Its not that hard and its a lot of fun. First, you need a boat.
Then give it some thought about how you want to decorate it, what would look good on the boat and then how much time and effort you want to spend on it.
I decided Leslie was my center-piece. The rest of the decorations were easily added. They were cheap but colorful. It took less than an hour for those things. Most of it came from www.mardigrasoutlet.com.
Step 1:
It started with a couple of saw horses, some leftover chicken-wire, a piece of re-bar and the metal rods from political yard signs I'd picked up after the election for my candidate. Thanks Troy Braswell. ( He won.)
Step 2:
I bent the rods from the political yard signs into 3 circles. One for the hips, then the waist and then the chest. I wrapped the chicken wire in a cylinder around the rods and attached it little pieces of twisted wire.
HELPING HINT - Use 1" chicken wire instead of 2". It's more work with the wire cutters but well worth it when trying to shape the figure. It also adds a lot more structural strength that needs less of an internal frame.
I started attaching, connecting the cylinders together end-to-end connected to a piece of re-bar I had bent into the curve of a backbone to be the main structural support for the whole body. Again, small pieces of twisted wire to fasten the re-bar and chicken-wire. The cylinders were connected by twisting the ends of the chicken-wire together. Where I twisted these end pieces all the way around, it actually turned out to be the strongest part of the cylinders because the wire is doubled up.
HELPING HINT - Get some thick rubber fingered garden or work gloves (Walmart - $3.79) to work with the wire. It will save a lot of pain and cuts to your finger tips. I did a similar project last year and paid the price of not having a pair of cut resistant gloves on.
Step 4:
I added the limbs which started as smaller rolls of chicken wire attached the same way to the body by twisting the cut ends together. Since the limbs were going to be extended weight I went a step further. I threaded some baling wire through the overlapping chicken wire like I was sewing the limb onto the body.
HELPING HINT - Use baling wire to reinforce your structure. It is simple before you start applying the skin, almost impossible afterward. I chris-crossed and tightened wire between the political sign rods that made up the ribs which distributed the forces on it to the whole structure. I learned this too, the hard way last year when Chester the Jester's head almost bounced off his shoulder when the boat moved.
Step 5:
Finish up the detail in chicken wire: the hands, feet, head and breasts. As you can see with the body, you shape the cylinder by pushing in pulling the wire to the desired shape. If it is a drastic shape that needs to be reduced, use pliers and twist the chicken wire in tight little circles along a line as much as needed. I did this on the wrists and ankles as well as behind the knees and elbows.
You can add the appearance of mass where needed by simply cutting a shaped section of chicken wire and using the loose ends to wire it into place bubbled out. I needed to do this because the hips were too thin. The new section chicken wire straddled the hip and upper leg. Once I wired it in place it had the added benefit of it strengthening the connection and reinforcing the holding up the weight of the leg. Instead of the weight of the leg pulling on the one connection of the leg and hip it was spread to the added pieces two connections higher on the hip and lower on the leg.
I added a small cylinder of chicken wire that connected the legs on the inside of the knees. It couldn't be seen once on the boat but, it provided a great deal of stability to the legs and helped distribute the weight of the legs.
The hands and feet where more time consuming but, finished quickly. More cutting, shaping and twisting was involved.
The breasts were formed by first shaping a round-cut piece of chicken wire over a large bowl and wiring it into place. My sister likes to refer to it as having been a "Tupperware Family Casserole Sized bowl."
HELPING HINT - Before you go to Step 6, two things:
1. Attach mounting hardwarew to the hard points of your
structure. I added 4 cheap carabiners to the frame of
Leslie extending to outside the skin as attachment points
to hold it to the roof of the boat.
2. Don't attach the head yet so you can complete other tasks
inside the body.
Step 6:
Add the skin to the outside of the chicken wire. You can use paper-mache but I found something better from experience. I used cloth instead. I found quiet a bit at a local second hand store for next nothing. I cut different size strips as need and dipped them in liquid starch (again, Walmart, $1.59 a large bottle) You can mix flour, glue and water but this was way more convenient and it was cheap.
HELPING HINT - apply several or many layers, letting each layer dry thoroughly before applying another.
Step 7:
Finish any thing you need to do on the inside before you attach the head. I used spray Styrofoam to reinforce the legs and arms and along the hip and backbone to tie all the internal structure together further strengthening the form. I also foamed the breasts and head. With the re-bar, metal rod ribs and cross wires hard-foamed together it was a sturdy yet light form.
Since this Jester is named after a friend of mine, I had to add a heart to her. Since she is a hardcore liberal Democrat I saw no need to also add a brain to her head.
Step 8:
Add the head and finish touching up the fabric-mache around the head and shoulders. Then paint with an oil based paint. I had planned on adding a flesh colored paint to the whole figure but, just 4 days before BoatiGras the water pipe to my house blew out. I had no water. That meant no water to clean up with or anything else. I went with the white cloth.
Step 9:
Cloth her. I went to Walmart in Heber Springs and found felt clothe in purple, green, gold and black. It was easy to make up a costume for her. I just draped the material over her and safety pinned it to her underneath and cut off excess material. On the arms, the visible parts of the legs and the black boots I sewed the seams with easy to do large knot stitches using a curved needle. I also cut out some yellow felt diamonds and glued them to the ends of the sleeves and pants legs.
Step 10:
Finish up. I added the hair, face and other details. The hair was Mardi Gras purple/green/gold foil stringed fringe, using clear packing tape, attached to the head. I had planned on detailing the face but I had a large over-sized decorative Mardi Gras mask my sister gave me last year. It was a perfect fit on the face so I used that and saved a lot of time (and it looked great) I got over-sized beads from Mardi Gras Outlet and it too was the perfect size. The fingernails were made from cutting them out of purple paint sample sheets from the paint department at Walmart.
That was pretty much it. Just some imagination and throwing it together. You could make a whale, a unicorn, a space alien: anything you want. This took a couple of weeks working an hour here and there. This could be easily done on a weekend or a couple of people could knock it out in one day. Most of the time I spent on it was actually looking at it thinking how I could make it better and remembering the mistakes and issues I had making one last year. I figure I spent a total of $50-60 on the project. Worth it.
Leslie would be 17 feet tall if she were standing. At first I thought I move it to the boat down at the lake in a pickup truck or hanging out of my sister's van. She was too big. Leslie is larger than life. My sister talked a couple of guys into moving it slow motion down to the marina in the back of a flatbed truck. She is light, one person can easily pick her up but she too bulky for one person to maneuver by their self.
.
She looked good on top of my boat for BoatiGras. When we rounded the boat slips approaching the marina, the large crowd gathered there all stood up as one, approached the water's edge pointing and taking pictures with their phones.
This is a picture once the boat was docked at the marina.
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