Symbiotic Costume

This is my symbiotic costume that had to be made using found cardboard.  I originally designed a leech, like kind of appendage coming out of my head, arm and stomach so that I could show the relationship the the costume in relativity to its host.  I liked the idea of the stomach appendage eating your arm because it makes it feel like the “parasite” is wearing you almost in a sense by this thing rip out of my shirt to show it is a part of me and not just something I’m wearing overtop.  I also tried to show this in the mask part by having it consume my face with me barely visible still inside of it, but there were some difficulties in that.   Some hurdles I faced during this project were cutting the pieces and attaching them together to make the wormy parts feel more organic in the way that they grow, shrink or bend.  I especially had trouble doing that on the mask part, but learned from that in order to make the “hand eater” a little more alive.  I also ended up ditching the idea of a second arm tentacle for the purpose of having a free hand and not overdoing the look.  Which I think that it made a better look in doing so though, and also gave me the time to add some spit (hot glue strands) and all of the strips in order to show a rugged, almost hairy like texture to these creatures eating meIn my class there were a lot of other designs during the critique that demonstrated the symbiotic relationship between its wearer and the overall design.    Some of these other designs pictured were my favorite out of the ones I saw based on relationship, and creative uniqueness.