ALL WILL BE QUIET THIS WEEKEND & MOST OF NEXT WEEK

Apart from my Monday 'WHAT I DID THIS WEKEND' running feature it is going to be very quiet as far as posts go from me in here go for this weekend & most of next week. Why? Well i have so many things very close to being finished, things to be started & something special to make & show you that will not only speed up drying of MY creations but yours too. Here is a rough run down of what i have planned for the next week:

1] Sharky is waiting his few & small 'final' touches before he is officially finished for his starring role in my debute give away every 100th post competitions. Which includes a YouTube video showing him off in which i will be starring in alongside him lol. I will try to smooth out my local dialect as best i can so you can understand what i am saying lol.

2] I have most of the parts for the runners up (2nd & 3rd place) competition winners Troll Screamer body parts to make so they can build & define theyre OWN Troll Screamers. However i do have a couple of body parts to get finished for those too. Then of course i have to get the 'HOW TO' build your own Troll  Screamer video from those parts to do & edit along with Sharky's video.

3] My Troll Screamer witch is waiting for her robe to be finished & then her fiinal touches to be added. I have yet to think up a name for her yet too.

4] I have 4 dragon vases awaiting final shaping before i make the dragons to go on them. Then to take to the next stage along with my first vase i started already.

5] I have a custom sword from the anime' cartoon series Bleach to get started for a commision that i promised i would get started last weekend that i simply MUST get going on. The sword is that used by  the main character Ichigo & will be full life size to fit the height of the customer. The sword will be around 2 meters long. Here is the sword i am talking about for none Bleach fans:

The custom swords i was making of my own designs are long since ready for their next stage of building that being forming the raised cutting edges on the swords. I think i will only get as far as mapping out the lines for the raised edges how ever & maybe getting the cardstock strips ready for the making of those.

6] Last but not the least, in fact probably the most important thing i have to make i have been planning for some time now but couldn't as i had some problems finding the right sized electric fans for it. Yes i know i could have bought those online but certain things were not possible in that area which are not for discusion here. I have now found a supplier that is not only local but have every kind of fan i may need ever. Here is a picture i took of the fans available. As i took the picture my eldest daughter got in the shot too. My wife B (Barbara) told her she was in the way but instead of stepping back she stood still like a statue thinking she was out of the shot lol. Her name is Anna-Louise by the way. The fans can be seen along the back wall lol.

Below are the type i bought:

This very special project is for my must needed air driven drying chamber (or ADDC for thsoe who like wierd abreviations).  Because i build using strips, cut & shaped cardstock etc my creations not only come together fairly fast they dry faster to thanks to a very strong PVA glue i use. My drying chamber will not only speed the drying proces up many fold it will also speed up drying of paint & sealers too. It will come in very handy for my Troll Screamer Sharky & my witch as well a my dragon vases too.

So in all a very busy tight week or so schedual ahead for me. So again as i say not much going  to be posted in this time. Just  a heads up of why & where kind of thing lol. Lots of postngs to follow next weekend onwards though as stay tuned folks see you on the other side lol.

TROLL SCREAMER WITCH GETS DRESSED UP FOR A FORMAL OCCAISION

So today i got around to dressing up my Troll Screamer witch. I had been saying all along i'd be dressing her in a 'dress' but the plan was always to dress her as her male Troll Screamer counter part (a wizard) in an open robe. I lead everyone to believe she was being dressed in a dress to keep the element of suprise going as to how she'd finally look since your seeing her come together lol. So enough rambling here she is so far with a brief description of  how i made her robe to look like it is made from fabric when it is totally news paper complete with ruffles, folds & creases in all the right places. Click on any image to enlarge for a better look:

I still have to trim the collar & the robes edges yet (once fully dried) but you will see from these early pictures of how it will intitially look. The robe where it flows over her skin is simply 2 layers of news paper thick. Whilst the hanging area's is made from sheets of standard news paper pages torn in half then quarter. I then glued 5 quarter sheets to each other to form the robe from that point on.

The sleeves are made from 2 sections. The first glued to the upper arm & the second to the lower arm & the connected at the elbows.

To make the ruffles or folds in the sleeves i simply crumpled the news paper sections into heavy folds as i attached each sleeve section to her arms. I naturally made the folds in the sleeves more intense as according to the pitch of each arm. The raised arm (her wand hand) getting more folds in the sleeve & drawing it back down the arm more in relation to her arm being raised too.

