You may recall that in a recent post I told you about the outsize flea I had been asked to make for the play “Flea the Pandemic”. About a month ago the director of that play asked me to make a prop for one of the three one act plays he had written which SNADS have just performed under his direction. He asked for a dead fox!
In fact the play called for a vixen which had been killed by hounds and he wanted it to be as gory as possible.
Once again I asked Mr Google for some assistance with basic reference images – of live foxes. From these I determined the colours of fur fabric which I would need to use.
Reference photo – All round a Fox.
Having spoken to our wardrobe mistress and acquired some bits from our stash, I realised that I was going to have to get some paint as we didn’t have much in the way of correct colours. I was able to obtain some “match pots” of acrylic decorating paint in tan, and dark greyish-brown together with a “fresh blood” red and a “drying blood” red. I collected together other items which I usually find helpful in making props – some of my non-woven cotton cleaning cloths, empty milk bottles and other plastic vessels and a couple of plastic tubes of different diameters.
Collecting the materials and reference photos.
Mr Google next helped me with the size of a vixen carcase (though from whose website I cannot now remember) and the shape of a fox’s skull.
Reference information re size of “carcase”.skull
The basic skull shape I made from some pieces from an opaque white milk bottle and masking tape.
Part made skull “armature”
I made an approximate size body using one of the non-woven cloths, which I stuffed with some recycled polyester stuffing and I covered that with fur fabric, but leaving the “belly” open. I covered the skull with fur fabric using PVA glue and some strong thread, and stitched it to the body. I added two back legs in fur fabric, one full length front leg and, as I was then running out of the fabric, a short one leaving the paw end open and painted red, inserting some more of the opaque white plastic cut into “shards” to represent a bloody shattered bone.
Basic body shape
I was lucky with the tail, as amongst the bits in the fur fabric stash there was a piece which was stitched into a vague tail shape and it was darker and fluffier than the rest of the fur fabric I had found. So I stuffed it and added a white tip to it. I stitched that onto the fox’s rear end.
Tail Fabrics
I added some ears to the head, using scraps of the fur fabric stiffened with PVA and paint. I didn’t bother adding teeth to the open mouth as the head was likely to be less visible to the audience. I painted a black nose and black eye sockets.
I then had to brush over the rest of the light tan coloured head and body with a darker tan, which I had mixed from the new paint and some in my paint box, using the dry brush method, to represent something more fox-like.
Next came the gory bits. I fashioned some organ shapes from the plastic bottles, and some entrails from some of the tubing and a couple of the milk bottle handles.
Painted plastic organs and entrails
I noticed that a couple of the non-woven cloths which had been through the washing machine several times were beginning to break down. Stretching them pulled the centre into holes which began to look a lot like caul fat. So I cut some sections out and wrapped the “organs”. This would make them more realistic although the full effect would be unlikely to be seen by the audience.
Caul Fat
Recycled cleaning cloth “caul fat” over organ.
Then I got busy with the “blood”! The paint covered the “organs” and the “entrails” quite well, although I later found that it would flake off the milk bottle handles and would need touching up. I also treated the open belly, the short front leg and the mouth with lots more “blood”.
The fox was to be fixed to a black board, which would hopefully blend into the black flooring that was to cover the shiny wood floor of the stage. Once this had been delivered to me by the Producer, I stuck the body to the board with more PVA (what would we do without it?) and then arranged and stuck down the organs and entrails.
But something was wrong, it didn’t look right. Then I realised that there wasn’t enough blood. If the fox had been torn apart by hounds there would be blood everywhere. So I got the paints out again and spread a good deal of it over the board and added lots more to the body.
Ripped open belly
The Head
The broken front leg and bone fragments.
Dead Fox
I have now seen the play and at the end the poor fox was accorded a solo spot on the stage.
We have costumes for two Pantomimes and one Murder Mystery Play in this post; and yes at last I’m going to tell you about the costume hair and makeup for the Wicked Queen (above).
First let’s tell you about Dig for Vengeance, the Murder Mystery Play since there isn’t much to it. In fact the only textile “makes” involved as far as I was concerned were in makeup. I was playing the part of the Reverend Simeon Knatchbull (we were – as usual – short of men so I was to do a bit of cross-dressing.) Sid, who spent most of his time in his allotment shed to get away from his garrulous wife, was played by my friend Fiona. The textile parts of the makeup were our eyebrows and side burns (extra long ones for Sid) which I made out of Shetland Moorit fibres. The Rev. was the one “who dunnit” so I‘m able to show you his mug shots and here’s a snap of Sid at his shed.
