Cool Dude Zombie with Pawpaw

 

You must admit this is as cool a dude that a zombie ever gets and the top hat from the Clever Duck did not go astray. Hang on,yes it did, I had to make another one because the duck's was too small. Can't take a single trick!

 

Why isn't there a font size between these two? Anyway, what is the significance of the pawpaw? That is between me and my great neice and there it will stay but believe me, it does mean a lot.

Some details of the build from the final photos is the best I can do as my computer went from Apple to PC and the transition was not smooth. I  was not taking progress shots, I was not modelling, actually everything came to a halt while the Apple was on the blink.
The base is a grooved piece of plaster, the pawpaw is Apoxie Sculpt as are the clothes. All pretty standard stuff. I added his arms attached to the toothpick cane, as a unit, to the body after sculpting the front of his tuxedo and adding a fine chain for that extra bit of class.

He seems a bit leery of the fruit, probably never having been confronted in this manner before. Who has?

An undercoat of Citadel white for both parties.

When was the last time you saw spats or even thought about them? I could remember Uncle Scrooge McDuck wore them, so I googled"cartoon characters wearing spats" and there he was with many more besides. Amazing! Of course then it had to be" Spats" by themselves and, well it blows your mind that the rest of the fashion world is obviously wearing them and it has just passed you by.

Well there he stands,be-spatted and ultra cool while the fruit of the moment just sits quietly ripening (cleverly balanced as its pin took to the super glue just a bit too quickly).
What will happen next? They have just about the same level of intelligence,probably a standoff.

Orc Droid final form

THIS EARLY ENTRY IS BEING RE-WRITTEN AS I INADVERTENTLY DELETED ALL 748 PHOTOS FROM MY BLOGS.

This vignette called "Unwelcome Visitor"was to be my entry into the 2011 Games Workshop Golden Daemon competition, however due to a misunderstanding regarding its inclusion and transport, it never made it to Sydney.

 

 

 

 







The above pics give an all round views of the piece and as I did not keep a detailed photo log of the build,I will be describing features as they can be seen in their final form.

 

What we basically have is an Imperial tower being visited by an Orc Droid, that is an orc warrior in a huge exoskeleton. It has been discovered by an Imperial Guardsman who is very sensibly, staying out of sight.

 

 

This was the first model I had built where I used silicon moulds and resin casting. After the bust of the Araby Ogre where I needed 12 skulls, I figured there had to be a better way of doing the same detail over and over. The tower,being Imperial, had to be ornate and skull bedecked so I decided to make two masters for the walls. The above pic shows the master, mould in pink silicon and the resin cast in cream. The master used styrene plastic, lead solder, a button battery,corrugated cardboard and a previously cast techmarine badge.

 

 



More casting here with the master in the middle made up of 5 individual skull casts joined. This set formed a frieze around the base of the building and separate skulls were used any where I felt I needed a detail.

 

 

 

 

 

 







These pics show various aspects of the building.The top shows one of the four sides of the base and this panel, although not repeated, was a casting of disparate details in one piece. You can see the use of individual skulls in the second pic as well as the frieze used in the third. Our Imperial Guard hero can also be seen in the last two pics.The second pic shows the other panel I made for the tower, still with a bit of a Mechanicum theme. 

 

 

 

I wanted different heights to be available to the eye,so that there would be something of interest at every level. The tower is so solid so I made the gantry above to seem flimsy and yet fit with the overarching idea. Thin pipes at the corners of the building lead to the complex top and every structure,be it a support or bracket or junction had to be thought about. People see the entirety of a model and don't think about the fact that EVERYTHING they see has to designed and then fabricated.

 

 

 

 

 

Here are two views which show the complexity of that roof.especially how those rising pipes join the upper dome. Yes there skulls here as well as jewels, tubes, brackets and fastenings.

 

 

Here is the bad guy. An ordinary  orc boy was put into a suit of armour which would justify a complete build description by itself but it was done some years ago that I rarely look at it anymore and am only writing about it now because I was so stupid as to delete the original blog. Suffiice it to say that I am quite proud of the bulbous burner receptacle, it looks proper mek boy mad and no self respecting Goff Nob could be upset by the righteous black and white paint job. 

