The Mad Lab
Monthly Halloween Prop Building Contest
Here is my entry for the July Mad Lab
Click here for a 360° view of the brain in a jar.
The contest required that we use tubing, a planter bucket, and a towel.
Materials Used:
Two water bottles
Wire
Towel
Tubing
Planter Bucket
Cheese Puff Bucket
Plastic Bowl Lid
Newspaper
Paper Mache Paste
I started by covering the bottles with newspaper and binding them together with wire. Then two little ovals were made from built up paper balls for the side of the brain and hot glued into place. Wire was used for the optic nerves leading to a ball of paper for the eyes.
After that paper mache clay was used to build up the convolutions in the brain. (Sorry for the bad picture here.)
The brain stem was made by taking a towel, shredding it, and using PM clay to make vertebrae.
The planter pot had a gap on the underside lip that was filled with PM clay.
The brain, brain stem, planter pot, and plastic bowl lid were all painted black, then dry brushed white
Clear plastic tubing was used as to give a look of I.V's going into the brain and ended up being the hanging support for the brain once placed in the jar, different mixes of paint were sucked up the tube then blown out to give them different colors. The brain ended up being a tight fit and final assembly took place inside the jar, much like a ship in a bottle. Wire was used to puncture the brain and the tubing was stuck over it. A corkscrew wire was used to attach the towel shred end of the brain stem to the bottom center of the brain.
Once the tubes and brain stem were in place final assembly could happen. This was simply putting a wire across the top of the cheese puff container that acted as a beam to tie the tubing to.
Here are some final images, in the last shot I put some dry ice in the planter to give a gassy haze effect inside the brain's jar.
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