Working on a horse

I have a love for carousels and carousel horses, and really wanted to make one of my own for a while, now. I came across this tutorial one day and knew I HAD to try it.

Eventually I found the horse at an antiques mall for $35 (I think), and picked it up.

The pictures here, in order are:

1) The horse after I had patched the holes in it's legs and neck, 2) The horse primed white and 3) Repainted.

That's where we stand right now. I have the pole to put him/her on, and a stand for it, so we'll get to the finished product soon. Right now it is sitting in the corner of my living room, but once it's finished it'll be decor for the bedroom.

I doubt I'll have it finished this week, but expect an update post about it when I do.

On other project news, I'm working on several (TONS) of paintings, and I'm making a wooden cutout of a raccoon for my yard, so we'll have all of those to put up soon enough, too!

Until then, I've put up plenty of stuff in the etsy shop for you to see. I'll probably do a post or two about the paintings there, but for now you can go look and imagine what I'm planning on saying about them.

Turning Thrift Store Art into ...um... art.

I'm a StumbleUpon addict (It's a firefox and chrome add-on), and I find my self 'stumbling' for waaay too long at a time, but it often turns out to give me some great ideas. For instance, Stumble threw me to an article on altering thrift store art. From there, I fell in love.

My girlfriend an I were dropping off some donations at the local Good Will, and I found a print of painting by Ruane Manning for $2.75. It was all framed up and everything. The frame was in bad shape, and the plexiglass was scratched to pieces, but the art was completely intact!...until I bought it.

I've taken cell phone pictures of the painting, after I 'finished' it, and they ended up blurry. I'm posting them anyway, given the subject matter (which should always be photographed in blurry conditions), and the fact that I don't own the rights to Ruane Manning's original piece. I wonder if parody laws come into effect on this?

Wish me luck in trying to get this new Bigfoot painting hung successfully in my dining room (sans protests!)

Airbrushing shirts II - weird discovery about myself

Yesterday after writing my post about the shirts, I felt oddly compelled to make another shirt. I went researching online for some cool '80s cartoon character, or just cartoon in general that I liked, but didn't remember. I'd decided that I wanted a cartoon shirt.

I went to retrojunk and was browsing through the list of '80s shows when I found Saturday Supercade! It was a bizarre show on CBS back in 1983 and 1984, based on coin-op arcade games. The show was segmented into different mini-shows, each based on a different game. I only vaguely remembered the show, but I remember a bit of it that I LOVED. My favorite segment, for whatever reason (I was six and seven when the show came out...who knows why you like anything at that point), was based on the game, Kangaroo.

Kangaroo wasn't a stellar game, nor anywhere close to the top of my favorites, but apparently the cartoon had huge impact on me. I found it's mini intro on youtube and was immediately a six or seven year old kid again. I knew I had to have K.O. Katie as my newest shirt, then.

So, now the shirt is done, and I'm left with questions. Why on Earth did I spend hours painting a shirt with a character nobody remembers? Heck, I barely remember her, but I do remember that I thought she was awesome. Maybe it's because she punches monkeys? I have no idea. Why does a half-remembered show like 'Saturday Supercade' hold any power over me what so ever? Am I just really really weird in having a fixation on a barely remembered bit from my childhood, or does this happen to other people? If you have answers or similar experiences, let me know! I'd love to hear about it. Especially if you loved K.O. Katie, too!

Expensive tools make for cheap work

This kinda skanky looking fox was one of the first things I did with my expensive Prismacolor Pencils. I've been working like mad with them lately.

I feel that while the picture doesn't need explaining that I should talk about the pencils themselves.

I used them a few times prior to this picture, but I didn't use them well. I would lightly color in a few areas on a picture, but they ended up looking like any picture that I had used cheap colored pencils on. The reason was that I wasn't using them correctly.

Now, my intention is not to explain how to use them correctly, but to tell you why I was using them wrong. I was using them wrong because they were expensive. What a waste, huh? It's true though. The sheer cost of the pencils made me a little afraid to use them, and so when I did, I was timid with them. I don't know how common this is with artists, but it's a problem I'm constantly facing.

