Grammy Zombie Part 2

Sorry for the delay, lets get back to it! So, Grammy has her head, but that's all. That's not cool. Poor Grammy Zombie. Lets's hook her up with some body.

I took some waxed card stock that Sarah got from her work, it was a shipping thing. Cool tough card, but not the best for finished art. Anyway, I rolled the card into 'bones' and taped it into tight little tubes, using my own limbs as a rough guide. The pointy thing there is going to be Grammy's pelvis.

Next, using galvanized fencing wire, I strung her body together. I used long lengths of wire, twined around the 'bones' to connect them all, and threw more tape around all that, to help keep her in shape and together. I also added a 'ribcage' of just bend sheets of the paper, so that her chest stays hollow but has some definition. I'll be adding 'skin' to her later.

Lastly, I did a little more work on her head. I made eyes from glass pebbles, back painting them...then glued them in with hot glue. Her 'skin' is paper towels soaked in modpodge and water as a pseudo papier mache. It gives her nice wrinkly skin.

Next time, we'll attach the head and maybe skin the body a little more. Heck, may even get to hands and/or dressing her!

Grammy Zombie Part 1

Alright, let's start on Grammy's head!

Grammy's head starts as a styrene skull that I bought last Halloween. Skulls are ALWAYS good bases for heads.

I took a pocket knife and cut her jaw away from the rest of her skull. Fortunately, the skull I bought seems to have been a multipart construct, so removing the jaw was REALLY simple.  I trimmed the back of the teeth some to make them a more realistic thickness.

The jaw is roughly wired/taped back into place, but hanging open. I like zombies to have their mouths open, because, you know, they are always hungry for brains or flesh.

I stabbed some bailing wire into her skull from the bottom to make a neck, then taped some card stock around it to flesh out a neck. The card is leftover packing dividers from my girlfriend's work. They're wax coated and not amazingly useful for art, but have been REALLY useful for construction material in projects like this, or for stencils and the like. Grammy Zombie is very inexpensive at this stage, and she won't get much more costly, I promise!

Now, I took some brown packing paper (The brown paper some companies wad up to cushion packages, instead of using packing peanuts) that I saved from packages I'd gotten (Yeah, I'm that cheap), and I glued it onto my skull and 'neck' with mod-podge. What we are doing here is half decopage and half papier mache.

More to come next time. More head stuff and starting the body!

(If you are actually trying to follow along with this, I'm sorry in advance. I don't know if this will be a 'tutorial' at all. I'm just talking through what I am doing.) Next part will be the body. It needs more bailing wire, more card stock/paper, more brown paper and more tape (duct and masking).

Finished Carousel Horse!

I finally finished the carousel horse and he's taken up residence in my bedroom! Here's a couple of pictures of him in his new home!

The horse is from a child's spring horse, the pole is a curtain rod (originally 8' but cut down to 7'4"ish.), and the um... ivy is fake.

This project spanned months of very sporadic work, but it's done, and that's what counts. There's not really much to say about him now, other than I'm very pleased with the results. I may do another at some point, but I'm not really seeing a need to.

The bedroom has been getting a lot of focus from me lately. Next post will probably be about a unicorn silhouette I did just yesterday for it.  Hope that me talkinga bout my bedroom doesn't make you too uncomfortable. Heheheh. Oh, and side note: the green monster peeping at the bottom of both pictures is my chupacabras, and yes, he lives in the bedroom too.

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.

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!

Fox Doll Update

Oopsie! I forgot all about posting yesterday!

Anyway, here's the fox head as of today. I tried posting earlier, but blogger was having issues. It is Friday the Thirteenth, after all.

I could have posted something deranged and messed up, as the date makes that kind of thing fitting, but I never go with what is fitting.

The fox here is going slow. I spend more time patching cracks than I do sculpting. Her little hands and feet will be polymer clay instead of paper clay, and for that I am happy. They should go pretty fast.

I also need to make a pattern for the body. I want hips and a bust on her, so it should be interesting to try to make...meaning I have no idea how I'm going to do it. I have the fabric and the paint for her head, though.

Updates as they happen! Have a good weekend!

Dr. Fate Medallion

I was thinking of holding this post for a while, but to keep things chronologically balanced, I've went with it, anyway. This is Dr. Fate's Medallion. On my costume it will be holding his cape shut. It's basically a big disk (near the size of a CD). The disk is a bit of cardboard with bondo on it, painted gold.

The first image is a sort of 'how to' of how I made the thing, but in full disclosure, I honestly added a few drops of resin to the bondo to soften it, before I laid it to the cardboard.

