How To

Flour and water and that's it. Sure you can do other things like glue, but you don't need to. Thicker goop will take longer to dry but will result in stronger material when dried. Thin goop dries quicker but tears more easily. Usually between 1:1 or 1:2 flour to water is good. Play with it. You will need to do multiple layers if you want a relatively smooth surface that doesn't tear easily. You can use newspaper or other paper. There is ample newspaper available outside the Quest office.

Here's a lady explaining how she teaches paper mache to children, so that should be followable.

If you do wanna get fancy, you can use different concoctions to create more sculptable goop. This video below is from an excellent lady who makes paper mache clay with toilet paper. You can also use things like Quikrete to add dimension and texture.

You can paper mache on top of anything. Chicken wire is often used, but you can also just wad up paper bags and tape them into a shape and paper over that. Balloons, bowls, your own body, skies the limit. If you put plastic wrap down over something you can then make a paper mache mold of it.

Chicken wire extremely versatile for creating three-dimensional forms. It's pretty cheap per roll and you can make objects big and small. You just need wire cutters (and gloves if you're a coward who doesn't like bleeding).

The best way to use it is to treat it like literal sculpting material, like clay. Rather than cutting out sections like you would if you were sewing a pattern, it's easier to use if you start with a blob and crumple, squish, and fold it. One way to think of it, if you're into digital drawing, is that when you squish-sculpt you're basically collapsing the little hexagons to create more dimension. You can really see the squish sculpting in action in this video. They're using wire mesh and not chicken wire (more expensive), but same principle.

Obviously if you're adding on appendages, you'll need to stitch multiple parts together. You can do this with zip ties or with the chicken wire itself. You can cut one of the little hexes and use its wire to wrap around an adjoining hex. See the video below to see what I'm talking about.

This video is a good time lapse video of some of the squishing and adding on appendages to make a full sculpture. Watch on YouTube cause embedding is disabled.

Or these dorks do an okay job of explaining their process when making a human figure.

Every Youtube video of someone doing something with wood is a bearded guy in a full on carpentry shed with tons of tools. But unless you need really long, straight cuts, you can usually do everything you need to with just a jigsaw. A jigsaw will cut plywood and 2x4s, and I don't know what else you'd be using. The main difficulty is not the cutting but the connecting. If it doesn't need to be load bearing, you can probably get by with just screws. If you're making something more structural, you're probably needing bolts, joists, and/or Simpson strong ties. Joists and strong ties are metal doohickeys for creating stronger joints and anchoring. There are a ton of different kinds, so if you're trying to connect things at a weird angle, these are extremely helpful. Wood glue is also great and extremely strong when dry, so use liberally. Wood glue is stronger than the wood itself, so the lumber will splinter and break before the joint fails.

There are far too many carpentry videos for every type of project. Here's the most basic ones I could find on how to build a platform.

Or this man will talk very slowly to guide you through how to make essentially the same thing but fancier.

Do actually use safety precautions! Goggles or glasses are a must and you should wear ear protection. Don't force cuts with power tools, let the tool do the work, it goes at the correct pace. Be careful to clear wood of any hidden nails or metal before cutting. And measure twice, I guess.

PVC pipe is an excellent alternative to lumber. You just cut and glue. Very simple, lightweight, cheap, and fairly reusable, though it will get brittle over time. You can cut it with a hacksaw or garden loppers or special PVC shears. The shears are like $10, but worth it if you've got a lot of cutting to do. Then you need connectors. They come in a variety of joints and angles, just make sure you buy the same size connectors as your pipe. Then you need special PVC glue to cement things together. It comes in a little can with a swab inside. It dries very quickly (like less than 30 seconds), so PVC structures can come together really quickly.

Here's a video where she shows the basics of cutting and gluing.

Here's a good video of a dude showing you how to take your PVCing to the next level by using a heat gun to shape things and bolts to allow for movement.

Oh, expanding foam, what can't you do?! (Be good for the environment.) Expanding foam is my favorite material. It can be used to create sculptures, to add texture, to fasten things to one another, or to seal things. As the can says, it's Great Stuff (that's a brand of foam). It's technically used for insullation. It starts out as a small goop and inflates and drys to be be like a styrofoam. It's lightweight and can be carved and painted. When it's dry it's a fairly strong adhesive, so it can be sprayed into tight spots if you have something difficult to fasten with screws or other glue. IT STICKS TO EVERYTHING. Well, mostly, not some plastic, but it sure as shit sticks to your hands. Wear gloves. The foam basically on comes off when the top layer of skin comes off.

Here's a satisfying video showing its actual usage.

To use it don't spray it too thickly at first. When it's wet, it can collapse under its own weight. Apply it in layers for maximum poof. It dries completely in a few hours; it dries enough for a second layer in usually like a half hour. When it's semi-dry you can squish it to sculpt a little. If you just want some texture you spread it thinly with your (gloved) hand while it is still wet. When it's completely dry you can carve with knives, shavers, or a Dremel.

In this video, a guy uses Loctite (slightly more expensive than Great Stuff) to phenomenal effect when making a mask prop.

This person uses it to somewhat less phenomenal effect, but they show it as an alternative to paper mache to cover for chicken wire.

Have fun. Don't wear clothes you like.