Disco Fever

I was in the art supply store, when I passed the rhinestone display, and I couldn’t resist.  I bought five packets of 5mm clear rhinestones.  Then I made this guy:

nekkid

He was supposed to be red, but the stupid “exterior hardener” I added to the mixture bleached out the dye.  His transformation began.  Here he is at 175 rhinestones:

hoodie

Here he is at 700 rhinestones:

disco pants!

I’ve bought 385 more rhinestones, but I don’t think I’ll need them all.  I don’t intend to cover the rectangular area in the back.  It’s a little surprising how completely cathartic and relaxing it is to glue tiny sparkly things on a tiny red (orange! grr!) man- except for the crotchy bits.

I made…something.

The only reason I keep going with the resin casting, despite all evidence to the contrary, is that I’ve had some measure of success.  For example:

Sparkly!

The one on the right, obviously, is the one I made.  I tired to put pink glitter in it, which was (surprise!) a mistake. However, I was pretty pleased with the amount of detail the mold captured (not that you can see it in this photo.  I never said anything about being a photographer- for good reason). 

It’s the partial successes like these that make me keep trying.

Limey Bastard

I tried, yet again, to get a good mold from a lemon (or in this case, a lime- it just met the “shape criteria.”).  This particular outcome was instrumental in my decision to just cough up the hundred-or-so dollars, and get some decent moldmaking material in a larger quantity that 1lb. at a time.

It started out well enough.  I built my mold box (like I should have done the last time).

I tried to adhere to the lessons I learned from the previous attempt.  I glued the lime to the bottom, so it wouldn’t float up to the top, wasting moldmaking material beneath it.  I glued wooden sticks into the corners, to further economize the moldmaking material usage.  It should have turned out great.

But I’m sure you know where this is going.

I also decided to try making another man-mold at the same time.  I carefully built his mold box in the same manner.  (At this time, I realized that the shape of traditional coffins probably came from trying to achieve economy of wood use.)

The problem arose when I mixed the moldmaking material, and realized I didn’t have enough to do both molds…after I’d already poured the lime mold, and was halfway through filling the man-mold.  I had to make a quick decision about which of the two I’d choose to “survive,” and the lime lost.

If I’d had my 5lb. tub o’ stuff, that wouldn’t have happened.  I can’t wait for it to get here.

Nothin’ says lovin’

…like brains from the oven!

Brrrrrrrains!!

I made this little lovely from Sculpey.  Sculpey is a clay that stays soft while you work with it, but then you put it in a regular oven, and it becomes ceramic-like.  This piece is going to (eventually) go inside another resin casting, but I’ve yet to finish the plaster portion for it. 

The suspense is killing you, I’m sure!

Skelly needs a new skull

I’ve been trying to think of the best way to make a template, if you will, for creating a skull (a round object) out of copper sheet (decidedly not a round material).

By the Power of Clayskull...I have the Power!!!

The ideas haven’t exactly been forthcoming.  This is the best I’ve managed so far.  Somehow I don’t think a squishy clay head is going to work for molding copper sheet around.

My next effort is going to be using the nitrogen widget from a can of Young’s Double Chocolate Stout.  Oh, the ideas borne of beer!

(Jane- notice the thing in the bottom right of the photo?  I haven’t forgotten; mojitos or not!)

Skelly 2

skelly w/arms, shoulderblades, pelvis

So here he is, a little farther along.  I’m still working on that skull thing. 

This particular resin man is moving along so slowly because I’m a bit afraid to cast the skeleton into the resin.  It’s taken a lot of effort to build, and the thing with resin is, you only get one shot.  I’ve been having a lot of trouble with the resin I currently have; as I will cast it, and the exterior of the figure will not harden. 

I finally got fed up enough with this problem that I ordered some big-kid supplies from Alumilite.  I can’t wait.  I will be working with silicone rubber moldmaking material, and a 1:1 ratio, 2-component resin.

Skelly 1

There’s been one resin man I’ve been working on for quite some time.  I got the idea that it might be cool to create one that had a skeleton entirely made of copper wire.  I started with the legs, which were easy enough, but when I got to the pelvis, the whole thing fell apart.  How do you make something, which is essentially a plate-form, from wire? 

I then decided to “expand my palette,” and use, well, whatever I could get my hands on.

skelly w/o arms

His eyes are LED lights, his spine is a spring (Tigger!!).  The “ribs” are woven into the spring, creating a very cool vertebrae-type effect.  The skull is wire mesh; I’ve never been very happy with the way it turned out, and I’m working on changing it to copper plate (hopefully).

Although it doesn’t look it…

I am actually trying to keep up this site!  This time, I have a valid excuse (or two).  My computer crashed, necessitating a complete reload.  Then, after I got it reloaded, it got a virus- and had to be completely re-formatted.

Sigh.

So now, I’m back.  And I’m going to continue as if I didn’t just take a month or so off from this thing.

Lemon Mold 2

Continuing the lemon mold…

I taped the two halves of the mold together, filled it with plaster, and hoped for the best.  I left it overnight to cure.  When I came back in the morning, I was a little afraid of the result because of the massive crack down both halves of the mold.

I started trying to pry the two halve apart, and was pleasantly surprised.  Inside was something that very closely resembled a plaster lemon!  However, it was clear that this mold was a one-shot.

 

Eventually, I had to take the thing out back and beat the crap out of it on our concrete patio to get the rest of it out.  I am now the proud owner of a plaster lemon.

Acetabula Renovo 2

Continuing with the sketch posted here, I inked it and colored it with marker.  Below is the hand-colored version, pre-PhotoShop.

 
Once I had it in PhotoShop, I decided to enhance the x-ray by putting a real post-PAO x-ray image into it.  Since the bunny was nowhere near human proportions, this took lots of “layer via copy” time and effort.  Here’s what the finished version looks like.