Sunday, July 01, 2007

My "Room mates" 2

This is a continuation on my last post of the same title, but no, I'm writing this not because there're new "members" joining my room, just that 2 of my "room mates" had gone for a bit of a makeover. They are: Miss "Qing Yi" and "Lao Da"!

For Miss "Qing Yi", I've repainted her face, so now she no longer look dirty and shabby. Sad to say, I wasn't able to cover the crack on her face no matter how much white primer I use. Actually painting Teochew wire puppets are very difficult, because of the painting techniques used. As in typical traditional face paintings used in Teochew dolls and puppets, a very firm hand and a very fine brush is needed in order to draw some really ultra-thin and smooth lines. As you can see, my skills weren't there, and there's visible signs that my strokes were a bit too strong. Luckily, it wasn't too serious to be really considered a damage. Other than painting her face, I've changed the attached on hair behind her back too. Originally, there was only a piece of black cloth (already in bad condition) behind her back, simulating the long tassled silk thread hair-piece that hua dans wore when they dress up in "da tou". I thought the black cloth looked real ugly, so I snipped it off, and replaced it with a tassle of black embroidery threads I've made myself, and I think she looked better now. The next thing which I think need to be done on her, is to gibe her a new set of costumes, which could be a problem as I don't know embroidery, and removing her current costume off her body could be a problem as it has been glued and nailed firmly over her wooden body.



As for "Lao Da", I've given his face a new coat of paint too, as the original paintwork was simply too ugly, and slightly chipped too. I think I did a better paint job on "Lao Da", because of the bigger surface area of the head. After redoing his paint, I've also re-threaded the strings, as I found the colour of the original white threads an eyesore, and also the positions on the marionette whereby the various threads were attached too were a bit not ideal. Now I think "Lao Da" looked more visually pleasing with this new set of paint and strings!


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Omg - u really into such. They are lucky to be your room mates lor =D
xj