I took a day off today. As well as making a quickie rough-draft model for another sculpture, I played with the dragon pic, scribbled a lady gunfighter with a random shape in place of her left hand, and attacked an old pic of Gwynn with lurid colour.
ETA: Ok, now she has something to do with her left hand while I finish her:
Kooky is a film by Jan Sverak about a boy who is forced to throw away his teddy bear, and the adventures he imagines the discarded bear having in a forest inhabited by strange creatures. The film combines live action, puppets and stop motion, with puppets and props designed by Jakub Dvorsky, the founder of Amanita Design, creators of the wonderful game Machinarium.
By the looks of the trailer, the film’s going to be a delight (or rather, is a delight in the Czech Republic, where it has already been released, and will be a delight for English speakers when the English-dubbed version gets distribution). There’s also an illustrated e-book of Kooky, sample pages at Amanita.
This is the big Pan I’ve started working on. These photos show the brown wax clay being replaced with green wax. I’ve put on a more detailed temporary head, and realised that the arms are too long and I’ll need to cut and re-bend the armature, as well as add bulk to the legs and do a zillion other things. I’m trying to get the pose to look good from every angle and thinking his head might need to be flung back and/or twisted more.
WIP shots:
In the dusk with the light behind him!
Photoshopped digital sketch. I want to go back and work on details like feet, and see if I can get a more dynamic face. And then maybe put another dragon or two in the picture.
Heh, I was going to do a weekly or monthly art feature. I should never, ever say that I will do anything on a regular basis.
But I still want to try. I think I’ll try posting about just one artist at a time. Linden Gledhill is a biochemist and photographer. His images of water-based paint splashes with shapes made by sound from a speaker remind me of Murano glass, rainbow icecream and strange things in the sea. There are loads more at his Flickr page. His pictures of ferrofluid are also amazing. (And I love this badass-looking steam loco. )
Halfway through healthy week! I piked on evening Tai Chi since it was a busy day. My lunch was served with a side order of potato crisps and I left them alone. Yesterday morning I felt pretty tired, but today I feel ok, though some muscles in my back are grizzling, either from left-handed swording or from standing up and working on sculpture yesterday.
One other thing I’ve cut out is fruit juice. Although I guess it’s nutritious, it’s also sugary. In London I had juice that was completely natural, not made from concentrate, and it was much less sweet, and more refreshing; but I haven’t seen it here. I could get a juicer, but I’d hate cleaning it — fruit/veggie pulp gives me the heeby jeebies; I can’t even drink orange juice with bits in it — so no.
I got hard wax models of Pan and the small horse back. I’m glad I ordered the wax models, as the foundry managed to tear the horse’s mouth and flatten Pan’s ears back (and squash the little cartilage mouldings that I spend fucking hours on into the bargain), and those mistakes would have been cast in bronze if I hadn’t checked. There’s also some damage around the base of a horn. I will probably have to pull the ears off and replace them, though I’ll try softening the wax with heat first and see if I can coax it to bend. I might be able to use the ears from the original wax-clay model, but I have the silicone mould now, so I’ll try injecting plaster into the ears and giving the hard wax model plaster ears that can’t be bent or squashed. I will also ask my teacher about making the mould myself. It costs money to have the foundry do it, and if they screw up and you have to reshape the piece, they have to make another mould, at further cost, etc., though I guess you can try getting them to correct their mistakes at no charge — if you can get them to admit they made a mistake. It might be less hassle to DIY.
I’m sick again. I think it’s the same thing as before. Sore throat, sinuses, bastard of a stomach ache, fever. Fucking tropics. I want a gin and tonic to disinfect my insides, but we only have awful Thai rum, and I can’t face drinking that.
I’ve been running around doing the stuff that always seems to have to be done before going overseas. Today was going to be a work day, but instead it’s been a “play with Wacom to distract from physical misery” day.
ETA: …Right, so, somehow bread with olive oil was a cure? O.o ..
I made a little Pan… I think he’s sweet and I should finish him:
He’s finished! In bronze! And I think he looks awesome 
His toes are a bit twisted (maybe because the wax-clay model’s feet didn’t have armature wire in them and got bent at some point in the foundry?), but if I really want to I (assume I) can get another wax model cast from the mould, fix them, and get a new mould made for any further casts. In the meantime, I’m still extremely happy with how he came out.
He was hard to photograph — there’s a bit of lens distortion in some of these pictures.
Front
Back
Side
Closeup
Feet
Ears, horns and hair are pretty much done! I’m leaving Pan alone now until I can ask my teacher for advice on how much or little finish to give the piece. I quite like the rough, unfinished torso, but if I leave it that way, I think it might want some graduation between finicky and rough. I carved the grooves into the horns mostly with a pin, a toothpick and a rubber-tipped tool. For the hair I used various small tools and a toothpick. The horns were an absolute bastard to do, I have to say. On the first go I made the grooves too even and close together, so that it looked artificial, and I had to rub them out and start over. The ears were slightly less trouble, although one of them is very keen to break in half now.
The hair looks ok at a distance, but the close view says more work needed!:
Getting there in general:
Pan now has ears and horns, more or less, and the beginnings of hair. I’ve wrapped the bust over a lump of wax, which makes it easier to hold. At some point I think I’ll have to take it off and put it on a stick, but it’s ok for now.
Plasticine hairdressing — after starting at the top of the head I realised that, duh, it would be better to do the edges first and work inwards, since the higher parts have to sit on top of the lower:
The horns are getting there, but they need work. I made them separate from the head, but had to do the grooves after they were attached to the head so that I wouldn’t end up with the grooves going in some wrong direction. I did the grooves with a seam unpicker, then smoothed most of them over with a rubber-tipped tool to see how it looked. I’m not really satisfied, so I’ll try freezing the piece then working on the horns with a toothpick or something and a paintbrush dipped in methylated spirits. (ETA: metho on the frozen model seems to have little or no effect.) One horn is made out of hard plasticine, but the other is covered in softer plasticine (I didn’t like its shape and used the soft to fix it, forgetting that the grooves wouldn’t stay in it as well when I smoothed it). The horns are attached to the head on wire, so I can remove them if I have to, but now that they’re in place I’d rather leave them there if poss.
One ear — needs smoothing, and I’d like to get the inner contours better if I can, though they’re probably ok. This pic shows how rough the face is, too. I’m not sure how much to smooth it.
Full view — the model seems to want to lift off the base; maybe the pressure of my fingers is pushing it up? Anyway, I don’t think it matters; I’ll do the shoulders properly when I put it on a stick. I shall pretend that I know what I’m doing.