After spinning out the shape and letting it dry, I cut away the excess cardboard, then sanded the whole thing down. I covered the edges of the cardboard with wood glue and putty to hide all the holes, then sanded again. Next it got a coat of gold paint, and today it got a light sanding and a second coat of gold. The weird texture on the finished picture is because the paint is still wet! It will dry fairly smooth (I hope!).

Sorry about throwing another costuming post at you, and yes, I'll do something not costume related tomorrow.

Side note, costume wise. I found out that the GameStop near me is giving away a copy of Batman: Arkham City in October, and is choosing the winner with a batman themed costume contest. Soooo, I've got two ideas in mind. Either I'm going to do Mr. Freeze, who will be an ultra complex costume, or The Scarecrow, who I've already got started. I'll let you know as the time comes closer...but I want a free copy of that blasted game!

A new kind of doll (for me)

Here's the head of the doll I said I was working on. The head is paperclay, which is something I've never worked with before.

The head was originally going to be polymer clay, which I am familiar with, but the core of the head expanded every time I baked it, causing the clay to burst. Burst, not crack.

Eventually, I went with the paperclay because it air dries, but it is messy and slow compared to polymer clay. I guess that's the trade off for it not being toxic.

The paperclay does crack, though. Every time it dries, I have to patch cracks. Fortunately, that's pretty easy. If you can tell by the head size, she's going to be a pretty big doll compared to what I normally do.

Her body is going to be cloth, but her hands and feet are likely to be polymer clay. As this doll is an experiment, I don't know what direction I am going, completely.

This doll owes some of it's existence to the Dr. Fate helmet. That helmet was my all consuming project for a few weeks. I didn't really work on anything except it. That helmet has given me the patience to tackle this doll and the unfamiliar techniques like paperclay and sewing. Wish me luck!

Dr. Fate Helmet Complete

It's finally done! The Dr. Fate helmet has been painted, and is complete! Now I can get back to my 'real' work, which includes things like fox dolls. Hehe

The next step in this set will likely be Dr. Fate's medallion. I don't plan on putting you all through a step-by-step on it, though.

For now, I will just say that the helmet is done, and I'm very excited about that. While I do plan on making an entire costume, the helmet is getting a place of honor in the living room, I think.

Thank you all for being patient while I did this blasted thing, and I promise I'll get back to the 'normal' stuff soon.

Until then, good luck with your own projects, and thanks for dropping by!

Dr. Fate progress

The Dr. Fate helmet is progressing. I've not posted in the last few days, but I have been working on it, daily. I just didn't think tons of posts that say "Sanded, added filler, sanded added filler" were very interesting, so I saved up until today.

I've been sanding and adding filler (Imagine that!), and trying different fillers as I came across them. I have used miliput, which is a two part epoxy, similar to plumber's putty, but mostly used by miniature train enthusiasts. I used some Squadron White Putty, which is mostly used as bondo for model cars, as far as I can tell. I've even just used more bondo, sand it off, add more. Ugh. It's frustrating that I can't get him smooth!!!

Yesterday, however, I found out about Rondo. Rondo is not an off the shelf product, but rather a mix of bondo body filler and fiberglass resin. It's more liquid than body filler, so it doesn't make air bubbles as bad. That's what I've added today. Wish me luck!

I've also bought some paint for the helmet, started my next mask project, which is slightly more and slightly less ambitious at the same time, and have been planning and buying materials for the new doll. I think she's going to involve a lot of hand sewing.

The picture for today is a painting of Dr. Fate, as I realized I was rambling on about this guy, but most people probably don't know who he is. That's what I hope to look like, once this project is complete!

Also, there is a secret in the works. More to come on that, later.

Dr Fate helmet: Fiberglass and Bondo

So, I skipped some pictures, sorry about that.

The fourth Dr. Fate helmet, as I said, was close enough that I didn't feel the need to make a fifth one. The first picture is of me after I cut the helmet, to see how much of a gap was needed to be added. I didn't add as much as is shown there, but I took the picture just to give me an idea of the size. I'm very proud that my very first attempt at a sizing picture actually worked, by the way. I just held my phone away from me and clicked the picture.

After I got the sizing done, I added some fiberglass resin to the outside and inside of it, which made my studio stink so bad that I abandoned the room for a couple of days. Note, do this crap outside if you plan on doing it.

Next I reread everything I could find about turning pepakura (papercraft) files into wearable stuff, and started the awful task of fiberglassing the inside. I used fiberglass cloth and more of the resin for that.

Side note, the resin, the cloth and the bondo all came from WalMart. This stuff is easy to find. It is with the tools/automotive stuff, all right together.

Today, I sanded the devil out of the Fate helmet, inside and out. I wore a respirator, goggles, gloves, and long sleeves to do this, and I did it out on my front porch, that way my neighbors will fear me. I did it outside and wearing all that gear because I am slightly phobic of fiberglass.

