Trying Some New Display Methods

I've been collecting items for my future table display in my future tent at some future art festival or craft fair.  Recently I bought some styrofoam wig heads with the most "realistic" necks I could find so I could display my ruffs without needing to put them on a form.  I had designed a free-standing display that used recycled margarine tubs and dowel rods in slots, but then realized the ruffs would looks like a bunch of balancing plates in a vaudeville act...  I needed to display them on something that had a bit of "context" so people would know what they were looking at.

So I bought the styrofoam heads and decided I absolutely had to do something with them because 1) the styrofoam would get really dirty very quickly, and 2) I hate the look of styrofoam itself, and 3) if I didn't do something with them I would be missing a design opportunity to enhance the "feel of my shop" and help with the branding...

So I was going to texture them with paint.  I sprayed one with grey primer, and realized I had made a mistake about a minute into spraying it--I used Krylon primer and it started to melt the styrofoam!!  I quickly dabbed the surface hoping to wipe off as much of the primer as I could, but it was a little too late...  My poor styrofoam head looked like it was a bit...   well...  "pekid".  The melting holes were far from attractive.  I thought I'd ruined my first display piece.

Then I thought, well, why not cover it with something?   I thought about kraft paper (I have a huge roll of it that I use for patterning) and paper mache or something similar.  But the paper was too heavy to retain the shapes of the features of the face.  I thought about old pages from a book.  I thought about old maps.  But as appealing as those ideas were, I didn't have anything like that on hand...  So I opted for the tissue paper of an old 1980s Butterick pattern instead...

 I sliced up the patterns into long strips, and then randomly adhered them to the styrofoam with a cheap, clear acrylic "gloss" sealer and a paint brush, making sure to cover all of the surface of the foam with a couple layers.  While it worked great and the tissue paper was lightweight and transparent, it was hardly glossy when it all dried.  And it didn't look old enough for me.

I went back and sponged on a transparent ink that was developed specifically for aging and distressing.  It had an antique sepia brown hue, and added a bit of shadow and dimension to the different layers.  It accented the texture of the tissue paper by making it more pronounced and popping out the little wrinkles.

Then I painted over the whole thing with a new product I found at my local craft store tonight:  Triple Thick Gloss Glaze.  I like this product.  I'd used the spray on kind before, and tonight I discovered a couple different thicknesses of the paint on kind.  I slathered it on and let it dry, and it created (as it said it would) a thick glassy glaze over the whole thing.  Shiney!

So I took some pictures of them, and now I need some advice.

Do they look creepy?  I was hoping for an "artsy fartsy" feel, but I look at them in the photos and I'm a bit weirded out... They aren't like this in real life.  They're somehow more "distant"...

I thought I could use them for my product photography, too, but now I'm not so sure...  I absolutely LOVE the look because it's so different, and it's the closest I've been able to come to an assemblage feel, but is it right for this purpose?  Is it distracting?  I had been using a dress form covered in a black velvet sheath, but dress forms don't have heads so I worried it would look odd.  Now that I have a head, I don't have a body.  And that looks weird to me, too, now...

I'm also trying a different background.  The checked background provides a bit more "character" to the product photography, but it's definitely lighter in tone than the plain gray I had been using with the dress form...  I'm not sure that's good or bad...

Anyone have any thoughts?  I know the new display heads and background are more visually interesting, but is it in a good way?

Hm.  I can't tell...

Until next time, I'll try to Live Life with Relish but this is a quandary that's going to bug me...  hehe...