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DH is a brainy free-thinker who liked the irony of a Medusa turned to stone. His Medusa started as a masking-tape covered milk jug with foam lips and wire "hair" with little newspaper snake heads (cut off in pic).
He covered it in one layer of standard papier mache, then gessoed it, painted it gray and rubbed in some black texture.
DD is a fast worker who appreciates tradition but likes to add her own twist. Her gargoyle is built around a plastic juice jug. The tongue is newspaper over wire. She covered hers with a couple layers of traditional papier mache, then headed back to college. So DH painted hers, in the same way he did his.
DS is a sweet old soul who moves deliberately and did this not for the love of art, but because I asked. Nicely. The first day, he made the head of his creature, shaping crumpled newspaper around a loop of covered wire. Later, he made the body - another plastic juice bottle, with rolled-up newspaper tubes taped to it. He covered his gargoyle with pulped paper (torn up and put through blender) mixed with white glue and wallpaper paste. He dabbed it with a little gray paint to highlight the texture but otherwise decided to leave as is. He may leave the cloth-wrapped "claws" as is, too.
Then there's me. I start out with grand visions and get bogged down in detail. I loved the idea of a vampire rooster, which started out as a Gatorade bottle, cracker box and cardboard tubes.
The wire legs kept bending, so eventually I added a plastic frosting container for the base.
I covered the body with a layer of traditional papier mache and used paper towels and tissues dipped in wallpaper paste on the head.
Then I added a layer of cloth mache: an ancient cotton t-shirt ripped in strips and dipped in white glue. This stuff is really sturdy.
I used gray paint, though I still want to paint the vampire fangs glowing white. And the finished creature definitely needs a black cape.