The Rev. Simeon Knatchbull (source local fuzz)Sid in his shed
The Pantomime which was our February 2019 production was Treasure Island, and I was to be cross dressing again – not sex this time but species. I was Polly, Long John Silver’s parrot. As soon as I saw the script I knew that that was the part I wanted, and although there were a couple of others trying for it, I got it. I like to think that it wasn’t just my offer to make my own costume that secured it.
The Director, Fraser Wilson (a professional actor and director) decided that he would prefer Polly to be a cartoon, rather than a realistic, parrot. That did make things much easier. I had had a look at fabrics that I had available – there was some scarlet and some royal blue, which might work so I delved into Google Images and decided on a Scarlet Macaw as the basis for Polly’s caricature. I collected various reference pictures of real Macaws as well as some cartoon characters.
Reference image 1 – scarlet macaws
Reference image 2 – scarlet macaw back & top of wings
Reference image 3 – cartoon parrots
The fabrics that I used for the costume came from two sources. The fabric for the body and the hood came from some old red and blue curtains, and the wings and tail were made from some off cuts of some sort of plasticky fabric that I had acquired from somewhere, blue and red (luckily almost exactly the same hue as the curtain fabric) and some small pieces of yellow.
The costume was made in four sections and consisted of feet and legs; lower body and breast; a tail coat – literally in this case; and a hood with clashing pirate tricorn hat.
Having again resorted to Mr Google I obtained some reference shots of parrot feet.
Reference image – feet
I constructed the feet with toes from sections of foam pipe insolation covered in needle felted yellowish fibres. I stuck some bent pieces of black painted, cotton covered wire in the tips for claws, which actually wasn’t a good idea as they kept coming out. In the event it didn’t matter as they weren’t visible from the audience anyway. I stitched the toes to an old pair of fabric shoes which I had painted black, and added more yellow needle felt around the openings to represent the feet. We always lay a black floor on The Exchange’s shiny wooden stage for pantos, so my black shoes would be less visible under the parrot feet. I stitched a length of cotton fabric, much the same colour as the toes, to the opening of each shoe, with snap fasteners up the back, to make Polly’s legs. These came up to just below my knees and were tied with a draw string to make sure they didn’t slide down during a performance. Since Polly was old – 70 – I added some varicose veins (known as “various veins” in our house – thanks to Terry Wogan), couching on some blueish pieces of yarn.
I caused great hilarity at the first rehearsal when I donned Polly’s feet. I wanted to get used to moving in them so that I didn’t trip over the toes, but I admit that it did look odd the way parrot feet protruded from the end of my jeans.
Polly’s feet
The body consisted of a bib-type front, attached at the top to a red tee shirt. Parrots having short legs without visible “knees”, I had decided that the costume crotch should come down to just above my knees. I attached very short pant legs which covered my knees and the tops of the costume legs. It might have been slightly more realistic if the crotch had come below my knees, but I remembered just in time that I’d got to be able to walk and climb stairs in this costume. Climbing steps on stage was still a bit difficult, but then Old Polly could be seen to stagger from time to time. The back of that part of the costume came up to my waist and was again tied with a draw string.
Next came the tail coat. A couple of years earlier I had acquired a Vogue Pattern, one of Sandra Betzina’s Today’s Fit series which gave me exactly what I needed to help me with the design of Polly’s tail.
Vogue pattern V8136
Vogue pattern V8136 back – Polly’s tail coat design shown on right
I constructed the coat using the pattern back, but adding wings instead of just plain sleeves. The tail feathers I boned with extra large cable ties, which gave the length and amount of rigidity I needed and I did the same with the main wing feathers.
I extended the wings/sleeves to the tips of my fingers ending on the underside in a sort of glove construction making separate sections for my thumb and first three fingers. Then I added the feathers, attaching the first three pinion feathers to the backs of the fingers of the glove. I could then move the feathers with my fingers to simulate Polly’s cartoon hands, and co-incidentally was able to hold on to bits of scenery when climbing.
The fronts of the coat were reduced to just small “bolero” type fronts. These were affixed to the body/bib just in front of my shoulders with Velcro. There was also a strip of Velcro attaching the coat inside-back just above the tail to the back waist of the body. I padded out Polly’s stomach with a thinnish sheet of foam rubber to get the right parrot shape..
I do not have any progress pictures of the costume since this all took place before I found and joined the Studio. However, I did wear the costume again 2 years ago for an appearance at the Sturminster Newton Cheese Festival. SNADS were helping out with stewarding the Festival in return for a donation to our funds and I was allowed to dress up as Polly again. That was fun, but quite warm in view of the padding. It did mean that I had a short period in which I could take some photos of the tail coat just before I donned it.
