Another year, another FruitCorso.
This year we went a bit smaller than usual. The cart has the name "Time Flies", it's in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the club.
We did a literal interpretation of "Time Flies" by having a pocket watch carried by butterflies and swallows.
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| The cart during the FruitCorso Parade. |
I was asked to help out with the design of the birds. I had to do a drawing of one in several positions with the wing width of 1,5 meter.
I made 3 flying designs; 1 flying, 1 braking and one with its wings half folded (that last one was skipped). Next to that I also designed a sitting one.
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| Top view of my sketch. |
From this I made a metal design together with the welder. Me and the designer decided it was easiest to do the wings out of carton with a simple metal framing inside; this makes the wing look thinner and the separate feathers are easier made.
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| Metal frame with a Styrofoam head. |
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| The metal frame with a cardboard wing glued to it. |
During the metal work I was trying to make 11 swallow heads. Birds aren't easy so there's a bit of difference between them. (There's one that looks more like a pigeon)
At home I used clay to improve the faces of the birds.
In all honesty I was skeptical about the size of the birds; they were the same size as the butterflies, but looked even smaller since their wings have less surface. None the less, no discussion, they were approved by the designer. The sitting ones were allowed to become a bit bigger.
After the metal work I could attach the wings. This took a lot of work so I was lucky there were some folks to help me out.
When that was done the feet/legs could be welded and attached. It was a bit unclear if we had to wait until the chain was done (making them fit better), but we got a go to just give them feet.
Now the paper team could finally add paper to them, to which we could add plaster (takes the metal framing edges away and makes sure the neck runs smoothly to it's back/chest)
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| "Birds falling down the rooftops..." |
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| The bird finished with plaster. |
After all the "paperwork" it was time to draw on them. I had miscalculated how much time would go into this. There were a lot...a lot of feathers! One of the designers stepped in and helped me out with this.
When everything was drawn and painted, people could finally start gluing on all the different kinds of seeds.
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| Painted bird. |
The product design was also part of my "job", I made a 2:1 sketch to make it clear to other which and how the products were going to be glues on. (I made a copy which I colored and gave it a caption what it all meant). Unfortunately, time was our enemy, so we had to change the design and switch some products. All in all I'm quite happy how things turned out.
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The sketch of the different types of seeds/fruits/vegetables that had to go on the bird.
Left = back, right = stomach. In the end we did some changes due to the time consuming design. |
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| My bird, finished with the seed part. |
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| The backside still needs a lot of work. Therefor it will go home with me. |
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| It barely fitted in the car. |
When everything was done, every seeds was glued on, every tomato was in place, every bird/ butterfly was welded where they needed to go it was finally time to go outside!
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| The cart during the FruitCorso Parade. |
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| The end result of my bird. |
And here some Bonus pictures from the build.
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| How the clock looked during the 50th anniversary party. |
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| Backside of the cart when it was finished and almost ready to go outside. |
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| The framing of one of the butterflies |
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| Pretty red butterfly. |
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| Side of the watch. |
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| This is my favorite bird! It's a really chubby one. |
