Glasses Bird
A bizarre hybrid of a bird and a pair of eyeglasses that Alice briefly encounters in Disney's 1951 Alice in Wonderland animated film, which was based upon the Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass children's books penned by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under his more-popularly-known pseudonym, Lewis Carroll.
This is the scene, from the movie, in which Alice meets up with the Glasses and Mirror Birds in the Tulgey Woods. The Glasses Bird silently perches upon Alice's shoulders, completely unnoticed by the girl, despite being literally in front of her nose, until she happens to look at her reflection in the Mirror Bird's face, spots the comical hitchhiker, and, weary of Wonderland's incessant nonsense and pranks, lifts the creature from her body and gently places it next to its avian friend on a tree branch before moving on deeper into the forest.
These are the quick pencil reference sketches/guides I made in my notebook to aid myself as I worked:
I started off by fabricating the legs, which are shown almost completed below. They're constructed from a series of hollow paper cylinders, strung with bendable wire for structural support and to provide the articulation.
I then proceeded to do the beak/nose and the frame for the lenses. Other than painting/assembling things, and making the transparent eyes, that's about all there was to this project, as the creature's cartoon design is very simplistic. As many of my figures end up being multi-day affairs, it was nice to work on something that could be modeled and painted in one afternoon for a change.
Here's the finished figure. The primary danger in crafting something like this is that, once completed, you'll want to try the glasses out on everything and anything that they'll fit! Speaking of which, I intentionally scaled the creature so that I could place it on a variety of my fashion dolls.
Materials:
Lined white paper, a white envelope, newsprint, cardboard from a box of tissue paper, white glue, wire twist ties, transparent plastic sheeting from a toy package, and acrylic paint.
Dimensions*:
5.4 cm (2.1") wide x 4.8 cm (1.9") high x 7.6 cm (3.0") long.
* The listed values will vary depending on how the figure's joints are positioned.
Articulation:
14 Points: Hips, knees, ankles, and all eight toes.
Time:
Several hours on March 24, 2015.
I also touched up the paint/finish the following day and replaced the original eyes, which I had made out of transparent tape as an experiment, with sturdier plastic ones. While the tape eyes looked/functioned fine, they were fairly thin/flimsy and had air bubble halos trapped around the paper pupils sandwiched inside.
REFERENCES:
Blabbing on Arts and Culture! Blog Alice in Wonderland Mosaic: Part 12.
Disney Madness MIDI music file collection.
Wikipedia Alice in Wonderland (1951 film) and List of Creatures in Wonderland articles.
« Return to my Miscellaneous Artwork Gallery Index Page
This is a nonprofit web site.
Any and all copyrighted imagery, terminology, etc., depicted on this page belongs to its respective holders/owners, namely Disney.
The repeating background graphic is a still from Disney's Alice in Wonderland film depicting Alice's meeting with the Glasses and Mirror Birds.
The MIDI music playing is the "All in the Golden Afternoon" theme from Disney's Alice in Wonderland animated film.
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