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Qin Dynasty Terracotta Army soldier wearing Lamellar Armour.

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Lamellar armour is made from individual armour scales, which are laced together to form strips or and sheet of armour.
Being used over a wide range of time periods in Central Asia, Eastern & Western Asia and Eastern Europe.

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When I first started designing the creatures that to my mind control the flow of time, and the events that followed My first thoughts were more beastlike, then when taking into account, and after reading about a lot of cultures and how the human race designed in a similar image of the gods/divine creators. I decided to edit my designs and make the middle more human of sorts.

This presented more of a challenge, with so many different kinds of culture gods, there are a lot of different but similar types of deities prior to my attempt of creating my own, so there is a heavy amount of influence from other cultures ideas of what their gods looked like.

With that in mind, I, of course I’m not the first to create my own gods off the back of already existing ones. For example, the Romans took the Greek gods and simply change their names.
So I’m not so worried about my attempts.

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I took out a few books from the library, to help me get a better understanding of what a bestiary might look like and learn more on other regions of gods I know little about or nothing.

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I started looking into monsters from different myths and legends to help broaden the range of my character design.

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Because I, too, understood the favoured method of making my deities resemble the human race.

It falls on a need to be like them or them like you, to find similarities between the gods and their people; following that mindset, I aim to do something similar.

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As helpful as my quick sketches were, I moved on from them quickly; they became less of a starting point and more of a road I didn't want to go down.

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I did a 1 minute sketch of each monster of time.
I focused on their main attributes and details, to help me imagine the rest of the their design later on.

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I began looking into bestiaries because that was to my knowledge and made apparent through my research; the best was to convey information about a vast array of different creatures or beings but are connected to one another in a mythic sense.

So I decided this was how I would show my creations visibility through a bestiary of their own.

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I found this book the most enlightening in my search for a more comprehensive knowledge of the different kinds of gods, their attributes, symbols and means to their people.
It has most of everything in it, although targeting a younger audience and, in most cases, having only the most basic of information about most of the gods; I felt prompted to research the ones that particularly piqued my interest instead of having to read through hours upon hours of writing trying to find a needle in a haystack.

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I went to the library and took out several books on mythology and beastie, hoping to give me an idea and therefore a better understanding of the cultures set of gods and their beliefs, to help me build a base for my own strand of mythical creatures.

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Leading off of the idea of many creatures, being involved with the flow of time, how it moves and operates and how people interact with it. Let me to research the mythology of previous cultures and their many ways of celebrating their gods and mythical beasts and the telling of their stories.

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When I think of time and trying to manage it myself, I think of all these external monsters and see a lot of the human eye being the reason for obstruction and distraction in my daily life. Much like the ‘ procrastination monkey’ sitting down and thinking about it, I imagine time being woven in threads of an orders pattern being makes by some creature, sabotaged by another, being next checked by a third, then jumped up and down on by a fourth. All the while I’m walking along these threads, following the threads of order and chaos these monsters have put in front of me.

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The idea of time to me is elusive and incomprehensible, but has an element of adaptability and control. Yet even things under control rebel and seem to fight against what what has been payed before it, creating chances for chaos but in that chaos  order can be found, and because of that order comfort is felt. Creating a circle of understanding and not understanding the constant unstoppable flow of time.

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To make a collection of props, using a verity of materials and techniques.

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Email from Sam Wilde - Puppet & Theatre Designer

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Email from Sam Wilde - Puppet & Theatre Designer

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Hi Kier,

No problem at all,

How did you first get into theatre work?

I just kind of fell into it, or rather had a series of falls into it!

I'd always enjoyed theatre, my mum used to take me to see a lot of musicals as a child (I think I saw blood brothers about 18 times in 3 years!) and as I grew that interest moved a lot more towards theatre. That led to me studying it at school and then at A Level, where I had this teacher who would always tell me that if I wanted to work in theatre then "the best you could do would be a drama teacher!", so I went off to do a BA in Drama Studies and ended up training to become a teacher! so I taught for a couple of years when my grandma got ill and I decided to stop teaching and care for her, that wasnt a fulltime job though so took those teaching skills and ended up volunteering at Theatre Royal Winchester, where I started working as a director (mainly in youth theatre at that stage).

I was earning no money but took myself very seriously, and then one day a friend called me up and said he was doing music for a show and that their designer had dropped out on them, hed told them that I was an incredible designer and that if I came in I could get £100 for two days work (which was a HUGE amount of money for me at the time!) but on the condition that I pretend to be an experienced designer. So thats what I did! and on the first day it was like something clicked, it suddenly made sense that all the crafts and art and skills and interests I had fit perfectly for this job. After that I went off and trained to become a designer at Bristol Old Vic and then my career started!

sorry that was a bit of a long answer, but yeah, it was never really the plan, I just kind of fell into it!

