Melpa Woman, Papua New Guinea

This was the next figure that I built representing the Melpa tribe. During a Moka (exhange) festival, the roles are divided into donors and recipients. The donors are usually adorned  in more elaborate and towering headdress. This figure represents a donor's wife and she wears red feather plumes in her headdress. Some feathers were made from sheet metal. Other fluffier feathers represented with real feathers. Once the figure was sculpted, it was painted carefully in oils. Then the feathers were carefully trimmed and applied singly with a daub of glue. The foliage was made from sheet metal and dried flowers.