Egg Box Hippo

I’ve always thought that an egg box looks more like a Hippo than it does a crocodile! So here’s my version. As ever, I’ve tried to use as much of the carton as I can with minimal waste, and the finished thing is recyclable too. (minus the pins if you use them?)

The lid of the carton makes the top part of the hippo’s head, while the tray part makes the bottom jaw and the teeth. (top and bottom) That part is trickier and may need you to draw on the parts roughly first . . . take a look on the video.

Obviously, you can just paint over the egg boxes as they are, especially if you have acrylic paint, but the cartons are not particularly strong, so I’d advise a bit of paper mache if you want your hippo to last. It doesn’t have to be expensive or time-consuming. All I did was water down some cheap school PVA glue (half glue/half water) and pasted on some toilet paper. This gives it a nice rough effect as the toilet paper is very absorbent, and it dries much harder than you’d expect.

Toilet roll texture

If you want the hippo to have a moveable jaw, then you need to leave the model in two halves (top and bottom jaw), paper mache each half, and then assemble it once it is dry and strong. If it still feels weak where the jaw joins together, you could insert a small strip of card on the inside, where no-one will see it, to increase the thickness. For mine, I used a sharp craft knife to push a slit through the pieces and joined each side with a split-pin.

If you want it to work like a ‘puppet’, then you might need to add a couple of simple grips inside the two jaws. I did this by inserting a small piece of cardboard tube into the bottom jaw for my thumb, and a strip of card (or egg box piece) inside the top jaw for my fingers to slide into. You can see these in the image below. I also added some extra paper mache over these to strengthen them (and to hide them a little).

Holes for fingers and thumb

You could paste on some coloured paper but I chose to paint my Hippo. I’ve used regular children’s school paints (water-based) but you could use whatever you have. I painted some pink paint on first as hippo’s have a sort of pink undercoat to their skin, especially around their faces and mouths. Then I added on some browns and some black paint for the details. You could go further, maybe add some little whiskers etc.