I used sculpey improperly at first, because I didn't want to waste any, I used acrylics too thinly because I didn't want to waste it...this goes on and on like this, but the truth is, it doesn't help me. The pencils are just the latest in this line of thought.

I know why too, and I still can't get past it! I grew up in a very very rural area where art supplies were not easy to get, and I grew up poor, so it feels kind of wrong to just play with something that costs a lot (which is subjective), but there's no other way to learn, really.

I'm writing this as a reminder to myself to not be intimidated by the cost of my materials, and so hopefully some other artist will read this and get over the same problem, because I imagine that it's not just limited to me. Good luck with whatever it is you do, and if you have any prismacolor pencils collecting dust, dust them off and get to it. They are awesome.

Fake Taxidermy completed!

The taxidermy monster is finished, yay! Here he is in all his scanky looking, ill preserved glory.

The eyes were glass pebbles painted with red, gold and black, then wrapped in super sculpey. The nose and teeth were also super sculpy. His ears were just bits of craft foam covered in fake fur. His whiskers are bits of fishing line held in place with straight pins.

The head itself is anchored to the plaque with hot glue then a series of finishing nails all around the edge of him. The heads of the nails are just kind of hidden in the fur. The fur came from a thrift store ladies fake fur jacket. I covered the styrene form with masking tape, and just hot glued the fur over that.

Now I have this nasty looking head to stand guard outside my bed room, and I can move on to other projects. I'll probably get back to my slow slow process of making my rat girl doll.

Also, turns out I didn't lose TOO much in my studio thanks to the leak, so that's a good thing.

The Gas Mask Girl

This little lady was the project I was talking about on Monday. She's way less complex than she looks, too.

I bought the figure at a little boutique called "Dollar Tree" for the unearthly sum of twenty-five cents. Heh. She was kind of plain with a pseudo-porcelain finish and shoddy paint job. Also, she had the unappealing trait of not wearing a gas mask.

I sculpted the gas mask straight onto the figure with super sculpey, then stuck the whole thing in the oven. I was halfway convinced that she would shatter in the oven and I would be out a quarter, but she survived just fine.

I took her outside, primed and painted her with spray paint, and here she is! I did a few other figures and variations of this theme. The black figure behind her was an angel also from Dollar Tree, and I did a couple of other pieces, including a piggy bank. All survived the baking process just fine.

Also, as an added note: Just repainting the figures with a solid coat of paint did wonders for them, even if you don't want to add silly details like gas masks. Good cheap way to decorate, if that's your thing.

Wall Sculpture aka Fake Taxidermy

Here's what I've got on the wall sculpture I mentioned earlier. Right now it looks kind of like it could be almost anything, but I swear to you, it will be a monster.

I have always loved the idea of having a monster's head hanging on my wall, and I've finally decided to do something about it. For a long time, things like the wooden plaque were stopping me from making one of these, because I honestly didn't know how to do things with wood (and I've got a mean sawdust allergy, so I really didn't persue it). Lately, I've been becoming more and more adventurous with my art projects on the whole, so I though it was time to tackle this guy.

The styrene was saved from a Christmas present, and the blue styrofoam (yes, real brand-name styrofoam...which is mainly just used for insulation...everyone calls all the expanded polystyrene 'styrofoam' but it isn't...only Dow's styrene insulation is officially 'styrofoam'. Fact of the day) was reclaimed scraps from some of my other projects. I often wonder if the the people at the hardware stores wonder why I show up once every few months to buy a single panel of insulation. Heh.

The glass eyes are glass pebbles that came from a hobby store in the floral department. I painted them on the back. They are going to get eyelids out of sculpey (I need to devote a post just to what I use sculpey for, because it's a lot). Not pictured are the nose and teeth (both made of sculpey) and the hideous fake fur coat that is going to make bulk of the surface. I don't know yet if it will have horns, or what the ears will look like.