Tail undersideThe tail feathers from the backThe right wing
The hood, was just plain red and tight fitting, and the hat was more of the plastic sort of fabric, with a wired brim, and skull and crossbones appliquéd to the front. The orangy-pink with pink feather edging to the brim clashed nicely Polly’s head. The tricorn was slightly too small so I had to resort to a large safety pin to attach it to the hood to avoid it falling off during performances.
The final touch, which I didn’t really want to do but I was over-ruled by the director, was to stitch feather boas to Polly’s breast. He was right, it added that je ne sais quoi to the costume.
I found a close up image of a parrot face for makeup reference, and used a lot of red water based makeup (I went home with a pink rinse every night – very fetching!) I made Polly’s beak from some thin EVA foam, painted yellowish orange, that was stuck onto my nose with spirit gum; and I had yellow feather eyelashes. The beak was a mixed blessing. We were “miked up” for the performances so I was able to tuck the end of mine under the beak so that it wasn’t obvious. However, the theatre was very hot on the Friday night performance and just before the finalé and walkdown the beak came unstuck. The audience didn’t seem to mind though. It’s amazing what you can get away with in a Panto. I made doubly sure of it for Saturday’s two performances though.
Makeup reference imagePolly complete with feather eyelashes.Polly peering through the big house gatesPolly with Long John Silver and random pirate (Silver with crutch made by my husband)
Now at last we come to the Wicked Queen. I was asked to dress Fiona (my friend who played Sid in Dig for Vengeance) as Averice, the Wicked Queen in Snow White. This was to include wig, makeup and Crown and two complete costumes. I was given two existing dresses which fitted Fiona and which I could adapt and add to; one was red and black and the other silver and black.
The red and black was to be worn in the first half, it had a red bodice and under skirt with black lace sleeves and a black lace over skirt. I altered the dress merely by lifting the over skirt up at the centre front and fixing it with some spare bits of jewellery. At that time Fiona had a habit of stepping backwards when about to speak, so we decided that she would need a train falling behind her to help her to lose this trait and, because she learned that if she stepped back, she’d step on it, it worked. As the dress was not quite floor length, we decided that a long cape type cloak would be worn over the dress. I had a small piece of red velvet which I made into a short cape covering the top of her shoulders, and added red braid around it’s edges. We had a large piece of heavy red lace fabric with sparkles in it, which we attached to the underside of the cape starting from the front of the shoulders. The cape was fastened with more jewellery pieces.
Avarice in Red
The second dress, silver and black, was pretty plain in design (although the skirt fabric was strongly patterned) and again had no train. So I decided that I’d try to make an overdress, which I would drape on my ancient dressmaker’s dummy. I had some mauve satin type polyester fabric which I decided could do the job. I made use of Google images for some design ideas and came up with two completely different styles that I thought could be amalgamated.
Overdress reference image 1
overdress reference image 2 – sleeve
I liked the cut away front of the skirt in the picture. This could be extended at the back into a train, and there could be full over-sleeves like those in the reference image with the cross over design at the shoulders.
Having had the design approved by the wardrobe mistress I set about draping some Vilene that I had had lying around, and making pattern pieces to be cut out of the mauve satin. That was silly mistake No. 1. It wasn’t until I was three quarters of the way through draping and pattern cutting that I realised that I was using lightweight iron on Vilene, not the old sew in version that I no longer used for dressmaking.
The sleeves I drafted by basing them on a normal sleeve pattern but moving the under arm seam to the top of the arm and extending each side to form the cross over at the shoulder seam, and at the same time greatly extending the sleeve length and width. I cut 2 sleeves out of the mauve satin and 2 more out of purple organza, which I would use as lining.
Getting all the pieces for the overdress out of the mauve satin was going to be tight. In fact, in making silly mistake No. 2, I made it even tighter. I must have put one of the cut out pieces in the wrong place on the work table, because I managed to cut another pattern piece out of it, so had to do a bit of “jigsaw” patching to get enough fabric for all the pieces I needed. It’s a good job that theatrical costumes are rarely seen up close – the joins were not discernible from the auditorium.
When I took the overdress in for Fiona to try on I found silly mistake No. 3. I had not allowed any ease in the patterns made with the draped Vilene so the garment was too tight. I had to alter some of the darts I had put in for shaping, and slim down a couple of the seam allowances as well as move the front fastening.
I had a piece of black and silver furnishing fabric which was decorated with large gothic type motifs. I cut out and applied these to the dress. One large one was placed at the waist on the wrap over front. This helped with disguising the “jigsaw” seams and the added decoration helped co-ordinate with the under dress. More motifs were appliquéd down the sides and end of the train to add weight to it. I also added a short length of curtain weights to the underside of the end of the train. This solved the problem of the train tending to flip over as Fiona moved around the stage.
