The Famous Sideshow Goat!

The last time I was at Hobby Lobby, I saw, tucked into the corner of the clearance section, a pair of Safari Ltd. Mountain Goats. I picked up both little plastic goats for around $3.25 and took them home.

At the house,I gave both the goats a bath (really! soap cuts some of the oils on the surface of plastics...important if you are going to paint them), then I cut off one goat's head with my Dremel. Then I cut and sanded on the neck stump on the head until it looked okay along side the other head.

I pinned the head to the fully intact goat, used a bunch of gorilla glue and some masking tape to hold it all together and let it sit overnight.

The next day I untaped the goat monster, and sculpted the gaps and seams with milliput, a two part epoxy that's absolutely great for such projects. Using wet toothpicks for most of the sculpting, I managed to match fairly closely to the original fur pattern. I also built up the goat's pelvis a little to make it have more of a sway back. Supporting two heads is hard on a body! I also added a horn to one of the heads.

After the sculpted parts had cured (about 4 hours), I pulled out my acrylic paints, and did up a quick paint job on him. Then I sealed the whole thing with some acrylic sealer, and now he sits on top of the piano.

This goat was a lot more fun than I thought it would be, and turned out fairly well too, I think. In fact, it was so fun that I bought some more Safari Ltd. animals yesterday....

I'm not sure if it counts as art, but it counts as a sideshow type thing. I've got more paintings to post, and some updates on the donkey costume (with photos!) coming up!