I hope these photos alone convey all the detail work that goes into scratchbuilding such a scene as this.

Library Book Fair display 2014

Apart from making monsters, I am often asked for help with arty projects such as our annual Harvest Festival and in this case, a Book Fair at our local school - where I was a teacher many years ago. I would be helping a dear friend of mine and this was her first big display.
The entrance is to the right of the two mats and the glass doors were blanked off with newspaper so that the full effect would only be seen at the time of first opening.
I had made a rough plan of the whole thing based on a numbers of layers, from the grass at the bottom back to the fence then the plants and finally the background.

 

These four shots show the full 7m length of the display and all the component parts, including giant sunflowers, fence, grass, bugs, painted layered background and clouds.

 

This is the not so appealing back of the display and like a theatre flat, the reverse is rarely as good as the front, but it does show some strong timber uprights that the school groundsman managed to find.

These supported the tall flats which were wilting due to the humidity and threatening to derail the whole garden. We may have wanted the tall sunflowers to lean over the children but not the sky and clouds as well!

Thank you Steve.

This shot shows the layered effect I was looking for. I had made many glued blocks of cardboard and we stuck them behind anything to make them stand out in relief. The shadow formed behind the piece gives it a certain false 3D character which adds to the overall effect of a busy, interesting garden.

I don't know how many smiley faced flowers of various sizes we made but there were a goodly number and everything had to be cut out from heavy box cardboard. Lots of sore fingers but it was worth it. Maybe not next year perhaps?

Here are a few of the little creatures that I painted for the display, each one cut from thick display cardboard.  They were the last things to be added and were there to fill up the spaces and make things look busy and cute.

Here is the proud lady herself and the whole library decked out for the show - it was a great success and the school has requested that it remain in place for the 100th anniversary celebrations later in the year. 

Of course you can't have a book fair without a visit from a Bookworm and this one is cleverly edible!

Chomp, chomp!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Cherry Bombs and" Peace" Part 1

This entry celebrates the return of our computer finally, (thanks EJ ), after a long stay in the wilderness of "what the hell is wrong with it?" and the upcoming birthday of my zombie loving grandson. I have it on the best authority that he would like a model of the Pvs Z  Cherry Bomb.
Here are some initial sketches and thoughts in notebook No.16.

Apart from the lack of recent blog entries, the photography sequences are not that crash hot. It seems I have made the spherical master (from Apoxie Sculpt) and have worked out the best way of casting it in silicon rubber. Really it was so long ago, that I'm just going by the photos I have, to figure out what I actually did. I must have decided that the detail of the face needed to be directly below the inlet for the resin to nullify the problem of undercuts.

Normally I cut the resin inlet and air outlet into the dividing line between the two halves, but here have gone for two punched holes in the centre of the back of the head. This will allow the resin to pour evenly around the bulges of the eyes and mouth.

It obviously worked, as this pic shows the master between two cast cherries. A lot of work has been done to the casts as displayed here. Those tricky eyelids, that give so much character to these mean little cherries, were I remember, a pain. Too much here, too little angle there, how thick,where to finish, how much eyeball to cover, all these and more made up what is, seemingly, a very simple sculpt.
The mouths with their asymmetrical teeth were an adventure with the motor tool of similar proportions to the eyelids.
I forgot to mention that the eyeballs were plastic beads where the holes become the pupils. This is a technique I use often and it hasn't let me down yet.

The cherry stalk proved to be a problem in that it had to be correctly shaped (simple wire is too uniform) so such wire was joined, covered in putty and cast to make a natural looking twig. The junction points with the spheres was a bit of hit, miss and hope, with the help of a bit of filler.

Everything is shown here, master, moulds, casts and undercoated cherry bombs.

You can see in this closeup that those teeth took a bit of filing, fitting and finishing. I felt at one stage that I'd have to create some special "plastic teeth, for the gripping and fitting of,tool", before I managed to get them into their proper place.

