Squashies!

A climbing one, started yesterday:

This is Fred, who goes with Gary and Jenny (horse guy and rabbit girl):

When I started sanding the resin baby I realised how full of bubbles the polyurethane cast is. A lot of them are very small, but I figured that going by Murphy’s law, if there’s one small detail that’ll come through perfectly in a finished piece and not get sanded off, it’ll be bubbles. I ordered some polyester resin to see if I could get a better cast with it. I asked for white but they sent clear pink, which is very pretty, but useless for a pre-bronze model on a piece with as much detail as baby, as I can’t see the surface well enough. The resin cured very quickly (I was casting outdoors on the roof, since the resin stinks), causing bubble entrapment once more. I tried casting in one of the egg moulds with reduced catalyst, which worked much better, but there were still a few bubbles. Next time I use this resin (which will probably be when I want to cast something in clear pink — maybe a squashy?) I’ll put it in the fridge first and use even less catalyst. The bigger the piece the faster the cure, too. Anyhow, I decided just to cast the thing in wax, which was easier than I expected. I got bubbles in the wax too, but at least wax is easily cleaned up.

All my paints are at the new house, so I chucked some food dye into the resin to see what would happen — which was this :-):

This is another piece I’ve been working on — he’s the God of Witches, and I want to do him in black bronze or iron. That lump under him in the second pic is supposed to be a heart, with veins-cum-plants coming out of it. He’s going to take a while!

This is Sir… a horse with a horse whip. I started him ages ago and he’s been neglected for a long time. I need to un-neglect him.

And this is Monsieur Butterfly, whose pose and general everything I haven’t decided on yet:

Gah, I’m kind of tired. Been packing, got to do the rest on the weekend, then hopefully go Monday.

This critter has been in my head for years. It started off as one-headed, then doubled. I imagine there being one- and two-headed varieties. They’re squashy, with suction feet, and they walk around ceilings and walls, hoovering up whatever they find to eat. Today I was working on the leg wrinkles, which are fine on one side but could be better on the other.

The little one below is a plasticine model that I’m going to copy in the hard oil clay. I like the bright colours, and hope I can get these colourfully patinated.