Adventures in Paper Mache, or, How to Balance a Giant Octopus on a Stick

Status: Waiting for newspaper to dry.

The last few days have been filled with work on my octopus staff for the Labyrinth of Jareth ball.

A little background: Besides my unashamed obsession with cephalopods, I had another obsession that is harder to admit: I used to be a hardcore WoW player back in the day. It's been a long time since I've played, and I think I can now be open about my addiction.

Like any kitty druid in her heyday, I was in love with Terestian's Stranglestaff, otherwise known as the Original Octopus on a Stick(tm).

(Thanks Stil for the screenshot!)

That staff inspired me. I wasn't going to use the same design -- I wanted mine to be right side up, sitting on top of the staff with the tentacles wrapped around it... and the correct number. (It's not a quadapus, Blizzard.)

This isn't a proper progress post, I plan to do a series of posts on building it start to finish, but here's a few pics of how the paper mache is going on the first four legs.

Four chicken wire tentacles -- Plus a head in the background!

Beginning to paper mache...

First four tentacles with a layer of paper mache.

I'm actually a bit farther along than this, but I'll upload those pictures in the next update. More progress pics and some non-octopus related posts coming in the next few days!