Nottingham Playhouse | Influential Research

Da Vinci - Anatomy

Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519) 

Recto: The skeleton.

(Creation 1510-11)

At the beginning of this project I thought about constructing a set from bones within the body. I wanted to look at the back and the spine as well as the rib cage. Further development of research and design has moved me onto using bits of the body but on a smaller scale than originally planned. 

Da Vinci's drawings or the human skeleton helped with initial ideas, looking at the rib cage and visually seeing the shape of the bones. 

I feel after looking into the human skeleton and in particular, the rib cages, it has helped me develop my ideas. I am now looking at columns and pillars which was a result of the rib cages. 





Recto: The cranium sectioned. Verso: The skull sectioned

(Creation: 1489)
2 halves of a skull, showing relations of the different facial cavities, cheek and nose seen from in front. 

Looking at Da Vinci has allowed me to get a better understanding of the anatomy of the human skull and has shown me how there is many variants of the skulls shape. 

I like the idea of Skulduggery within the Duchess of Malfi, and I feel that I should look at research around human remains and in particular human skulls. 

Model Making Nottingham Playhouse | Playing with Shape

I am very interested in columns for my design, for reading The Duchess of Malfi I get the idea of upper class, in a world of their own, spacious image. 

I feel that the characters are effectively a small part in a bigger world and there for I felt that the column would emphases space and luxury. To much space than what they know what to do with. 

I like the idea of space and I would like the set to focus around the Duchess' world. For example, whilst the play is following the high life of the Duchess I want the set to be bright and airy, plenty of welcoming space for her, Antonio and their three children. However as the Duchess' world begins to crumble from under her feet I want the set to get darker.

Each section from the set above would have its own lighting rig. When the Duchess falls her world gets darker and one by one the portal blacks out. Up until the Act 4, scene 1 where Ferdinand tortures the Duchess. For the prison scene, I would want one spot light, cold and blue down stage centred on the Duchess. Ferdinand hugging the edge of the light whilst torturing the Duchess.

Model Making Nottingham Playhouse | Playing with Columns

With the columns i want to have the option to have light shine through the skulls. I've tried using acetate to allow for light to shine through. However this didn't work out to well as the plastic of the bones and the clay of the skulls did not glue and stick to the acetate very well, they kept falling off at the slightest knock.

I need to find out how else I can make four columns consisting of bones and skulls.

Wood?
Styrofoam?
metal support?
clay?

Puppet Making Workshop | The Head

During this last week we have been working hard in the workshop to design and construct a puppet.

At the beginning of the week we were asked to bring along a 1:1 scale drawing of a head, 20cm by 20 cm.

I chose to do a male character for my puppet and this was the final chosen design.

We used the profile and front view to create the head out of styrofoam block. Cutting out the profile view first as it gives you more surface space to cut out the face and for carving. This was done on the bandsaw.

Using the drawings we have to keep referring back to them to make sure that the facial features are in the correct places and for the eyes in particular, make sure that they are far enough back in the head. To begin carving the head, we used large kitchen knives to cut alway large sections to create a basic facial shape. We then go in with a scalpel to do the finer details before smoothing it down with sandpaper.

Skulls and Bones

The bones were 3D prints and I had to print of around 7 sets of 25 bones. This was a very time consuming thing as each set took about 40 minutes to print.

Thankfully the bones turned out really well and the surface was ideal for painting in acrylic paint. 

The skulls I made from milliput and a cocktail stick to make the holes for the eye and nose. 

Some of the skull were made hollow as to allow light to shine through them.

3D printing the bones 

The bones printed and taken out of their case. Aprox 1:25 scale