Of course there are no photos of the stages of the paint job, but let it be said that they put up a fight before the angry little buggers were done. All in the name of being a loving Poppy.



"PEACE"  Part1
   I think this is the name given to the red rider character created by William Stout. I have been a Stout fan, especially of his prehistoric art work, ever since I bought his book,' The Dinosaurs', published in 1981.
With the advent of the internet and the ability to find something about anything or anybody, I have seen so much more of his hugely varied output.
The red rider astride a weird blue bird beast, crops up whenever Stout is mentioned. It has been reproduced in many different styles, from line drawings to full oil paintings and I would like to do it some justice as a sculpture.

Here are the first stages of my process. I have a decent picture of the subject and from there I enlarge it to working size by squaring it up. As you can see it will be about 300mm high as I intend to model the base as well, blood dribbles and all!
The face of the rider is seen at an angle, great for a painting but we need more than that for a 3D piece. This means that any clues from the painting have to be interpreted into "the round". I have to know what he looks like from the front, back, side and even top. A figure if well rendered, and Stout's are certainly that, gives hints that help answer the questions about what is hidden in the flat world of a 2D picture. The angle of the neck, the twist of the shoulders, the slump in the saddle, all reveal how and what should be seen in the final figure.
The sketches in my notebook are my interpretations of various views taken from the original.

If the rider is important then his mount is hardly less so and the process of converting what is seen in the picture to a possible 3D model is undertaken the same way. The beast gave me more trouble than the rider because the clues in the picture added up to a creature that could not be proud of its profile. Three quarter shots only for you my son, stay away from side views unless you want all your enemies to die from laughter. I can see now that those ears are going to prove troublesome.

On to business. A simple armature of wire and plastic mounted on a wooden base starts the process.
Care is taken to get the width of the beast's hips correct as this will determine the rider's" seat "on its back, how wide are his legs spread and from that, where his feet will end up in the stirrups.
Most large two legged birds actually quite a narrow distance between their feet. Cassowaries, for instance, have a very narrow double foot stance for such a huge bird. This is an important aspect of the whole figure and will be most evident from a front viewpoint.

As I only had a curl of wire at the head, I needed to have an extra support for the beast's great long face and so added this structure to carry that huge hooter.

Standard procedures here with foil being used to bulk out the body. A start with Apoxie Sculpt has been made on the head.

Well on the way now with eyes added (black plastic beads) and the contours of the head coming along.

Here is that troublesome profile shot and the first hint of a problem. In the painting the creature has fangs visible protruding below the end of the nose, but where do they come from? From first glance this animal seemed to me to be rather giraffe like, in that its drooping top lip hung quite low down, past its lower jaw. That would put the upper tooth/fang line to be well back of the nose tip. What then is the shape of its mouth and how far and how much would it be visible from the side?
Problems to be solved but isn't this why I do the things I do? Sure is, so bring it on Mr. Stout.

Apart from beast fang things, I had the whole rider to sculpt and to help in this job I decided to bite the bullet and do something I had been meaning to do for ages, make an armature for a human figure. This meant deciding on a style that would do many jobs but would be easy to cast each time I needed an armature. The sketch above was the way I decided to go, making a head, torso, hips and two sections of legs and arms as well as generic feet.

And here he is! The masters are simple shapes modelled in Apoxie Sculpt and cast in one piece moulds. The cylindrical pieces are easy to release from the mould and the larger three have the mould sliced half way down to make the release just as simple. The feet are done in a mould made from a silicon putty and are even quicker to de-mould. All the pieces are quite slim and clothing added will bring the figure up to size.

The above are a couple of views of the model so far and I'm pleased with the ease with which the cast armature pieces allowed me to find the stance of the rider. This is something I haven't done before but I am encouraged by progress so far. A lot of the foil is covered in cold porcelain just to see how it works. After a while it has cracked but any thing behaves badly in our climate, you just have to find a way around the problems.

Just to show how versatile the armature is, I made up a potential figure for, you guessed it, a zombie - but this time a real nasty!
See you soon for "PEACE" Part2