More Paper Mache "Party Animals"

Hey again.
Thanks for tuning in.  I left off with the donkey hanging from the ceiling waiting for a head.   As you can see in the photo I started by loosely taping some pieces of paper mache balls together to form a neck.  I keep this all loose because 9 times out of 10 I will tear off whatever I put on after I decide it doesn't "look right."   I then added a "head sized" paper mache ball on top of the neck.  When the proportions looked right I  fashioned a few muscles in the neck using newspaper and masking tape.  
 
I inserted the jaws.  Note that I'd already painted them.  I used the shell of another ball to make donkey ears and I added eyes.  After that I cloth mached the face.  Okay, I know what you are thinking..... this looks like the donkey in Shrek, right?  You almost expect to hear Eddie Murphy's voice.   I really hated it.   In my next entry I'll show you how I tweaked the features to make it less Shrekkish. 
 
Back to the elephant.   I don't often use the stuff, but I used some commercial paper mache pulp for the elephant's horns and toenails.   I just added water to the mixture and fashioned some crude horns.  In this photo the horns were dry but not sanded.  The toenails were fairly easy to make.   I just flattened a few little balls and let them dry.   They got really hard.   So hard in fact that I  ended up using a belt sander to shape them.   Here is a photo of the toenails after sanding.   I didn't want them to be perfect.   After all, they are elephant  toenails.
 
I hot glued the toenails to the feet and added some cloth.   To add strength to the elephant body, I applied a couple layers of cloth mache.  Once those layers were dry, I took large pieces of cloth dipped in glue and draped them over the torso.   As you can see, I pinched the cloth to give the elephant body a wrinkled texture.  
 
I left a large hole in the side of the body since I still needed to attach the arms from the inside.   As you can imagine, the body of the elephant became a refuge for the cats.  I caught Eddie climbing out after a nap.  Isn't nice that I didn't paper mache the hole?
That's it for now.  Next installment soon.  As always, thanks for popping by!