Made by Claire Benne
I’m a high school teacher in Melbourne, Australia, and our school recently staged a production of Lord of the Flies. The play calls for a pig which has its head cut off and mounted on a stick, all done on stage. After a fruitless search, we realised we would have to make one from scratch.
This was my first attempt at paper mache since some very simple balloon work as a child. I used the Piglet Wall Sculpture pattern for the head, and made the body using your advice for cardboard armatures. The whole thing was then covered in fake fur, styled and painted to look as close to a wild pig as we could get it.
The head attached to the body with velcro and press studs beneath a fur collar, and I filled in the head with scrunched up paper before layering the top with paper mache, including a hole for the stick so it would sit properly on stage. I’m pretty proud of how it came out, and am so grateful to Jonni for making her excellent resources available.
Thank you so much for posting this! I’m also making a pig for a Lord of the Flies school play and after making the the piglet wall scuptlure I was unsure of where to go next. Now I can see to get some fur from the costume cupboard.
Wow – that’s amazing! I hope you have an opportunity to use it again or that you found it a good home, because it’s too good to be stored away in a box. Thanks so much for sharing it with us. 🙂