Avarice in full rantAvarice showing the motif covering the “jigsaw”
All this work was obviously done at home in my workshop. However I still attended rehearsals twice a week, and while I was waiting to rehearse my cameo part (a bear!) I was working on a wig for Fiona.
reference images for the pony tail treatment
I had chosen an older synthetic wig mainly for its colour. It had become quite tangled so I was cleaning and combing it bit by bit whilst the rehearsals were progressing. I found that by using a light oil I could comb out the tangles in the wig without pulling too much of the hair out. Once all this was complete, I started to plait parts of the wig and these plaits were wound around the head, leaving the long back hair to be gathered at the nape of the neck, as shown in reference image 1, but with the ends doubled back up to the nape as shown in image 2. I made snoods to match each costume to cover the “tail”.
Next came the crown. Again I searched for reference images to help with the design. I wanted something strong that would add to Averice’s character, rather than a pretty tiara type crown, which would not do at all. In the end I decided to base the design on Ravenna’s crown (Snow White and the Huntsman).
Ravenna, crown and a glimpse of hairstyle
I made it from shiny, stiff card, which was actually some bobbin lace pattern pricking card that I had got from somewhere somewhen. I painted the card with bronze acrylic paint and added some braid with marcasite-like stones attached and a bead/pendant from an old necklace, which I painted with pearlised nail varnish. I had to stick a couple of loops on the inside of the crown, so that we could use hair grips to fix the crown onto Fiona’s wig, which was itself fixed to her “wig cap”. That’s in quotation marks because the wig cap was in fact a holdup stocking. The non-slip “stuff” on the inside of the stocking is just the thing to hold onto the actor’s head/hair. With hair grips fixing the wig to the cap it will not slip off. (touch wood!)
Finally the makeup. I looked for various types of makeup for Averice, looking at “Wicked Queen” references and also “drag” makeup (which I find great for exaggerated Panto styles). In the end I picked the image that would give Fiona permanently bad tempered eyebrows. I’m not a speedy MUA so although it would have been good to have fantastic eye makeup, there wouldn’t be time to do it and get Fiona dressed and crowned in time for curtain up.
Makeup reference image – it’s the eyebrows you knowAvarice Crown Wig and Makeup. See what I mean about the eyebrows?
I’m going to have to tell you about my bear costume and the other bits I helped with in these Pantos in another post as I’ve run out of space and time with this one, watch this space.
The next production for which I can remember making a costume was Sleeping Beauty in 2015. I was asked to make the costume and do the makeup for Baskerville, the blood hound. (You didn’t know that there was a dog in Sleeping Beauty did you? – How else did anyone find her inside all those brambles?)
After looking up some reference pictures (including one of Sir Clement Freud and his pet) I decided that the face would be part mask and part makeup.
Sir Clement Freud and his look alike pet and another bloodhound – my reference images for Baskerville
The costume was in the main made from an old poly-cotton sheet which was a sort of mid brown colour with the odd dark brown markings in acrylic paint, and included a hood from which the long ears hung either side of the face. The mask was wet and needle felt, which covered the actor’s forehead, cheeks and nose, leaving large eyeholes. This so that there was room for the eye makeup which revealed dropped lower eyelids. The forehead had bloodhound-like skin folds, and the muzzle had my usual needle felted nose painted with Artist’s Gesso and then with black enamel. The actor’s chin was visible beneath the mask so was made up to match it.
Baskerville the Bloodhound
The next panto we did was Alice in Wonderland and I got roped into making bits for various animal costumes. Unfortunately I don’t have any progress pictures and most of the pictures I do have have been extracted from the DVD we had made of the show, so they are not of the best. Hopefully they will give you a flavour of the costumes.
First there was the Cheshire Cat. As with Baskerville, the cat’s body was made from an old cotton sheet, this time “dyed” ginger-ish with acrylic paint and with stripes added roughly following tabby cat images from Mr. Google (what would we do without him).
Reference images for tabby cat markings
The head and mask were also made from the same fabric and from felt. The only photos I have of the Cat are of it inside a “tree”. They aren’t very clear because the hole in the tree is faced with gauze so that you could only see through it when what was behind it was lit from that side. This was so that the cat could slowly disappear as the light faded, leaving only a grin visible.
