Woodwitch construction

The Woodwitch is supposed to look like she’s gathered a bunch of sticks and built herself out of them. I did a technical sketch on the large drawing of her and then dived in. This is the shoulder yoke. After cutting out the shape on the bandsaw, I drilled two holes for the support poles. These also allow me to put a saw through and cut out the middle.

It leaves crazy amounts of splinters and, um, my cut was not exactly symmetrical.

Fortunately, with the aid of my dremel tool I was able to take care of both problems at once. Even when the edges are as egregiously rough as that, I always hit the corners with the sander to soften then. I don’t want a sharp edge chewing through a puppet or puppeteer.

Now this bit I’m pleased with. The supports from the shoulders come down to a point. I’m using bamboo for them because it’s incredibly light and strong. The only problem with it is that you can’t drill holes in it without seriously compromising the structural integrity. The solution is to basically tie it together. By adding this little block in — see how nicely I’ve created a hollow to cup the rods — I’m able to glue as well as tying the rods.

For the hip plate I’ve taken a two inch thick piece of bass wood and shaped the hips and handle out of one piece. There is an interesting tendency for comfortable handgrips to have an, um, distinctive shape.

I bought a whole bunch of fake greenery in the floral district and stripped the ends of it to expose the wire inside.

This gets wired to the hips so that the twig skirt has a solid base.

A continuous piece of spring steel goes from the hip plate, held in place with plumbers epoxy, and up to that cute little triangle wedge I cut earlier.

So here she is with her branches installed. I’ll be treating the grabber arms so they look like branches as well. She gets a dress which will cover the midriff and a new head.

This is the sculpture of the witch’s head. I’ll have shots of making the head later.