Happy Halloween

Mr Tumnus plays a Narnian
lullaby near an outdoor lamp.
It's the closest thing he could
find to a lamp post.

It's Mr Tumnus, complete with parcels,
umbrella and scarf.

This was the first public outing for Furvus. He went in costume; as Mr Tumnus, everybody's favourite faun.

The scarf was borrowed from a neighbour. It's surprising how effective it was at completing the costume.

I felt it better to include a breech-clout to cover up the Furvus/Tumnus, erm, package in case there were children present, although my wife decreed that it should have been black and not Indonesian batik.

She was going to appear at this same party as Lucy Pevensie, but alas was unable to find sufficient dowdy 1940s girls' clothes and shoes.







Speaking of children, just as I was heading out, the doorbell rang and a small girl said, "Trick or treat!"

She was taken aback when I asked her if she was a Daughter of Eve, and was probably about to burst into tears when my wife stepped in to explain that I was from The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. At this point, this shocked child (who must have been all of five years old) suddenly became Mr Tumnus' BFF.



Recorder close-up.
Not a heavy, metal instrument.

The party itself went well, and the hooves stood up to foot-tapping abuse and even further and more sustained abuse on the dance floor. People were amazed. Why?



The full-length shot.

Have they never heard of a dancing faun?



And the horns and ears stayed in place too when the music headed in a 70s metal direction. I haven't seen pictures of Mr Tumnus headbanging and singing along to AC/DC's Highway to Hell, but I guess it's only a matter of time.



The Minotaur Project

According to ancient Cretan tradition, there was a bull-headed monster living in a labyrinth. Theseus heroically slew this monster and the rest of the story is, well, legend. The Minotaur was generally described as a human male with a bull's head, but he has subsequently been represented as also having bovine rear legs and tail too.

So with this in mind, I set about creating a Minotaur head for use either with or without my cloven hooves.

My first port of call was Google SketchUp. I found a reasonable 3D minotaur model and another model of a human male, and I combined them to produce several views of what I wanted the finished product to look like. I wanted it to look reasonably in proportion. 

A basic problem is the eyes: bovine eyes are very high on the skull, and it's actually quite difficult to place them in a likely position and for it still to be possible to look through the same holes.

For my next trick, I gutted an old construction hard hat and glued the inner frame - the bit that sits on my head - to some cardboard shapes. And I wanted the jaw to articulate, so I looked at bovine anatomy on the internet and learned that the jawbone actually hinges to the skull just behind the eye socket.

Articulating jaw.

The head begins to take shape.

I found some long cardboard tube and cut it up to make the formers for the bull's horns.

Horns 2.

Horns 1

Now papier mache. Despite the mix of Elmer's Glue-All and water being washable with water, I learned last time that it makes one helluva mess. This time round, I did the work on the kitchen draining board, which controlled the extent of mess and made cleanup a lot easier.

Papier mache complete.

Papier mache mess.

And then I got out the hot glue gun and the Karrimat, and made a smoother surface that would eventually be covered with fur.

The horns were covered with several layers of air-dry clay, each layer being sanded down and filled until the horns were a satisfactorily smooth shape. Then I painted them with acrylics and varnished them with Elmer's, which should help to control any clay cracking and make the horns more durable.

Foam and clay.

Finally, I started with paint and fur. It isn't perfect yet, but here's the product so far. It's almost impossible to see out of and, disappointingly, I can't get the jaw to articulate. When I try, the whole mask droops forward and if I want to open the mouth I have to hold the back of the head down.

"Anyone seen my labyrinth?"

The Faun Collective

This post is simply a photo gallery. All pics taken by Furvus on his various travels over the last several years, as he noticed and recorded miscellaneous representations of his extended family. 

One of several similar large Fauns
 in Rome's Capitoline Museum. 

Capitoline Museum, Rome.

Rome seems an appropriate place to start. The Faun is, of course, a creature of Roman mythology. He’s closely related to the Greek Satyr, and for the purposes of these pictures, I’m treating them as the same.

Angel and Demon?
Sistine Museum, Vatican City.

Sitting Satyr.
Sistine Museum, Vatican City.

Now south to Naples, and the ancient Roman towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum.

These two Fauns, sheltering from the rain, are part of an extremely rickety arch in Naples.

Sarcophagus detail.
Naples Archaeological Museum.

Surprise! A female Faun. Naples.

Faun in Pompeii. He's got horns but not hooves.
This is a reproduction; the original's in Naples

Faun detail.
Original, from the House of the Faun in Pompeii,
now in Naples Archaeological Museum.

Off to northern Italy now, and Renaissance Florence.

Faun in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence.

Faun in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence.

Sneaky pic, 'cos of  "No pictures."
Florence.

One of several Fauns adorning the
Fountain of Neptune, Piazza della Signoria,
Florence.

East to Greece. Athens had a plethora of statues of gods and heroes for sale in the tourist shops. The real stuff is in the Archaeological Museum. 

