The Waterhorse, Made for an Indoor Racing Event!

Sea we occasionally have "horse racing" evenings, now obviously on a ship we don't have horses (or a racecourse for that matter) so it is like a giant board game, we have to make our horses (and race day costumes) out of whatever we can find, scrounge or outright steal!!

So here is my entry

THE WATERHORSE

The Rules said it should be no bigger than a rugby ball, but you can make these as big as you want - you just need more tape!!

Step 1: Materials

As I mentioned - we are at sea so don't have access to shops etc, so it is improvise, improvise, improvise

(or Adapt, Adopt and Improve!)

What we do have is lots of Cardboard, lots of Duct tape and lots of imagination

Step 2: Find a Pattern

So as I decided to make a waterhorse. I needed a pattern

Google is your friend

From the Greek

Horse - Hippos

River - Potamus

near enough!!!

Step 3: Cutting the Layers

Using my template from google, I cut out one body shape from a cardboard box

Then I used this as a template to draw out 4 more and cut them out of the cardboard for the centre of the body (no legs) and taped them together

Step 4: Legs

I then did the same for the Right Legs and Left legs (no head), each side had 3 layers which were then taped together

Step 5: Bulking Up the Body

I cut 2 sets of oval shapes for each side to give the body a bit more bulk

Then Taped the lot together with Duct Tape

Step 6: Draw on Details

Using a permanent marker I drew on details like eyes, ears, mouth etc

Step 7: Finishing Touches

I made a couple of "Tick Birds" for the back out of silver sticky tape around a cocktail stick and impaled them in place.

(The tape is known a 1000 mile an hour tape - we use it to repair helicopters if they are shot at! (it's very expensive :-) )

Step 8: And There It Is Finished Ready for the Races

Just have to make my race day costume now!!