Leaflin Arts  
Papier Mache' "Firdemu"

Page 1 of  7



The idea for my "Firdemu" came about while I was painting "Lunch At The Stevensburg Cafe".  I had an image in my mind of a creature that was a combination of the dinosaurs in the painting and an Emu but hadn't come up with a name for my creature.When a friend made a typo error calling her birds "firds" I added fird to emu and came up with "Firdemu".

I hope you enjoy seeing how I created my "Firdemu".



I started with a rough sketch of what I had in mind. 

This is a list of some of the things I used to create my "Firdemu."
-1" plastic curved electrical conduits
-5' of 1" PVC Pipe
-1" 90º PVC elbows
-1"45º PVC elbows
-1" PVC coupling
-1"PVC slip caps
-Hack saw

For each leg I cut 4 pieces of PVC pipe.
12" for the upper leg
10" for the lower leg
two 3" pieces for the ankle and hip.
An additional 4" piece was cut to join the legs together.


           
I used a 45º elbow to attach the upper and lower leg pieces together and two more 45º elbows to attach the hip and ankle.
A slip cap was attached at the bottom of each leg.
Finally a 90º elbow was attached to each hip then the legs were joined together by the remaining 4" piece of PVC.


I glued the legs together with a hot melt glue gun and attached them to a board.

To secure the front leg I drilled a hole through the board and slip cap.
Next I attached them together with a nut and bolt.
I then reattached the leg into the slip cap and glued it together.
For the body I used a huge balloon covered in about 10 to 12 layers of papier mache' strips.
It is 41 inches in circumference.





Page 7
 Tutorials
 Main
 Page 2