I decided I’d really like a large bust of The dread Cthulhu, the monstrous beast from the HP Lovecraft story “The Call of Cthulhu”. As I’m not a sculptor, don’t have the time to learn or practise to become one, can’t afford blocks of marble or to have casts made in bronze, I went my usual  fall back route, Paper Mache!

It’s low cost very versatile and relatively easy to use. I haven’t made anything in paper mache since my ships figurehead so I’m a bit out of practice.

First things first, you need an armature, that’s just a fancy way of saying you need a form to build on. It can be almost anything, as long as it gives you a good strong starting point to put the paper mache on. I often go for card board and chicken wire. Cheap and readily available, the make it fairly easy to build a rough shape for you sculpture.

So I did a rough sketch of my idea of what Cthulhu looks like. It would be nice if could make a detailed drawing of what I want the finished bust to look like, sadly I can’t. So a rough drawing of the profile on paper and one of the front view which can be copied on to an old cardboard box. Cut them out, glue them together with a hot glue gun and were off!

Here’s the cardboard armature.

Cthulhu bust armature

I added more pieces of cardboard for strength and to give a little more form to the armature, then I added a layer of chicken wire.

Cthulhu bust armature cardboard

Next step was to add a layer of paper strips coated on pva glue.

Cthulhu bust armature paper mache

So far so good, more soon.

Tags: armature, cthulhu, cthulhu bust, cthulhu sculpture, paper mache, sculpture