Tomorrow, I may show my latest fast project, which is currently getting a paint job out on the back porch (Yay, heat wave!).

Some Paintings

The reason I have not yet finished the rat doll, or even made a TON of progress on her, is because I stop working on her from time to time to pursue other artistic endeavors. Like painting! These four paintings have all been done in the last couple of weeks, and are all acrylic, and all 16 inches by 20 inches on gallery wrapped canvas.

The first one is a gas mask, which is a theme I enjoy, and has a palate limited to four colors. The second, which I've tentatively titled 'Stable' is also a four color palate. The Fox painting, which I finished last night, has five colors, and the Batman Beyond painting (which is just something to hang over my action figure collection) has four colors. I used to be a little crazier with my palates, but I seem to do better work if I really really limit how many tubes of paint I am working with. Four seems to be the most common number of late, but I think I've done them with as few as three. I'm not yet brave enough to do a painting with just two colors, but maybe soon.

In doll news, I have cut and baked the arms, so the rat doll has elbows, but I've not yet hooked the hands to them. Currently, I've got a batch of clay bits in the oven for my other doll, along with some teeth I'm baking for a wall sculpture, more on the wall sculpture later.

Enjoy the rest of your day, and I will likely reveal more as to what I am making and working on tomorrow.

Another Multi-Part Update

I've not finished anything except the squirrel girl pic, which apparently will become a tattoo! Yay! But I have made progress on all the other things I've been working on.

The bunnies for the kitchen cabinets are coming along. The fourth one is currently being set with Mod Podge so I can cut it out and glue it into the cabinets. I need six, so I'm halfway done! The three finished ones are awaiting their bunny brethren. I have all the fabric I need for both the bunnies and the backgrounds, so I expect that next week, my kitchen cabinets will be made over.

The light has been fluctuating and disagreeable for taking pictures of the Story Teller doll, but I'm excited to get them taken. I just need to figure out where to set him for the pics. He's currently perched on the Vacuum Form Table.

The articulated doll is getting it's final paint job today. I'll be sealing all the parts with Delta Ceramcoat varnish, then stringing it together. It will still be a few more days before it's finished, though. Sorry!

I may be starting a new doll later today. I've been working on some sketches. So, that's it for now, I'll be back tomorrow.

A picture

Today I have to work on a picture I promised someone. It's potentially a tattoo, but I'm not sure. All I know for sure is that he wanted it roughly the same size as my tattoo (Yes, I have a tattoo...mwhahahah). I finished up the black and white, and I'm going to photoshop some color into it, today.

This is not my normal 'here's what I'm working on that will be done in a few weeks' post, but more of a here's something I'm finishing up today. I'll be working on tons of other stuff soon, though.

Showing off my Koopa

This fellow is my Koopa Trooper. He's just shy of 16 inches tall, and each block is 5/8"X5/8"x5/8". He hangs out in the living room, just inside the door. I am not sure what possessed me to make him, but I can tell you how I did it.

First, I found a sprite of the Koopa. (If you all aren't in the know about such things, the sprites are the 'models' used in the older games. This one is a Super Mario World sprite from the 16bit Super Nintendo system). I blew it up, printed it out, and drew a grid over it so I could see how many 'pixels' I would need. Turns out I needed roughly ...a bunch. I think it was around 244? But I'm no longer sure of the number.

I bought some bitty little wooden cubes from Hobby Lobby, while all their wood stuff was on sale, and I painted them with acrylic paint. I counted out how many light green cubes, dark green cubes, black cubes etc. I would need then divided them up and painted 'em all. It was a slow process.

After all the painting, I glued them together with wood glue, starting at the bottom and working my way up, one row at a time. I found it was easier to glue a whole row together at once, or at least big parts of the rows, then glue them to the existing rows. That kept things mostly straight. There's obviously some distortion in him, but I liked it, so I left it.

After he was all glued up, I left him to dry for a day or two, then propped him up on the mantle. I was afraid to put him anywhere else, cuz I thought he would break. He's tough, though. He lives happily on the floor, now. Maybe some day he'll get some company, like say a Boo to hang on the wall above him.

