lion king headress process

for the lion king headdresses we stared with the design concepts looking at the past of lion king the musical and the Disney animated film. For this I was given the task of making the headdresses for the three lioness so I started with a simplistic idea of ears as the client had specified the headdresses could not in any way cover the performers face, so from this concept I begun the following process:

1. I obtained a plain headband
2. I then wrapped a thin golden fabric round the headband to give it shape and something to stitch through
3. I then secured the said fabric to the headband using small tight stitches
4. I then outlined four largish semicircles out of a golden brown calico fur to give the effect of fur with the quality of the strands that make the headdresses more three dimensional instead of using a material such as felt
5. after which I outlined two smaller semicircles in brown felt for the inner ear to give contrast to the fluffiness of the calico
6. to two of the calico semicircles I stitched the brown felt semicircles
7. I then turned the calico into pair and turned them back to back and stitched around edge and turned it back the right way round to create a neat seam with no stitches showing to create a professional finish  
8. I then stuffed the newly made ears with wadding to give them shape and structure
9. I stitched closed my now stuffed ears
10. I carefully attached the ears to the headband using small stitches through the gold silky fabric
11. using scraps of the golden brown calico I covered the rest of the headband in uneven fluffy fabric using small stitches through the fabric beneath
12.  then to give the headdress a African tribal feel to go in with the cultural context I wrapped coarse brown woollen string around the brown/gold calico which also helped accentuate the texture of the fur-like calico
13. et voila le masque est terminé !!
     

historical context

masks unit

Masks from timidrew