Julie Wilkinson and Joyanne Horscroft of The Makerie just got back to us to tell us more about their incredibly beautiful 3D paper sculptures made entirely out of rare, vintage paper. In particular, we were curious to find out more about the gorgeous peacock sculpture called The Great Omar. Given all the detail, we weren’t too surprised to find out just how much time and work was involved in creating such a spectacular piece.
Your papercraft birds are extraordinarily intricate. What goes into creating something like The Great Omar?
There’s a lot of preparation involved, a lot of time is spent getting the body shape right and finding the right materials; we meticulously select the papers to best suit each project, which can become a lengthy process when you’re looking for rare ones!
As there’s two of us on projects like that, a piece like The Great Omar takes around a week to produce all together, including hand cutting all the two/three thousand feathers needed.
How much work is done on the computer before these sculptures are made, if any?
We don’t really use computers too much in the planning of a piece because that’s often a very organic process, but in the execution it can help a lot – like with artworking feathers, and pieces that need precision, symmetry, or translating into large scale. Knowing that we can do a lot with computers during production prep means we can plan more adventurously and ultimately better, so it makes the process much more enjoyable.
How long have you been doing this for?
We’ve been working permanently together for the last year or so; we met at university and figured out we love the same things and work really well as a team. As we’re relatively new to the field so we’re learning all the time, and of course the process gets easier as you go along.
What’s the most difficult thing about creating these sculptures?
Usually the hardest thing is getting the image we have in our heads translated into a 3D structure, and making sure our style translates into a realistic piece. By the time you’ve done that, sticking down three thousand feathers feels like a walk in the park.