Vacuum Form Table!

I’m starting work on my vacuum form table today, thanks to the awesome (Ausome, for certain readers) gift I got for Christmas, of a 5.75 horse power Shop Vac! Yay! I’m not sure what I’m going to end up making with it, but it’ll likely involve quite a bit of costume things, and likely some candy molds and plaster molds.

I’m thinking of making some plaster molds of mushrooms to decorate my bathroom with. We’re going with a ‘swamp’ theme in there, for some unknown reason… I’m trying to convince my girlfriend that Yoda lived in a swamp, and is therefore suitable décor, but I don’t think she’s buying it. I’m also going to be getting some food safe plastic for candy molds, but I’m not sure exactly what I’ll sculpt for those.

If anyone has any cool ideas for thinks for me to make, let me know! I’m overwhelmed with possibilities and could use a little focus.

As for the lack of a picture this time: The vacuum form table is currently being built, and is upside down on my work bench with a bunch of JB Weld drying/setting to link the top to the bottom. Tomorrow it will get a good blob of caulk around the edges to make a seal, then lots of little holes drilled in it. A picture will be forthcoming, I swear it... Mainly because the thing looks kinda funny. Construction also involved a kitty litter bucket.

Mold Making 2

So, I finished the masters for my key chains, and today I'm going to be pouring the molds, I think. After the last disaster where the mold box sprung a leak, I'm taking no chances today.

Instead of building a box around the object and sealing it, I'm gluing the masters straight into the bottom of a plastic cup (see picture). No way these babies will leak! Right now the glue is setting, so later today I should be able to pour latex.

With any luck the molds will come out looking good, and tomorrow I'll be able to pour the first batch of key chains! That will be awesome (Ausome). I was going to talk about another project that I might be starting today, but I decided to wing it with the molds, cuz I promised I'd talk about them more. To give a hint, the new project involves Decor. Kitchen decor to be more specific. The kitchen cabinets to be even more specific than the others.

So, tomorrow we'll probably see what kind of horrors come out of these molds, and then Friday, we may be visiting the kitchen. Take care!

Paper Craft

Pictured here is Birdo, paper craft style. I made her (him? There’s some question to this critter’s gender, depending on what you read) from four sheets of cardstock and some glue. I didn’t design her (I like the idea of Birdo as a girl better. She’s Yoshi’s girlfriend!) I just printed the pieces, cut and glued the paper, and tada! I now have a new figure for the living room!

Of course, the bomb there is not Birdo, it's a paper craft version of the FallOut 3 Mini-Nuke...on top of my washing machine. It's really pretty impressive to see the range of objects possible with the craft. The Mini-Nuke looks great on my 'Villain Shelf' with my gas mask and dummy grenade and the like (I'll probably talk about the villain shelf later).

The whole Paper Craft movement/hobby or whatever it is, is really interesting to me. It also went pretty much right under my radar for way longer than it should have. I knew people did something involving cutting, folding, and gluing paper to make figures and what not, but I didn’t realize how big it had gotten, or how fun it actually would be.

I think that a really good hobby should be cheap, take up time, and provide a sense of accomplishment. Paper Craft does all three reaaaaallly well. New paper craft models are easy to get, and most of them are free. You just download them, print them, cut them out, and glue them together. It takes quite a while to finish a piece. Birdo took a couple of days of work at a fairly obsessive pace to finish, same for the Mini-Nuke. I was also very proud of finishing her, and have a neat little figure to display, now.

There’s almost as many websites devoted to this hobby as there are models, so rather than link to any one in particular, I’ll just say there’s tons. Now to get back to cutting! I think I’ll start on a mask, next.

Mold Making

Mold making is a new thing for me, but I’ve always been interested in it. In fact, I thought I’d grow up to design toys, when I was a kid, and I’m not completely over that ambition. Right now, I’m working on some keychain molds, rather than start with something so complex that I’ll just end up frustrated and angry. That’s something I tend to do all too often. I over reach, then I get mad.

