I want to try making maui but I don’t know where to start
Answer from Piñata Boy
Body shapes are what I call a structured piñata, where you make individual pieces of the piñata (for example, the head, body, arms, and legs), and then assemble them to create the overall piñata. It’s not easy to make a realistic-looking human body, so I usually go for either a simplistic version or a cartoonish version. Maui (from the Disney film Moana) has a unique body shape, and to be honest, there’s no easy way to create this shape using either balloons or thin cardboard. The good news is that on a character like Maui, if you get the body proportions right it will look like him even if the body shape itself is a little off.
Maui’s body proportions are more like those of a gorilla than those of a human. His legs are short — online images show his legs to be about 1/2 to 2/3 the height of his torso. And his arms are just as thick as his legs, but are longer than his legs. His upper body is bloated, and of course he has no neck. If you stay close to these body proportions, your piñata will look more like Maui even if the body shapes themselves are off.
You could make Maui’s body from one party balloon, with the large end up and the small end down, and then fill out the lower torso when you add the legs. You’ll end up with a more cartoonish version of the character, but the proportions and the decorating will make it unmistakably Maui. Or you could start with a balloon, and once the papier mâché is dry, cut and reshape it to create a shape that is more like Maui’s body. Cutting and reshaping papier mâché is sometimes an exercise in trial and error because dry papier mâché doesn’t always reshape the way we want it to, so you’ll want to be patient while so you figure out how best to get the shape you want. But again, the body proportions are going to be more important than the body shapes themselves. If you’ve got a large upper body with long arms, short legs, and a small head resting on the top front of the body, it will be immediately recognizable as Maui even if the shapes aren’t quite right.
Good luck!