Giant of Kinsale - Part 1

Below is the basic structure for "O'Brien" as he affectionately became known. It's funny to look at this now. This was the culmination of many days work and  sleepless nights. It doesn't look much just a weird amalgamation of multiple materials... but this is what everything was built onto. Hard work on this structure saved much work down the line.

Here are a few things I learned from this process

1. Never take a phone call whilst in the middle of complex scale equations

2. Work in small spurts with walks/nights sleep in between sessions

Basic Structure

Bamboo Frame

I used this website to calculate several complex circle equations. This equation which calculates the largest square inside the circle was particularly invaluable. 

I created the frame based on a series of circles (Beer Tubing) that would be supported by bamboo. These I decided would be the upper brow and jaw line. As the chin would come down further than this structure, the eyes needed to be lower than the centre point of the Bamboo structure. This is so the eyes would end up at the centre of the head on completion. 

I created two further supporting squares for the brow bone and cheek bones. Onto these four squares I attached beer tubing. At this point I decided on placing the eyes on one side and put eye-holders in place.

Structure with eye in place

Close up of eye

Side view of structure with eye in place

These eye holes were made using "galband" and cable ties attached to the beer-tubing frame.

There are also a series of "guy" ropes inside the structure to keep the head shape in place. These were all removed with the addition of later layers.