I’ve done some other molds, of course. The candles, the reindeer skeleton ornaments, etc. Most of them were made by painting latex over an object, drying it, and repeating until I thought I’d go insane, or by using some mold making putty that works pretty well, but only for certain things. This time, I’m gonna use RTV latex. It’s scary and exciting. The last time I tried this stuff, the seal around my mold kinda popped, and I ended up with cured sheets of the stuff all over my desk. You can’t tell by just reading this, but I was and still am furious over that little incident. Eh well, live and learn, I suppose.

I don’t know yet how the molds will turn out, but as I learn stuff, I’ll try to keep you informed! Heck, some of you may even find it useful.

Two asides:

First, the little sculpture pictured there is going to be used for key chains, if it turns out okay. She's a little under two inches tall. Sorry for the picture quality. I'm one of those people who uses their phone for pictures.

Second, there's a chance, albeit slim, that Mom will be getting out of the hospital today, pending a procedure to fix a partially collapsed lung (which I only heard about yesterday).

Magical Mushroom Lamp

Tada! Here’s my magicky mushroom lamp thing. I was inspired by an instructable to do this, but I didn’t follow the instructions, as I’m lazy, and I don’t know enough about using LEDs to follow the instructions well.

I started by molding a blend of translucent and glow-in-the-dark skulpey around a mini set of LED Christmas lights. I picked up the lights at Dollar General or some such place a couple of years ago for around $3, so I would not have been heartbroken had this ridiculous plan not worked out. I took the batteries out of the battery pack, and backed the whole thing. The battery pack housing warped some in the oven, just for the record. The lights survived intact, though.

Next, I took some blue board, cut it into two pieces, a larger one and a slightly smaller one. The larger one was to be the base of the lamp. I cut a hole in the larger one to fit the battery pack into, then taped down wires leading to mushrooms, here and there. I cut up the smaller blue board so that I’d have room to run wires, but I was kind of sloppy with this. I glued it all together with wood glue.

Next, I mixed up a batch of pre-made paper-mache pulp and used it to give the blue board a ‘bark’ texture. I gobbed it pretty generously in the cracks and gaps between the various pieces of blue board to hide wires and give the thing that ‘side of a tree’ look I was wanting.

After it dried, I painted the ‘bark’ with a black coat, dry brushed some gray, brown and white, and let a little bit of it dab onto the mushrooms, because mushrooms are never completely clean. Then I screwed in two wood screws into the back at a really fierce up angle, and hung the whole thing in my bathroom with a bit of picture hanging wire. That’s it!

Hope you all enjoyed seeing it, and maybe it’ll inspire you to make something neat! We’ll discuss my latest project next time!

Also, as an aside, I took these pictures with my brand new LG Optimus. It's a cool phone, but I'm still a bit lost as to it's functionality.

My New Pens

For Christmas, my sister gave me some pens. She went to Michaels and chose ‘the most expensive ones they had’. Hehe, she thinks I’m an art tool snob (she’s right, too). They were a Faber Castell manga set. It’s a pretty cool set and comes with a black brush pen, fine point, and medium point pens, as well as a set of five gray and brownish gray brush pens.

I’d be a liar if I said I’d never looked at the pens before she bought them, but I hadn’t really ever considered buying them. I didn’t know what I’d do with gray pens. Turns out, I’d do a lot! I’ve been using them on a nearly daily basis. I LOVE the depth they’ve given my work. It’s very exciting.

As for the picture...the mushroom guy was the first think I did with the pens, and will be a gift to my sister, as she's got some unnatural affinity for mushrooms. He's not a happy looking guy, but he's not the scariest monster I've made lately, either (See my Baby New Year post).

So, to get to a point, I suggest these pens, if you like working with ink. Also, I’m thinking of throwing some art onto the Etsy page I run, so check over there, if you’re interested.

Multiple Tragedies

No big photo update this time, because I really don't feel like it. Two unrelated events have me very frustrated with the whole mess...but I'll keep plugging at it.

