Tay Freeman

In the research phase of this project I became fascinated with the shape of the pill bug’s exoskeleton, many of my conceptual designs were based around it. I decided to pull out and slightly modify two of the smaller ergonomic shapes from my concept work to create the shapes covering the mouth and eyes. I proceed to create outlines of the shapes with thick wire to serve as a frame. I then took a thin nylon cord and tied it to the tops and bottoms of the frames repeatedly to create a loose mesh. I considered the human sense of vision by making the mesh on the eye segment looser and easier to manipulate, this allowed for a less obstructed view. The mesh on the mouth segment is more taut and its layout more decorative as I wasn’t as worried about obstruction. I created a circular base out of double wrapped thick wire to give the mask more structural integrity and secured the mouth and eye pieces to it. I then created some longer, thinner segments, one to serve as support and protection for the forehead area and the other two to wrap around the back of the head and serve as straps. On the end of the straps I created two openable sections to allow for easier removal and/or size replacement of the connecting cord. I universally wrapped the base wire in a few layers of tape to create some padding for the wearer and to protect from any possible sharp edges where the metal was cut.