Next up, as seen in the second picture, I covered all my hard work in a layer of goopy bondo body filler. Now my cool paper helmet is pink. Pink, and as hard as a car part, I might add. (Also, seen in the picture, bird poops on my porch. That's what I get for having a bird feeder)

Later, I'm going to be sanding down the bondo, fixing any gaps that show up, checking and rechecking the symmetry of it, then eventually painting the whole thing brilliant and gaudy gold.

More to come as I get there!

Also, as for my sculpting progress:

I cut down a styrene ball to the shape I wanted for a large doll's head, then sculpted the head in super sculpy. I didn't take a picture before baking it, but trust me, it was cute.

After baking, I found that my cute sculpted head had shattered. I started over, but I first reinforced the styrene so that it wouldn't expand or anything to cause another break.

I resculpted the head in super sculpy, baked it again, and again, it busted. GAH!!!

I'm not giving up on this doll, just so you know. The next step is trying my hand at paperclay for the first time. Pictures and what not will follow.

Dr Fate vs. Vacation

Pictured here is the first three Dr. Fate helmets. The third one was painfully close to right, but it was still too small. I also made a fourth one, but guess what? It's still a little too small!!! Gah!

The fourth one is close enough that I may simply mess with it a bit to make the helmet fully wearable. I can squeeze it onto my head, but only with a little distortion to the helmet. It also mashes my nose. I think I will cut into where the cheek parts meet the face part, and add a little paper to there to stretch it some. I'll let you know how that goes.

Next, I'd like to let you know that for Easter I went to Pigeon Forge, TN. It was kind of a sudden spur of the moment trip, but it was a lot of fun. So much fun that Sarah wants to go back there for her birthday in July. So, I guess that's what I'll be doing then.

We went to a petting zoo, and to Wonder Works, which were both kind of fun, but the petting zoo gets more revisit value, if you ask me. I petted a camel, some goats, a zebra, some deer, a zonkey and donkey. The goats win, in my opinion. Later, I may do a more in depth post about the trip, complete with pictures of me getting mauled by little animals.

The biggest thing to come out of this was that I was inspired to sculpt again. Pictures will come as soon as there is anything to show!

Dr Fate helmet continued

Not much to report, other than I made the second helmet bigger, and I used hot melt glue (a glue gun), which sped up the process A Lot!

The second helmet is STILL too small, so as I write this, I am printing a third helmet even bigger. I hope it works, because I'm running out of room on the pages.

The second helmet looks cool enough that I may salvage it for something later. I just wish that it fit.

Dr. Fate and Mortal Kombat

Over the weekend I have been working on a Pepakura Dr. Fate Helmet. I've highlighted Pepakura before in my post showing off my mini-nuke and Birdo papercrafts. The Helm of Fate is the same process, but I intend to harden it, finish it more completely and talk about every step along the way.

Unfortunately, my helm of Fate is too small! My gigantic head won't fit in it! I was frustrated with this, but I've realized it is an opportunity as well. Apparently, when using Pepakura for costuming, getting the fit right is something everyone struggles with. So, I've increased the size of the Dr. Fate helmet by 10% and I'm going to try again.

The first time I talked about papercraft, I said that I used white glue to hold the parts together. I did that with this helm of Fate too, but after looking at a ton of tutorials to figure out how to fix my sizing problem, I've learned that most costumers who work with this use hot melt glue. So, next time, that's what I'm doing too.

The helm of Fate was printed on mock A4 card stock. I say that it is 'mock' A4, because I couldn't find A4 cardstock anywhere in my city (I live in the U.S. and A4 is not a standard size here). How I got around the need for A4 cardstock was by buying 9"x12" cardstock and cutting it to size. Last night at around 1:30 a.m. I learned that this is not something I should have worried about.

In Pepakura Designer (not Pepakura Viewer, but if you are doing these papercraft things, you should download both), it is possible to change what size paper the pieces are printing on, and rearrange them if you need to. For the next incarnation of the Helm of Fate, I am printing it on good old American standard card stock ( 8.5"x11").

Next, Mortal Kombat. Any male of my age knows and loves Mortal Kombat. It was the excessively violent video game that came out in 1992, and caused a whole generation to fall in love with side scrolling, 2D plane fighting, and more importantly finishing one's opponents.

Tonight at midnight, Mortal Kombat 9 is available to the public! I have preordered a copy of it from Gamestop, and will be picking it up for my PS3, tonight. That means I am going to be up all night killing my enemies, and then dragging myself through the day tomorrow. Good times! Just like my childhood!

Until next time!

