Emillie Florence
Planning, Production & Presentation
padding is one way drag queens can imitate their female figure, to make hoops and bum appear larger to give their waist an hourglass figure , corsets are also used to manipulate the body. I experimented with expanding foam, several times... my first attempt I learnt that the foam dries hard and the padding did not curve around the hip
my second attempt I used expanding foam around my manikin for the curved shape. first fail - gravity.
the manikin hanging from the ceiling wasn't letting the expanding foam stick and ketp falling to the ground, I laid the manikin on the side on the floor to solve the problem. although, again thanks to gravity, when dried the foam had dripped over night, however I love the outcome.
padding with pillows was interesting, heart shaped pillows to form the p on the bum. two pairs of tights to sort of smooth it out and I made a duck tape cast, cellotape underneath to cut off and have a base. I filled it with expanding foam and duck taped up the gaps and legs.
After making the duct tape cast I attempted to create an outer layer to build a latex unitard on top of as I had planned in my mind map. First attempt was toy stuffing, cling film as a barrier and dipping bandages in latex. the bands were not wrapping round the silhouettes curves properly and the bands were also not long enough. I found a sack with the same material and dipped it in the latex and wrapped round the body however the second it was dipped in latex it became too heavy and when dry completely lost the shape underneath instead of conforming to it. final attempt I taped up the body model and filled with expanding builders foam, leaving days in between to let dry and top it up as I wasn't sure how far it would expand. when I came to cutting the duct tape off a reation had happened where I must have missed a gap wrapping the cling film. the protective barrier wasn't there and the sticky area on the duct tape has merged with the expanding foam to create a puss like green consistency.
I tried again straight onto my model as clearly the 3d experiments didn't work that well. padding with pillows was interesting, heart shaped pillows to form the p on the bum. two pairs of tights to sort of smooth it out and I made a duck tape cast, cellotape underneath to cut off and have a base. I filled it with expanding foam and duck taped up the gaps and legs.