What lead you to pursue a career in puppetry and props?

So again, it was kind of a cumulation of things, as a child I spent a lot of time at my Dads office, he was a childs therapist and a lot of his work was arts therapy, there were huge vats of paper mache around and I was a bit of a sci fi nerd, so I just spent years making klingon masks and fairies and all sorts. My entire childhood was just pva glue and paper! it was all I did and all I wanted to do!

When I was at university I was really lucky to have this incredible theatre company in the year above me, The River People, who made these incredible, folky, dark, musical, puppet filled shows, I instantly fell in love with everything they did. I never really thought about puppetry before then, but it became so central to everything I did after that for years, just trying to copy a little of what they did!

When I finally went to do my formal training, I think a large part of it was me trying to move away from puppetry a little bit, but in the first term there I really struggled, I just couldn't communicate my ideas effectively, when a visiting lecturer, the amazing Michael Vale, suggested that rather than trying to sketch or write my designs, I sculpt and make puppets from them, now its so central to my work again, even if I'm doing a show without puppets, I'll have made about 6 just for me to get my head around a character or a script.

I'm a designer-maker, I like to make and I like to play, so I need my toys!

Why did you chose to specialise in cardboard?

I'd love to say that it was because of its climate credentials or that its such an everyman material that I'm trying to show that anyone can do it, but the reality is that I started with it because I was poor and I couldn't afford anything better! The reason I've stuck with it does of course fo a lot further than that, but it really began because I had my kids and I wanted for them to have all the things I couldnt afford to give them, we had just moved into a tiny two bed flat and we had all these moving boxes, so I made them a boat, and then a car and a castle and so it went.

It was years later that I started using it for work and found it served a lot of the ways I wanted to work, it allows you to take risks, its free and readily available, if you make a bad puppet with it you just chuck it in the recycling and move on. Its climate friendly, which is very important to me, thats the way the industry is going and its how we should all be working. Its quick and easy to use, I used to love doing improvisations when I was a drama student, you dont really get to do that as a designer or maker, cardboard gets you pretty quick though, the way I like to work is to sit in the corner of the rehearsal room and make along with the action, with cardboard you dont need long drying paints or glue, just cut out a shape, throw on a bit of tape and you can start trying an idea out then and there. It also really is an everyman material! you make something amazing with a cardboard box and someone else feels like they can do it to, I dunno, I find that very empowering, showing people the wonders you can make or do with a bit of care and a bit of trash!

I dunno, for me cardboard is about two things, its about play, its about those mazes and planes and cars we all made when we were kids, that old maxim that the kids prefer to play with the box than the toy, and its about questions, its about protest and placards and holding up a sign that holds people to account. I like to think that those are the two things I'm about to, play and questions!

Hope that helps Kier, feel free to pop any other questions over if its of any help!

Thanks

Sam

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I came across a writer that piqued my interest, P.T. Lovecraft; a writer of Weird Fiction, best known for his 'Call Of Chathulu', a book collection following his best works.

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Thoth was credited with creating the art of writing, inventing the calendar, and controlling space and time. Since he was the god of the moon, he had celestial functions and replaced the sun god, Ra, in the sky at night.

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Mahakala, God of Time in Buddhist Culture

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Mahakala, God of Time in Buddhist Culture

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Creation, Destruction and Power. He is affiliated with Lord Shiva. His abode is the cremation grounds and has four arms and three eyes, sitting on five corpse. He holds trident, drum, sword and hammer.

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The story of this god is rather long and confusing, to even people who’s job it is to know and study the gods.
Long story short, there are 60 different versions of Tai Sui, each year for 60 years the god that is payed to on the current year is changing until the year after the 60th has passed completing a whole ‘Chinese Life Cycle’ which is started over again by the first Tai Sui. This rotation repeats and repeats forever.

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After looking into so many different Pantheons of gods and coming up a little short when it came to finding anything relevant to my idea, I slowly began to lose faith in my idea due to the pool of unhelpful information I found myself in.
It's not that I couldn't find good information on the gods, but I was trailing away from my primary goal of 'Time'. Hence, my decision to look more specifically at groups and deities related to time since gods of time weren't covered by a particular god.
Thanks to some prior knowledge, I knew where to look.

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A trilogy of seeress that a represented in different way, through many different cultures. Usually a set of three individuals, famously taking the form of women each being a seer of The Past, The Present and The Future.

