mounted it on a float of some kind? I could then sculpt an attendant blower and maybe some other musicians and someone to drive or pull the cart.
That would make a grand centrepiece.
And it would be my most complex build yet involving at least three sculpted figures and a scratchbuilt vehicle.
So I started with the carnyx itself and the blower - now officially named Puffing Pooley. The carnyx was made from polymer clay and a piece of wood I've had in my bits box for ages (no idea where it came from).
I realise that the colours are a bit odd but I was using up some old Fimo polymer clay. Ultimately, everything will be 'bronzed'.
I then went through my bits box to find any old off-cuts of balsa wood, tongue depressers, coffee stirrers and wheels that I could kitbash into a basic cart shape. I originally envisaged the blower being sat on a chair and the carnyx mounted on some sort of platform.
However, the more I played with the bits I had (I didn't want to spend any extra money if possible) the more I realised that I should reverse the structure and use the 'chair' as the mount for the horn.
The most difficult task was working how to hold the carnyx in place in exactly the right spot to align it with the blower's lips. But I did it! It involved creating a set of hay bales for him to sit on that gave him the right height and angle. Phew.
Once done I painted the whole thing black.
The next job was to create another figure to sit on the back (and to provide a counterweight to the carnyx). I decided to create a female fiddler and made her from a mix of Super Sculpey and Cosclay. Her fiddle came from a bag of old Playmobil children's toys found in a charity shop a few years ago.
I painted her black too.
A third figure was then needed to either push or tow the cart. And I figured it needed to be someone big and strong so I based the figure partly on a bull and partly on the 'Beast of Bodmin' that appears in the mumming plays during that town's annual culture festival.
As always, I made an armature from wire, padded it out with kitchen foil and then gave it a basic cover using the last of the small Fimo clay blocks that I had. After baking, I added hair by pushing Cosclay through an extruder and then I sculpted the head in Original Sculpey covered with a skin of extra fine Super Sculpey..
Finally, I gave the whole construction a zenithal highlight in gold and the carnyx cart has now joined the May Parade!
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