Faun wearing a cloak.
Athens Archaeological
Museum.

Athena and Pan.
Athens Archaeological Museum.

Several gods and heroes showed up at Pan's house.
Athens Archaeological Museum.

Cyprus is also Mediterranean, with a long history, so it’s hardly surprising that as we move yet further east, the odd Faun crops up here as well.

Pan mosaic in the House of Dionysos,
Pafos, Cyprus.

Moving further north to eastern Europe: Hungary, and the early 20th century. Almost no Fauns in Budapest at all, except a little bronze Pan in a closed antique shop and a couple of Fauns holding up part of the Budapest opera house.

 

Opera House façade, Budapest.

Opera House façade, Budapest.

Now, yet further north to Scandinavia. Several fauns in evidence in Denmark.

You don't get female Fauns for ages, 

then several come along all at once. 

Rosenborg palace, Copenhagen.

Wine-loving Faun. (Is there another type?)
Copenhagen.

Copenhagen Glyptotek Museum.

Faun tapestry.
Rosenborg Palace, Copenhagen.

Faun tapestry.
Rosenborg Palace, Copenhagen

Furvus at home

I'm not going outside when the air temperature's above blood temperature, so here are a couple of indoor shots.

Horizontal coronet - check
Dew claws - check
Short pasterns - check
Tail - check
Sticky-out ears - check

Hooves Mk III

An alternative design. Following a reasonable success with the Mk II, this time, I tried to reduce the apparent length of the pasterns by burying my toes inside the hoof rather than placing them on top of it.

I cut out four hoof plates from some chipboard that I had lying around in the workshop. Each hoof would be around 150mm x 130mm wide (6” x 5”), so the rear of each hoof would stick rearwards beyond the balls of my feet to help me to balance.

Hoof templates

I then cut a shelving bracket and bent it to provide heel support. I figured that if I used split-toe wetsuit booties, the split could be incorporated in the cleave between the two toes of the goat hoof. I stuck the hoof plates on, added cardboard formers, and applied a thin layer of Bondo.

Cardboard and Bondo

This design didn’t work. I quickly discovered that my foot needs support on both sides, so it was back to the drawing board again. And I couldn’t get a meaningful gap between my toes, so I abandoned the split-toe idea. I did cut the uppers of the booties because it was otherwise almost impossible to force my feet around the bends into a comfortable position.

Improved foot support

Here’s the improved metalwork support, glued and screwed to the hoof plates.

Taking a weight-saving idea from Patassy’s hoof-making video, I formed the hoof shapes in wire screening and added several layers of papier maché. Good old Elmer’s Glue-All cut 50/50 with water makes the paste. This process is extremely messy. Glue goes everywhere, and clean-up is a major operation even if it does clean up with soap and water.

Papier maché

Once the papier maché had hardened, I added Bondo in several thin layers, sanding down between each layer and filling low spots. Using a selection of power tools, I formed a profiled hoof sole. I’d like to leave realistic hoofprints in the dirt.

Repeated thin layers of Bondo

Now painting. After an initial spraying in black with paint that, according to the can, ‘adheres to anything,’ I got the acrylics out and painted the hooves in several coats. The little balls are ping-pong balls, cut in half, covered with Bondo, filled with spackling, and painted to match. These would become dewclaws.

Painted and varnished

I sealed the surface with a couple of layers of Elmer’s, which would seal any cracks and provide a slightly glossy finish. Then a walk test before adding the fur.

Walk test

I stuffed fur into the cleave first and glued the front, then worked around both sides of the hoof and finally up the sole of the bootie to the heel.

The actual growth of the hoof begins at the coronet border region, the uppermost area of the external foot just at the hairline of the leg. The sole of the hoof should be parallel to the coronet, which is different from in a horse’s hoof. Thanks to this sketch from goatwisdom.com (and there’s an oxymoron if ever there was one), I won’t screw up the fur and spoil the overall effect.

Source: www.goatwisdom.com

I fired up the hot glue gun and stuck shaggy fur all around the coronet and up the back of my sole and around my heel to create the pastern and fetlock. Then I added dew claws. These are ping-pong balls cut in half, covered with Bondo and painted, and filled with lightweight spackling to give a larger surface for the glue without adding too much weight. I trimmed the fur at the fetlock joint to give a better surface for the glue.

On the subject of weight, I already noted that the Mk I hooves were too heavy to be practical. The Mk II hooves weighed 2013g and 2055g (around 4 ½ lb each), which is still rather on the heavy side. The Mk III hooves are a ‘mere’ 1570g (3 ½lb) each. This is a two-fold improvement: first they’re lighter, and secondly I have improved my quality control and both hooves weigh almost the same as each other.

Front view

Back view

Now furred and Velcroed, here are the (almost) finished hooves. All that remains is to do a full costume test and make any minor adjustments. But that'll involve cavorting about outside, and as it’s over 40°C/104°F at the moment, I'll do that some other time.