In this post I will be explaining the how of my design process for my Mcbling Guillotine.

Design Process: I do not follow the typical design process, I am not an engineering major so I haven’t been trained to all the important fancy stuff that most have. There were just vibes and whatever struck me with inspiration at the moment. I had a general idea of what I wanted to do but came to some road blocks so the best way to describe the process would be “chunks”.

The first chunk which would be the first half of March, I spent really trying to design my project. I went back and forth on the political nature of the piece due to my aesthetic, I wanted it to have a message but at the same time does it really need it? Especially with the aesthetic of Mcbling, I felt a bit uneasy about where it was headed. So I redrew and redesigned.

The second chunk was redesigning and retooling the piece, it couldn’t be a weapon but it was also really difficult to finagle that. I broke a mirror while cleaning my room and was inspired by it, deciding in that moment to repurpose the piece for my project. The pieces were large so I put them in a doubled up Walmart bag and went at them with a mallet with a piece of cardboard between the bag and mallet to avoid absolutely destroying the glass mirror shards. I was left with several, mainly triangular, odd shapes that could be used to create a mosaic. My job was throwing away mirrors too so I grabbed a small rectangular one so that it could still be a functional mirror at its center. At this time I was still under the impression of doing a stop sign, so this was around the time (mid to late March) where I cut out my detail pieces. I hated the stop sign that I cut out and had as a tester “blade”, so for giggles I cut it into a heart free handed and felt like it tied everything together all at once. I bedazzled it and used it as a test piece for when I would begin building my piece in April.

The third chunk was mid April to now in which I built everything from the structure, to the face  to the heart and sequins. In total I probably spent around 100 dollars on materials as a lot of things I had on hand and I make my own paint with liquitex and powders.

I painted the heart pink so that it wouldn’t look weird. Added the rhinestone border and mirrored shards. A lot of this process took place after work at midnight, so I’d be up all night painting and gluing in my work uniform still. PPE was used when I remembered, don’t ever breath E6000 glue though. Made my knees feel like they were being microwaved when I slept.

The mirrored pieces and rhinestones are held on by E6000. The structure is painted by in my custom paints, took my so long to figure out how to paint animal print and the tiger and zebra print look identical.
Currently, I am reworking the animal prints and adding glitter and more rhinestones and will have those changes noted in an update at the expo. I want to spend the weekend updating the piece as I feel like it could be shinier.
Otherwise it is a functional vanity mirror that I plan to display in my room.