Catwalk project...finally, a design I like.

I managed to build up my headpiece once everything was ready like the paper cut-outs and had got the acrylic I ordered, a day before the deadline (seems way too suspiciously organized to me, it'll never happen again!)
My main problem with my Japanese headpiece was the material going with the design; I could not get my head around making the entire thing out of paper, layered, and being 3D for some reason, in my mind my idea looked aesthetically pleasing but whenever I drew it and I saw it on paper it didn't really work. I wanted a mask/headpiece that would cover half the face and act as a sort of 'modern day geisha' head dress.
I decided to go a step back and do more research, I mostly looked at paper sculptures, some of which were amazing and extremely 3D, colourful, but would have taken an age to make. And to learn all the techniques used. I came across an artist/sculpture called Zoe Bradley, her work was mainly elaborate paper dresses/installations, and also headwear. A lot of these were massive, very bold and like catwalk fashion. Her work inspired me to change the shape of my head piece. I also thought about Chinese/Japanese lanterns when I thought of this idea...for the photoshoot I hope to have a light on the inside to project patterns onto the background.
I made an acrylic base sawing it out to be the same shape as the paper patterns, heated it up in a kiln to 'mold' it into a comfortable shape for a head, decided it was better curving up away from the head than down onto it...riveted with silver wire 5 of the paper patterns onto the base, drilled two holes in the centre to thread some ribbon through to make the headpiece wearable and stay on. Then I just built the paper patterns up and out the way joining up at the top again with pewter fasteners..





I'm really pleased with the effect of this, it's not an obvious Japanese design, but it's fragile, intricate AND bold at the same time. I'm hoping the lantern idea works :)

Also, for Design Studies The Rhetoric of the image..it's so difficult to understand :S I'm really trying to decipher every second word as I go along reading it, hopefully in my understanding most of it means that there are at least three different kinds of messages to be read/shown in an image? Including linguistic, coded and non-coded messages..the linguistic part i definitely understand I'm not sure about the rest though, hmm. We'll see.