Made by Amanda Carr
Our middle school decided to do the Lion King Jr. for our spring musical. I used a number of your amazing mask patterns to create the animals for this production. I got so many compliments on how professional they all looked! I gave you all the credit for your amazing patterns. Thank you so much Jonni!
How I made the 2 giraffe headpieces:
I printed the tabletop giraffe sculpture pattern plus the cap part of the lion mask pattern out on cardstock to keep them as light as possible. The flexibility of the cardstock also allowed me to custom shape the cap part of the headpieces to our actor’s heads. I used brown packing paper and a mixture of 2/3 white school glue to 1/3 water for the paper mache.
I applied the glue solution to the ripped squares of packing paper using a paint brush. I added some packing air pillows inside the giraffe’s neck for support. Once dry, I looked at the giraffe images on this site and pictures of real giraffes for inspiration. I drew the spots on with pencil and then painted them on with small brushes. I highly recommend using clear nail polish over the black of the eyes to add a wet, lifelike shine.
The giraffe costume:
The headpiece was secured by stapling in elastic straps from ear to ear under the chin (similar to a bike helmet with the V around the ear). There was also an elastic loop at the very back that went around the actor’s low ponytail/braid. While this headpiece was very light, it was still slightly front heavy because of the giraffe’s nose (and because the actor needed to lean forward).
To help provide extra support, I ran a piece of adhesive velcro up the back of the headpiece about 7 inches. This was matched to a piece of non adhesive velcro sewn onto the collar of the actor’s giraffe shirt. The giraffe shirt was an old white long sleeve shirt with extended arms.
I painted the shirts with the same giraffe spots (watered out acrylic paint) to match the paint on the giraffe headpiece. I used pool noodles for legs and 2 paper cups for hooves. These were covered with white or black duct tape. I painted the white duct tape with giraffe spots to continue the giraffe pattern.
Here are some images of the completed giraffes. A few people even said they had tears in their eyes when they saw how majestic they looked as they crossed the stage for the opening number! All the work was totally worth it!
