Knocking together some custom geta!
Sep. 12th, 2008 08:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
labricoleuseWe're doing some shoes for Pericles that...well, they'll have to be seen to be believed (and fear not, i will do a process post when they are finished).
If you are familiar with the play, you know there's a character called Bawd who is a fairly ruthless whorehouse madam (sometimes ominous, sometimes comic relief, depending on the production); these are her shoes. The upper portion is the subject of a-whole-nother post yet to come, but i felt that the soles called for their own separate focus. These shoes are to be built upon traditional Japanese geta soles--the lifted-up wooden patten-like ones. (Incidentally, geta seem to be kind of popular here; this is not my first post on them!)
So of course the first step (har har) was to figure out the making of those wooden soles...except, thanks to the internet, i didn't have to!
EGeorgeOnline.com hosts a "Make Your Own Geta" page, incomplete but complete enough for my purposes and probably anyone else's as well. The first page is all about basic construction info and tools you'll need and such, but the second page is the truly invaluable one, featuring a custom geta plan generator by Chris Haan. You plug in the measurement of the length you want the sole to be, and it generates all your other measurements for you complete with a printable diagram! I have an already bursting workload so i went and talked with our ATD about knocking them together for me. Luckily, he had time to help out!
Beautiful solid oak geta soles, ready for action!
Of course, before i moved on to the next part of the process--the shoe that goes onto these--i wanted to make sure the actor wearing them had a chance to see what they'd be like to walk in, and let me know whether the teeth (or ha) were in fact accurately positioned for balance and gait.
Duct tape proves its universal usefulness yet again.
Our Bawd was in fact able to stroll around the building and get a good feel for how walking on these sole shapes will be. The shoes will get made in the coming week, so i'll revisit these in a future post, i'm sure!
I'll say one thing for this show, it's always good for some really cool crafts artisanship projects!
If you are familiar with the play, you know there's a character called Bawd who is a fairly ruthless whorehouse madam (sometimes ominous, sometimes comic relief, depending on the production); these are her shoes. The upper portion is the subject of a-whole-nother post yet to come, but i felt that the soles called for their own separate focus. These shoes are to be built upon traditional Japanese geta soles--the lifted-up wooden patten-like ones. (Incidentally, geta seem to be kind of popular here; this is not my first post on them!)
So of course the first step (har har) was to figure out the making of those wooden soles...except, thanks to the internet, i didn't have to!
EGeorgeOnline.com hosts a "Make Your Own Geta" page, incomplete but complete enough for my purposes and probably anyone else's as well. The first page is all about basic construction info and tools you'll need and such, but the second page is the truly invaluable one, featuring a custom geta plan generator by Chris Haan. You plug in the measurement of the length you want the sole to be, and it generates all your other measurements for you complete with a printable diagram! I have an already bursting workload so i went and talked with our ATD about knocking them together for me. Luckily, he had time to help out!
Beautiful solid oak geta soles, ready for action!
Of course, before i moved on to the next part of the process--the shoe that goes onto these--i wanted to make sure the actor wearing them had a chance to see what they'd be like to walk in, and let me know whether the teeth (or ha) were in fact accurately positioned for balance and gait.
Duct tape proves its universal usefulness yet again.
Our Bawd was in fact able to stroll around the building and get a good feel for how walking on these sole shapes will be. The shoes will get made in the coming week, so i'll revisit these in a future post, i'm sure!
I'll say one thing for this show, it's always good for some really cool crafts artisanship projects!
