Trip to the Imperial War Museum - London

Before this trip to the museum, I had a very vague idea of what I wanted to create as part of this Props project. I had wanted to look at civilian props that you may find in the kitchen, i.e. my idea of creating a flat iron. This trip and what I found here altered my opinion and widened the areas in which I could look.

What majorly affected this was the fact that most of the items on display in the museum are military pieces and there was not many civilian ideas that I could develop into props.

I have taken a selection of photographs of the pieces that interested me the most.

 

The idea of medals intrigued me. Partly this is because we have previously had a demonstration on how to create a medal similar to this using a silicone rubber mold. This was shown to look very effective and seemed relatively simple to create. And it also gave opportunity to create several of these one after another. Therefore, being able to create a set, with different distressed coloured materials to hang them. I was however not too sure on whether something such as this would class a costume piece, as it would look most effective when on the uniform.

This idea also applies to the buttons that I was interested in reproducing that are on this jacket. I felt that these buttons could be a good way of telling a story. The fact that if they are not attached to the jacket may imply that there has been a struggle, and can paint an image of what war is like. Also, it can be made to look quite scuffed and damaged possibly with mud or a slight bit of blood on it. This would help to tell the story of a wounded and troubled soldier. It is also an interesting piece with all of the detail that is on such a small piece. However, the fact that it is so small may mean that it may not look as effective when it comes to putting together a compilation of props into a photograph. It may not stand out as I want it to, and loose effect. There are also some other buttons that I saw that look interesting to reproduce.

I also saw a collection of small metal cigarette boxes. These looked very appealing for me to make as they too had quite a lot of detail on them. I felt like this could be created using a silicone rubber mold to get the detail of the engraved writing and patterns from the box onto the replica.    

Finally, the last idea that really inspired me is the selection of grenades on display at the museum. All of them are completely different designs but I felt that there was one main one that I found very interesting to recreate. I also felt that this one looked the most stereotypical of a grenade.