The perfect rich man in the city

The third step is drawing. When making shadow puppets, there are special drawings called"samples". These design drawings are passed down from generation to generation.

The fourth step - after the draft is finished, the sculptor breaks the scraped leather into pieces, softens it with a damp cloth, and then uses a special push plate with a little oil and juice to push and rub it one by one to make the cowhide flatter and smoother, and to remove the corrosion of the leather. shrinkage, and then you can draw the pattern.

The rational use of finished leather before drawing is also a meticulous job. Thin and translucent finished leather should be used for prominent parts such as the head, chest, and abdomen; thicker and darker finished leather can be used for legs and other general props. This not only saves raw materials, but also improves the quality of the shadow puppets. It also makes the shadow puppets light on the top and heavy on the bottom, making them stable and easy to use when picking lots for performance and standing still.

The next step is to trace the pattern. Use a steel needle to copy and trace the outlines and design patterns of each component on the leather surface. This is called"drafting", and then place the leather on jujube or pear wood boards for engraving.

Step 5 - Carving and engraving tools generally have eleven, two, or even thirty. Knives include bevel knives (pointed knives), flat knives, round knives, triangular knives, flower-knifes, etc. with different widths. The division of labor is very particular, and artists need to be proficient in the different ways of using various knives.

According to traditional experience, when carving linear patterns, you need to use a flat knife to prick; when carving straight lines, use a flat knife to push; for the circular patterns on the sleeves and jacket edges of traditional clothing, you need to use a chisel. Chisel; some twists and turns and patterns must be carved with a diagonal knife. The artist's carving formula is as follows: the cherry blossoms are pierced with a flat knife, the ten thousand characters are pushed with a flat knife, the edge of the sleeve head and coat is chiseled with a knife, and the flowers are carved with a sharp knife. Carving lines can be divided into virtual and real lines, as well as dark lines and painted lines.

The dotted lines are inscribed lines, which are hollow body lines. Most shadow puppets use this line method. The solid line retains the outline of the body and digs out the remaining parts, which is Yang carving. It is mostly used for young people and white faces with ugly beards. Yang carving is used for all white objects.

The dotted and solid lines carve out intermittent hollow lines along both sides of the outline, which are mostly used for engraving landscapes and buildings. Dark lines are drawn with a knife and are not penetrating the skin, mostly at moving joints. Drawing lines are replaced by pens to express detailed objects.

The sixth step is to apply color. After the shadow puppet is carved, it is time to apply color. Old artists are very particular about their use of color. Most of them used mineral plants such as copper, cinnabar, and Pulan to concoct colors such as bright red, bright green, and apricot yellow.

Coloring methods also vary.

The seventh step - sweating and ironing, and then applying color to the shadow puppet, which is a key process.

Its purpose is to make the applied color penetrate into the cowhide after being warmed, and to evaporate the moisture retained in the skin. There are many ways to dehydrate and sweat. Some use thin wooden boards to clamp the shadow puppet parts and press them under the hot kang mat; some use plain cloth to wrap the shadow puppet parts and iron them with a soldering iron or an electric iron; another indigenous method is to use adobe or Bricks are laid out in a herringbone shape, and wheat straw is heated below to flatten the shadow puppets to cause them to dehydrate and sweat.

The key to success or failure in dehydration and sweating lies in controlling the temperature.

In the past, the traditional method used by artists to control the heat was called"flicking the water with a finger", which was to dip their fingers in water or drop saliva on the iron to observe the changes in the water and judge the temperature. It depends not only on the change in the size of the foam produced by the water points, but also on the speed of water evaporation. The required temperature is generally around 70 degrees Celsius. At the right temperature, the leather dehydrates and sweats smoothly, the water in the skin evaporates, and the color is absorbed into the skin. The shadow puppets are delicious and will not fade for a long time, and the colloid can also dissolve and seal the pores of the leather, so that the shadow puppets will never warp or deform.. If the temperature is too high, the skin will shrink into a ball, and the entire process will be scrapped; if the temperature is insufficient, the glue color will not be able to dissolve into the skin, and the water in the skin will be difficult to drain out, causing the shadow puppet characters to be dull in color and deformed over time..

Step 8 - The knotting is completed. In order to make the shadow puppet move flexibly, a complete shadow puppet figure usually has a head, chest, abdomen, legs, arms, elbows, and hands from head to toe, a total of eleven parts.

Head - The head includes the face, hat, beard and neck. The lower end is a wedge, which is inserted into the bayonet on the upper chest during performances and removed for storage when not in use. Chest - the upper device bayonet, where the shadow puppet head is inserted. There are two arms nailed to the same point on the upper side of the chest, each divided into upper and lower arm sections, and there are hands connected under the forearms. Abdomen - The upper part of the abdomen is connected to the chest, the lower part is connected to the legs, and the legs and feet are a whole.

Roulette-style hinges must be carved into each joint of the shadow figure to avoid excessive double shadows where the limbs overlap.

The point connecting the bone seam is called"bone eye".

The selection of bone eye is related to the beauty of the model's shape. If you choose it correctly, you will look full of energy, otherwise, you will look rickety, dying and depressed. After selecting the bones, they are combined with pivot nails carved from cowhide or threads twisted from thin cowhide strips. The eleven main parts are thus assembled into a complete shadow figure.

For the needs of the performance, three bamboo sticks are installed as joysticks, which are also sticks. The figure in the literary scene is equipped with a stick on the upper front part of the chest, connected with a wire, so that the figure can reverse the movement, and a stick is installed on each hand to facilitate the dancing of the hands. The chest sticks of martial arts figures are installed in the upper part of the chest to facilitate martial arts, allowing the shadow puppets to make various postures such as running, standing, sitting, lying down, rolling, crawling, and fighting. _Feilu reminds you: three things about reading - collection and recommendation