Building a cardboard shelf

Sarah's collection of Littlest Pet Shop figures was taking over her office. It honestly looked kinda obsessive and creepy, to be honest. She's got a billion of the things, roughly. She wanted a little shelf unit to display part of them on, but after months of looking for one, she still didn't have one, so I decided I would try to make one.

Let it be noted right now that I don't do carpentry at all. EVER. Wood was out, so I figured cardboard would work. I've seen some very pretty pieces of cardboard furniture out there, so I figured a shelf would be a snap. It really was, too.

I measured and cut six pieces of cardboard for the three shelves (two pieces of corrugated cardboard per shelf), then four pieces for the sides (two per side, again). I glued each shelf and each side together separately, clamping them together with clamps and clothes pins. I used Mod Podge to glue them together. Very simple stuff.

Next, I glued the sides and shelves all together using hot glue and masking tape, It was nothing fancy, but it worked well. I started with one side, and after the three shelves were stuck to it, I glued on the other side. I also covered the exposed edges of the cardboard with masking tape, just to make it cleaner for the next step.

Finally, I tore some sheets out of a book (don't worry, it wasn't a good book, and it had already lost a page or two. There was no reading it ever again, anyway), and tore them into little pieces. I used Mod Podge to glue them on, one at a time. After the whole thing was covered in paper, I went back over it with another coat of mod podge, and then left it to dry.

From start to finish, the entire shelf unit was only a few hours long project, and I think it turned out pretty nice. I wouldn't want to use it to store my weights, or an anvil or anything, but it's plenty sturdy enough for the Littlest Pet Shop critters.

Roofing part 3: A casualty

The roofers have claimed their first casualty in the whole 'rattling the house' bit. A jar baby (one of my first ones, not a candle) fell off of my 'specimen' shelf and busted. The baby is fine, but there was glass and water all over the floor.

I'm more upset that I didn't have the presence of mind to take a picture of the baby laying in the glass and puddle of water on my wood floor, than the fact that it broke. I'll just get him a new jar, no big deal.

Anyway, here's the little guy. He's a bit more deformed than what you can see in the picture. He has a little tail, and only has odd numbers of digits. He's made of super sculpy, with a little purple wash here and there to give him some color. The nasty peeled looking stuff on him is rubber cement...and yes, that look is intentional.

The water in his jar was discolored by a little bit of coke, and there were a few scraps of toilet tissue floating in there to look like bits of skin or flesh that had separated from the baby. I know it's probably not one of my 'deepest' works of art, nor is it even in good taste, but I love it. Heh.

Also, if this bothers you, let it be known that you came to a site that says 'Jar Babies and Art' right at the top, so you should have expected a jar baby sooner or later.

Anyway, the roof should be done tomorrow, so that's happy. Also, I've been playing with colored pencils, so I'll probably show that stuff off soon. The rat doll has been on hold because the hammering really kind of jars my nerves and makes me unable to do the little delicate work that I need to do to sculpt.

EDIT: The little baby has a new jar to call home! Here he is! He got some coffee in his water this time, because ...it was closer to the sink when I was filling him up.

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.

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!).

New Sculpture Project: Robot

Here's the parts I have so far for my newest doll/sculpture, which will be a robot, of sorts.

The little jar is going to be the main bulk of the robot, but there will be arms and legs and plates and parts, of course. All the parts around the jar are made of sculpey, with the exception of the gray circular thing with orange in the middle. It is a glass pebble with orange glow in the dark sculpey behind it and silver sculpey around the edge.

The brain with it's delicate little brain stem will be in the jar, suspended in clear casting resin. The whole thing will be sort of '50's movie monster robot, mixed with a bit of steam punk nightmare.

There's a lot more that needs to be done to this thing before it's workable, but there you go, an update as to what I'm working on!

Rat Doll part 6: Arms

Here's the start of the rat arms. There's a few steps still to be done on them, but this is where I begin.

I rolled out a bar of clay, cut it in half and baked it for the arms themselves. These two rods will each make one arm. The hands were sculpted separate. I'd go into more detail on how to do the hands, but honestly, there's a billion other tutorials out there on hand sculpting that far surpass my attempts. For now I will just say there is no armature in either the arms nor the hands.

The next step, which I've not done yet, so no pictures... is that I need to cut the arms in two again. I'll figure out the length I want from shoulder to elbow, then cut where the elbow bends. I'll use a cutoff disk and my dremel for this. If the forearm is the right length, then hurray! I won't have to cut more off of it, but as it stands, I think I will.

The elbow and wrist will be sculpted onto the existing forearm/ upper arm/ hand, then the completed arm will be rebaked. I'll also add a knob to the inside of the shoulder to allow it to be stuck into the torso. That's the bit that will allow me some articulation, later.