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Costume Design & Construction I

Airball Sculpture Project  (5D+10C)

Airball is a method of making large strong sculptural objects like hats, masks and props, that are also very light weight and cheap.  Airballing simply consists of sculpting an object out of foam (usually mattress type foam) and covering it with a skin of cheese cloth and glue to form a somewhat stiffer stronger surface that takes paint well. You can use this skin covering method on cardboard, crumpled newspapers taped together, and other light but weak bases as well.  The number of objects one can make this way are innumerable, and you may choose to design and make any sort of costume property using this method that you see fit.   Below are a sample of some objects we at UAF have made with this technique.

The Foam Book : An Easy Guide to Building Polyfoam Puppets

The Costume Designer's Handbook : A Complete Guide for Amateur and Professional Costume Designers

The Costume Technician's Handbook : A Complete Guide for Amateur and Professional Costume Technicians

The Foam Book : An Easy Guide to Building Polyfoam Puppets

Costumes and Chemistry: A Comprehensive Guide to Materials and Applications

Animatronics: A Guide to Animated Displays

The Prop Builder's Molding & Casting Handbook

 

The Prop Builder's Mask-Making Handbook

Costume Design : Techniques of Modern Masters

These photos illustrate in-class demos of the technique:

A design is drawn onto the raw foam to be a guide for carving.

A foam carving is covered with cheesecloth and glue to form a stiffened skin.

This student made a Airballed cat mummy.  The cartouche says "Kitty" in hieroglyphics.

This Statue of Liberty mask, made by Kelly Stables  also for Yahoo Nation,  has the crown of spikes done with cardboard, covered with an airball type skin.  The face is plaster bandage, foam, and a skin of plaster bandage over the foam. 

The Project:

Make a sketch of the costume property (mask, hat, cane, etc.) that you wish to build to work from.  Using foam, cardboard, crumpled paper, hot glue and/or masking tape, build a light weight 3-D sculpture of the costume property.  This sculpture need not be strong at this point, but should be lightweight.  

When the shape is to your satisfaction, coat the object with acrylic glaze, white glue or flexible glue, and stick cheesecloth over it.  Depending on the shape of your object the cheesecloth may be put on as a single sheet, or cut into smaller sections which overlap.  

Using a craft paint brush, tuck the cloth into the crevasses, and overcoat with more glaze or glue.  Dry. 

Paint the completed object.

When it is finished, photograph the object as jpeg files and post them to your File folder at the class eGroup.  Post a message to the group letting everyone know you have posted these pictures so you can get feedback.

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