Arachne

Arachne Spiderweb Headpiece

I created this spiderweb headpiece as part of the overall costume inspired by the Greek mythological legend of Arachne, a human woman who had a talent for weaving, but offended the Goddess of Wisdom, Athena, and as a result was transformed into an immortal being that could naturally produce silk to use for webbing, also known as the first spider. The module in which we created this piece was titled the Transformation module, in which we were to pick a moment of transformation to design for. The shape of a spider in the processing of covering the females face from her forehead shows the spider that took over the human's body when the Goddess placed her curse on her. This was also a collaborative project with Design for Film students and Photography students.

The Process

The process of the making of this headpiece involved a variety of materials. The base consists of an old black swimming cap, a black headband, and, to cover the front of the model's hair, material from a black sock. These materials are held together with hot glue. For extra security, bobby pins are used at the back of the models head to hold the headpiece to her hair.

The spider figure seen at the bottom of the headpiece was made using wire and more of the black sock material that I used for the initial forehead covering. As I used hot glue again to stick the material to the wire, and it could be seen, I went back with a black paint to cover the white glue being shown. I strategically added the two spider legs just over the ears of the model to further conceal the hair/ ears not covered by makeup. The spider's eyes are made from dots of hot glue painted black on top of the fabric.

The main spider webbing jutting from the base of the headpiece is made from wooden sticks painted black, and glued onto the base. They are wrapped at the bottom by black thread to conceal any glue used, and the same method of black painting is used for the bits peeking out. More black thread is used for the webbing going horizontally across the piece. similar to the wrapping method of the Gandaberunda headpiece, I wrapped and rewrapped the black thread at points on the wooden sticks to create bigger more noticeable circular dots. I also added three or four threads together using small amounts of regular glue to stick them together, making a thicker, more visible webbing. 

The two spiders dangling from either side of the model's face are 3D printed and painted black. They hang from chains taken from an old necklace, with a little metal line screwed into the two legs sticking up. As a later addition, the flat side of the 3D prints were hot glued and painted black to added a 3D texture to that side as well,  with hot glued eyes like that of the central spider figure. 

Finally, the triangular tops of the headpiece were 3D printed and painted black. They were then hot glued on. The final aaddition made was the strings of hot glue you can see around the black thread and wooden poles. This was a last-minute improvise using the hot glue gun.

Process Gallery

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