Pigs Trotters
When it comes to experimentation, what greater way than to get a real pigs trotter from the local butchers and study the skin texture, the hardness and appearance of the trotter and use it as a reference guide. The idea of getting a real feature from an animal was intruiging as I never imagined a butchers selling something like that. I bought two, just in case anything went wrong with the first during experimentaiton.
On my way back from University one day, after having the discussion with my tutor about my progress so far. It came to mind that we ended up up discussing about the hand prosthetic I was going to produce. Sara suggested going to my local butchers and getting a pigs trotter as research purposes an to also analysise it in detai. I must say, I wasn't keen on the idea at first because I didn't know how it would feel, smell like or appear like.
After visiting the local butchers, I didn't even need to ask whether they had them in their shop as I saw a pair of trotters in the display unit and I explained the reasoning behind why I needed them, and the butcher was intrigued by my project. At 60p each, I was gob smacked at how cheap they were and bought the pair just in case anything were to go wrong with any of the experimental procedures I was going to proceed with.
When I got home, I put some gloves on and decided to take some really good close up photos of the pigs trotters to demonstrate the great detail that we could see visually. I was very interested in the textures and feel to the bottoms of the trotters, the tops not so much as bone and flesh was exposed, which made me feel a bit queezy.
I was really proud of this photo, I didn't think my camera picked up such great detail. The flash made it seem all the more detailed.
The hair on the trotters, the veins in the soles of the feet, and the skin texture of the trotter was amazing. it certainly gave me great inspiration to start thinking about my hand prosthetic, and the skin appeared of that of human skin, which is what I wanted to go for in my project,
Again, great detail picked up on the skin texture, and even the slight bit of hair still left attached to the joint of the trotter. Again, the texture appears like human skin, with various rose colours to resemble blood tones.
This is what I mean't about the top of the trotter, all flesh and bone was exposed which I tried to avoid in the picture as it made me feel a bit sick. At this angle, I am able to see a clear indication as to how it may appear on my models hand, the little thumn like bit on the side could be where my models thumb could be, and the one side of the trotter could be two fingers fused together inside the prosthetic.
A close up near the top of the trotter, of the appearance of the hair , and what direction they were facing. It appeared almost like human hair.
It baffled me when I first saw these loose fittings around the joint of the trotter, I did however try to pull them off but they were attached to the skin, so I presumed they were apart of the pigs foot so I didn't want to take something away that is a vital feature. I loved the padding to the tip of the trotter, and it gave me some ideas of what materials to use for the top of my prosthetic.
Here is the two trotters side by side, the one trotter was slightly damaged than the other, but it didn't really matter as it was experimenting purposes. This part really made me feel sick because suring the photos, blood started dripping out of the exposed flesh and bone, which was quite off putting.
A different lighting was used here, and the flash was removed from this photo to see what the detail would appear like. In my opinion, the flash made the detail appear more prominant. Even with the flash, the pictures didn't do the actually appearance of the trotter any justice.
A decided to have close up photos of the detail within the tips of the trotters. The veins were still visible to see, and I loved evaluating all the different textures and colours of the trotter.
I decided at this point that it would be a great idea to try and mould the trotters , and make the most of what I bought and waste them. Various methods can be used to create moulds, and I thought it would be a great way of experiementing on how it would appear in different materials, and how well they picked up all these skin textures from the real thing.
This is possibly my favourite photo of the entire collection of photos I have. My partner took the photo whilst I held it in position and slightly spread the trotters apart from where the joint is to get all the skin texture in the middle, and to also see how it appeared when the skin was stretched into a different position.
Again another one of my favourite photos, a very detailed photo of the top of the trotter and the padding. We get to see the folds of the skin naturally and how they appear.
By the time it approached day 4, I had experimented all I needed to with the trotters, and I am glad I did. The smell was horrendous and I knew they had gone off, the smell of flesh filled my fridge, despite being in 4 plastic bags. The colour of the flesh started to become pale, the blood was lighter, and the outside of the trotters started forming this thin layer of jelly, which was again....disgusting!. I had to put them in more layer of plastic bags, and throw it straight out into the main refuse bin outside the house.
The first time of actually experiencing pigs trotters, I did thoroughly enjoy experimenting with them, and I was so pleased with the outcomes I had ( shown on next pages). I believe experimenting with these have helped me through my project and ive also learned throughout.
What did you like or dislike?
Where do I begin ? I loved the idea of experimenting with the pigs trotters, but not too keen on the idea of the tops brutally sliced off so you can see the protruding bone and flesh!.
The detail that showed up on the photos were great, and I loved being able to see these trotters in the flesh, I wasn't aware that butchers even sold this sort of meat, but turns out quite a few years back it was a delicacy for stews and hot pots.
The idea of molding the trotters to see if I could create a replicate in various materials intrigued me as I haven't seen anything like it during my research exploration.
What I didn't like was holding the trotters, even wearing gloves made me feel uncomfortable, at one point blood trickled out of the top where the bone was exposed, which made me feel a bit sick, the textures and feel of the trotter was amazing, it even had the hair still on it. The smell also ( despite being in 3 layers of plastic bags) filled my fridge, and it lingered for ages after being disposed of. And day 3 , a jelly residue was building up on the trotters which stank, and to my knowledge, it was basically going off.
How would you improve?
I don't believe it is even possible to improve on taking pictures of the trotters, only improvement I would make is to ensure I actually throw them out before they go off.