TRIBAL FIGURES

I always had this attraction towards the tribal figures made of iron, or whatsoever material they use, that they used to sell at the handicrafts sections of annual trade fairs held, here, in Delhi. I've seen a lot of it, being keen in home decor stuff. The glaze, the colours, those black slim shiny figures used to pull!

It's a great coincidence that I recently stumbled upon the fact that I can make these similar looking figures with newspaper. Yes! you read it right. Even I had to double check the ingredient list as to what else will pop up later which would make it a no-no for me, but its just all the old newspaper lying around. Wow!

What I was looking for was an entirely different craft and leaving even the thought of it, I straight away jumped at this one.

So, here I am, presenting my very own & very beautiful - black lady!

Here's what you'll need

• newspaper tubes
• adhesive
• scissors

what you need

• Start by making a spiralled base and fix a newspaper tube straight in the middle. This will act as the pillar on which everything stands.
• Take one tube and fix it horizontally on the centre tube. These are the arms.
• Now, with some more tubes, make the body structure. I took six tubes and put them on the spiral base straight. Then take the rightmost three and fold it behind the opposite arm, and similarly the leftmost three folding over the other.

You may want to use some tape/thread/clips to hold things tightly in place.

• Now just take a tube or two and wrap it around below the arms. This will be the upper body cloth of the figure.

At this stage, you will have something looking like this.

front

back

• Next, you take many tubes and place it on your figure to form a skirt. What I did was spread the tubes on the floor one besides the other and put just one tape across all in the middle. It helped me hold it up exactly in that shape and i just rolled it around the figure as a skirt.
• The next step will be fixing the skirt tubes on the waist. You can either use tubes and wrap them around the waist like a belt (like we did for the blouse), or you just take a piece of newspaper, folded in a rectangular shape, and wrap it around the waist. (I had to go with the latter because my tubes were not all the same size and I had to hide it.)
• Then with just one tube, make a pretty long neck by wrapping it above the shoulders ( don't make it too thick) and then by 2-3 more, form a face like figure by, again, wrapping the tubes around your base pillar.

• Next you have to finish with the newspaper work by making a turban on its head and giving something in its hands. For the turban, you can either just take some tubes and wrap in on the head in turban wearing manner, or like me, you can make two bowl figures (make spirals and push the middle a bit out and save the shape with glue) and place them to give a turban look. Mine got a bit bigger than expected though, but that's the beauty of craft.. even the mistakes are art ! :p

• Now, paint it as you desire.

• I added some jewellery too, with whatever little wire pieces I got lying around the house.

And that's my masterpiece, finally complete.

I can't wait to make more variations in this and stand these in every corner and tables and shelves until I'm officially tagged a maniac.

And that's my masterpiece.. complete!

Well, when are you making yours? I am excited like a little kid to see it! Please do share pictures here  ^.^

And oh,

Happy crafting

P.S. with love <3