First, and more minor of the two, I was building up a latex mold when suddenly, it's container seal broke. $30 worth of latex went from being a mold to being all over my art table and on my paint brushes. Note that that was all of the latex I owned currently....grrr. And it killed paint brushes.

Secondly, last night there was a thunder storm. It killed my computer's ethernet and killed my stereo, at the same time.... though they are both on surge protectors. So, I'm limping by with wireless internet, but my router is on the other side of the house from my computer, so the signal strength is shoddy. I will miss the stereo though.

I'm going to do more work on art stuff today, but I am REALLY fed up. Eh well.

Oh, also, my phones are dead.

TWO New Dolls!

Two new dolls today! Yay!!! The weather finally broke enough for me to get some photos!

Of course, the wind didn't like my flimsy backdrop, so I had a bit of a fight on my hands, there. Luckily, the dolls were more wind resistant.

First up is the Mummy! He's 14.75 inches tall, has a little bat hanging from his left arm, and glowing scary eyes! I made this guy in a burst of creativity, and he breaks pretty much every convention of my 'normal' dolls. His bandages are actual plaster wrapped bandages (I'm not sure now when I even got these things. I think they were originally for molding body parts for costuming). His belly, hands and face are all two part plumber's epoxy putty. I sculpted right onto the foil and wire armature. His eyes are glow in the dark polymer clay, and his bat is also the plumber's epoxy. He was painted with acrylics, and sealed with a heavy coating of matte finish acrylic sealer. He was a lot of fun, but plaster and epoxy putty are both reaaaallly messy! Also, the epoxy hardens REALLY fast. Working on this guy was a race, in places.

The elephant monk is sort of the result of the "Gas Mask Monk" but not entirely. Monks kind of interest me, but having an unusual monk ends up kind of distressing. At the start of the elephant sculpt, he was intended to be a warrior, complete with armor and weapons, but he changed on me. The scars on his face, arms and legs tell an interesting story, though. He's also an experiment in a lot of ways. His head and limbs are polymer clay, his body is papier mache. The skin on his body and on the joining areas are an experiment in papier mache....mostly glue, water, and paper towels, believe it or not. It added a cool wrinkly texture, so I'm not complaining. His ears are wire and cloth soaked in glue. Oh, as for the details... The elephant on his necklace is a metal trinket I picked up at Hobby Lobby, the wire jewelry is all hand made by me, save for the necklace, which I assembled, but I didn't put together the individual links. He's about 10 inches tall.

Also, I've listed the "Rabbit Magus" painting on Etsy for $250. If you want to get it, now's your chance!

It's time for Halloween! (REALLY!)

Okay, so I know that Halloween is still a good ways off, but I decorated the living room for it, anyway. The picture is of my mantel, and it's my Lemax Spookytown Village. There's a couple of really good reasons why I'd do this so early, too...so I'll share.

Firstly, I LOVE Halloween, and as a result, I try to get ready for it for forever. I put up my decorations as early as I can get away with it. I also start working on new Halloween stuff as soon as I can so I'll have new stuff to put out. I particularly love props and decorations...go figure.

Secondly, I sell Halloween styled stuff in my Etsy shop. I don't mean to, but that's where my art naturally goes. I blame my Mom. My first stuffed animal was a big brown fuzzy bat that she sewed for me. I'm sure she has some pictures of me in the crib with a bat, still. Anyway, that makes Halloween a money maker for me, with luck, but I have to get started on it hard-core, really early if I plan on having any sales in October. It's inspiration for me.

As a result, I've just finished a mummy sculpture, an 'ocular worm' (costume prop), I'm working like mad on my goblin art doll...he's the biggest I've made by far, and I'm working on a light up 'magic potion' and peeking monster (goes behind shelves or at a door frame).

The finished stuff will get pictures as soon as the stupid weather here clears long enough to let me take some. I also need some ideas, folks. I don't want to do a bunch of the same creepy stuff that nobody wants to buy! Hehe. Wish me luck!