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The Nords, Seeress of the Past, Present & Future from Norse Mythology

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The Nords, Seeress of the Past, Present & Future from Norse Mythology

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The Moirai, The Seeress of Fate from Greek Mythology

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The Moirai, The Seeress of Fate from Greek Mythology

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The Rozhanitsy, Fairies of Fate from Slavic Culture

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The Rozhanitsy, Fairies of Fate from Slavic Culture

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Lamellar armour should not be confused with Laminar armour, a related form of plate armour which is made from horizontal overlapping rows or bands of solid armour plates (called lames) rather than scales.

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I wish to take what I have learned at my work placement and put the information to action.
Increasing my knowledge and ability in sculpting and mould making and casting, use to this process being a highly used technique to create armour, costume and prop making in TV and films, both of which I want to be working in.

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After listening and reading though the book too many times to count, forcing on chapters that interested me the most.
I attempted to break them down and find or even be able to adapt a story from them but unfortunately it was in vain.
I kept hitting a wall, no matter my approach, be it adding to the chapter to try to create a story from it, or using the chapters idea of time to develop my own story.

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Despite the fact I personally couldn’t use the book as a direct reference to my work, in the long and short of it, the book helped me develop an idea moving off from it.
Pushing mr to thing about my own idea of time and go on from there.

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Although my idea of time hasn’t changed, I feel like I would need more time than I have to pursue such a world building concept.

With that, I am choosing to focus on the passing of time, reflecting to the Past, Present & Future.

Also, to create a deeper connection with this my idea I have decided to apply my Past, Present & Future gods to Chinese culture.

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Lamellar Helmet from the live-action Mulan

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Lamellar Helmet from the live-action Mulan

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This was the fabric I chose to use for my armour

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This was the fabric I chose to use for my armour

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Clothes were worn under armour in all records of history for many reasons:
To protect skin from the constant moving and rubbing of the armour.
Also,

The clothing underneath was sometimes dependent on what the type of armour that was worn, also who was wearing it.
Sometimes blank, single tone colours but on others occasions they may have printed or woven patterns on it

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Are you exploring a particular chapter from the text?

Are you exploring a particular theme that appears throughout the text?

Are you exploring a particular moment or specific aspect from the text?

Is your project ‘inspired’ by the text rather than specifically ‘adapting’ the text?

I began looking into the individual chapters but I kept hitting a dead end due to the limited amount of info in them and I found it harder still to try to extend the chapters so I would have more to work with, but unfortunately doing so did not help me create a well-structured idea. Instead, I decided to use the book as a reference to someone else’s idea of time, pushing me to think of my own theories that will later prompt my own ideas of time.

How will you engage with ‘time’ within your work?

I chose to focus on the Past, Present & Future aspects of time, Following my lack of sufficient research on specific gods of time.

What are you intending to produce?

Can you identify specific outputs at this stage?

Have a collection of different sculpts and materials

How does this output(s) relate to your professional future?

I intend to create my own Past, Present & Future gods, inspired by my Chinese heritage. I will produce three concept drawings, one for each god as well as, a full-sized costume to fit me, inspired by all three of them.

I’ll be using a multitude of different materials: silicone, plaster, latex & resin.

All things I was shown how to use during my work placement, all techniques are important to know when in the industry of prop making.

Being proficient in these techniques will make me more employable and will show how skilled and capable I am.

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Due to the time, it takes to sculpt and make moulds and casts, factoring in drying and curing time, it is easier, to sum up, my plans for the week rather than each day.

Week 5:

- Complete the drawings I have started for my previous idea, that the three gods all look completely different.

- Begin working on my sketches for my newly developed idea that the god all wear the same armour but each has subtle differences and details referring to the type of time they command.

- Start testing the silicone and getting to a point where I can start mass-producing the scales for my costume.

Easter Holiday Week 1:

- Continue to work on my final concept drawings for my gods, doing my best to improve my drawing skills in the process.

- Begin sculpting the armour piece using my finished drawings as my reference images.

Easter Holiday Week 2:

- Continue to sculpt from my drawings.

- Start to make moulds of my sculptures to begin casting in them for my final pieces.

- Buy or make under clothing dependent on time constraints.

Week 6:

- Have finished sculpting.

- Focusing fully on creating moulds of all my pieces.

Week 7:

- Have all my armour pieces cast and ready to be fitted.

- Saw together the scale plates.

- Cut and back everything with leather.

Week 8:

- Make sure all the pieces fit as they should.

- Make inner alterations if necessary.

Week 9:

-Take final photos of my finished piece.

Making sure it's ready to be presented.

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After a 1 to 1 with Paul, he helped me to refocus my attention and take into consideration the things associated with Past, Present & Future.

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Dorgon’s Decree to the People of Peking (Beijing), 1644

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Dorgon’s Decree to the People of Peking (Beijing), 1644