Cheshire Cat inside it’s treemore grinsAnd just the grin, with Alice, the Dame (Alice’s nurse) and Joker (Queen of Hearts’ Jester)
Next there was the March Hare whose ears I had made from felt and attached to a felted hood; and the actor also used the muzzle with two front teeth that I made for her, also in felt. Unfortunately it looks as if whoever did her makeup didn’t match the face colour to the mask so the Hare looks a bit odd. This could be because the actor had a couple of other, bigger, parts in the panto, so her makeup needed to fit all three parts as far as possible. I had made the mask so that it could be removed with the hood and that adds to the odd look I think.
March Hare with ears and teethThe Mad Hatter, Dormouse (without his teapot) and March Hare in the final walk down.
The next and most testing task was the Hookah-smoking caterpillar and the subsequent butterfly which emerged from it. The script called for the actual metamorphosis to happen on stage, which was really going to pose a bit of a problem. If this was going to work it would be necessary for the caterpillar costume to be worn over that of the butterfly.
In the story, the caterpillar sits on top of a large toadstool. Usually depicted as a fly agaric mushroom – the one having a red cap with white spots. This in fact is my scenery-making friend’s signature image and there are always some of these mushrooms somewhere about the stage in all our pantos (did you spot them at the bottom of the Cheshire Cat’s tree?) Before the mushroom was made I asked that the back be cut away to enable the actor to be able to stand up against and behind its (chunky) stem. I had decided that the caterpillar costume would be mainly affixed to the top of the mushroom and the head and “torso” would fit over that part of the actor which appeared above the mushroom. The costume would have to be open down the back so that the butterfly could immerge from the caterpillar by stepping down and backwards. I would need to make the butterfly costume first so that I would be able to fit the head and torso of the caterpillar costume over it with sufficient “ease” to enable her to get out of the caterpillar without assistance.
Again Mr Google helped me with reference pictures of a swallowtail butterfly, which I had chosen because of the lovely shape of its wings, and it’s caterpillar.
Reference images for the caterpillar and it’s butterfly
I wanted the costumes to be as naturalistic as possible, which meant finding a way of making enormous butterfly eyes, remembering that the actor would need to be able to see through them. I was sure that I had seen some half globes in clear plastic covering a large sweet, and after lots of buying and tasting (!) I found some, though I cannot now remember what the sweets were. I made a mask which held these over the actor’s eyes and side of her head and which also covered the top and back of her head but left her nose and mouth free. From the images on the DVD, it seems that I covered the globes in some way since it is not possible to see the actor’s eyes through them. I can’t now remember what it was I used, but it must have been transparent at close quarters because the actor was able to dance around the stage without falling over the “little butterflies” which were dancing with her.
I made up the lower part of the face and I seem to remember making “mouth parts” and a version of the curled tube the butterfly uses to suck up nectar. These were attached to the mask between the bottom of the eyes.
A very hazy image of the butterfly’s head (it looks as if she’s managed to dent one of the eyes, but I doubt that would have been visible from the auditorium.)
The butterfly’s wings, were painted white organza which had wire along the top edge. I couldn’t add wire in the usual way the whole way round the edge of the wings because they would have to be squashed and held behind the actor’s back whilst she was still a caterpillar. So we clad the actor’s arms and hands in black and she used her hands and arms to open and “flap” the wings. This meant that the verisimilitude of the butterfly costume ended there – only one pair of legs instead of three. I could have made some “pretend” legs to attach to the actor’s chest, but they would be likely to get hooked up inside the caterpillar costume and make metamorphosis difficult!
I made the caterpillar costume out of various bits of cotton fabric which I painted, and because the butterfly mask was quite large, the caterpillar had to be very large too. The head of the real caterpillar is as wide as it’s body, which made that a bit easier. I made it to fit right over the butterfly head and shoulders, with the actor’s black covered arms poking through as the first of the caterpillar’s six legs. This was so that she could use the mouthpiece to smoke from the hookah which was sitting on a little green hump beside the mushroom.
Hookah-smoking caterpillar. You can possibly just see that the mouthpiece of the hookah is clutched in one tiny “hand”.The emerged butterfly showing off her wings. The empty caterpillar on the fly agaric mushroom is no longer smoking its Hookah and Nursie and Joker are seeing the little butterflies off stage.
Our next panto was Ali Baba. I didn’t have to make any of the costumes for this. I played the front half of Kamil, the clever camel, and when I wasn’t doing that, made up one of a trio of revolting looking gossipy women.
This was followed by “A Right Pantomime”, written by two of our members – “a comic conflation of almost every pantomime story you can think of.…” I played one of Snow White’s dwarves (I can’t remember how many we were, but I don’t think there were seven of us) but wasn’t involved with more than helping with scenery.
I will end this Scene here, and yes I know that we still haven’t reached the Panto in which the Wicked Queen in the title image appears, but maybe next time.