Where the robe edges ran over the tops of the feet, tops of the wrists, arms etc. I simply folded over a few small strips of news paper then glued those along the said edges to give the illusion of a thick edge of material. For all the paper over her body looks as thick as the rest of the robe it is not, but the mind fills in that lack of detail as long as you make sure the exposed edges have some thickness to them to fool the eye & mind of the observer.

More soon

WHAT I DID THIS WEEKEND - 22/23 MAY

Everything was going fantastic this weekend gone with everything i planned to do on schedual a truely rare thing for me. Then BAM!, i forgot once i had the final flesh tones on Sharky & the witch Troll Screamers especially the witch since she is to be dressed over 'semi-exposed' area's (under her dress) i would then have to varnish her BEFORE i could continue to dress her!.

So as i say everything went on schedual, but NOW i have to wait a couple of days before i can finish dressing her then take any pictures to post here. That means it is entirely MY fault this time that 'what did this weekend' is going to be late - again!. I CAN how ever show you how Sharky's boarding cutlass turned out since that was completed yesterday at least:. Click on any of the pictures below to get a better look:

 
 
 
 
 


If you remember how it looked the last time i showed it? The basic construction is 1mm cardstock (pizza box) to make the blade with cerial cardstock shaped to make the hand guard. The handle is simply the inner tube from some tin foil which i slightly squashed to form the handles final shape. A small piece of cardstock capped off the foil inner tubes end nicely.

 

I added a couple of layers of news paper strips to give the blade some strength & a little more thickness so i could sand down the edges to make a slight cutting edge. Once fully dried i then painted the entire 'metal' portions with some silver water based paint as a base coat.

 

Once the base coat was fully dried i then gave it a coat of Plasti-Kote brand 'metal hammer' metalic finish spray paint. Now this is not like standard high gloss silver spray paint which has a superb high gloss finish. No this paint has a wonderfull dull, oily, blistered aged finish to it. I know thats a hard description to understand here is a close up of the paints finish:

This shot is a little dark. In the real world those 'dark' regions are not quite that dark more about half as dark as is shown here. The blistering shown is more like burst bubbles, with actual slight depressions & smooth area's inbetween. The whole finish looks & feels metal smooth (apart from the really small mixed burst blisters/bubble effect). The look IS an amazing aged steel effect & can be achieved in a single medium thick coating too.

I  created a nice dark burnt umber colour for one of the wood colours for the handle, but it made a perfect aged/rusty surface for the metal area's of the sword too. So i lightly sponged on a thin layer here & there. Before it dried i then 'dabbed' the fresh paint  with a dry cloth to remove the excess paint. The result speaks for itself i think?

For the handle i painted on a good even layer of the dark burnt umber colour i made. I then lightened the burnt umber twice making two more shades of the same colour. Only using small amounts on a long bristled brush i then 'gently' brushed on some intermittent strokes of the two lighter shades allowing each to dry fully before brushing on the next.

Now the 'normal' thing to do here would be to let the paint fully dry before sealing, but!, i wanted to age the entire cutlass finish. To do this i simply brushed on some clear water based varnish at the stage where the fresh paint just began to feel dry if touched gently. I very carefully brushed on the varnish making sure the brush did not go dry or the varnish go on too thin. The result was the fresh paint mixed slightly with the layer of varnish which whilst it gives the entire cutlass a deep rich shine it also blended the three tones of paint into a nice aged look. Because the varnish dries really fast the water based paint was fixed in place before it could blend (smudge) too much.

The final finish may not be 100% perfect or accurate but i like it lol.

ANOTHER UPDATE

So both Sharky & my Troll Screamer witch NOW have their full base colours on. Tomorrow i will be adding the final colour details then finishing them both off. By that i mean i will be adding teeth, tongues & the dress for the witch etc. I will be adding a couple of other things to them (accessories) but i am not disclosing what they are right now. For now here they are mid finished.

This will be the last time i will be showing Sharky until i do his video to show him off. You will get a better idea of his scale then too as i will be appearing in the video alongside him lol. I will post more of the witch tomorrow & on Monday (coming) as she developes however.

UPDATE!

I have a horrible feeling i am going to jinx things by posting this update - BUT!, things are actually running on schedual for a change & not just with the three projects i am concerntrating on (mentioned in last post down) they being: Sharky the Troll Screamer prize give away, My Troll Screamer witch & my first of several dragon vases. More things to mention besides but first those.

Both Sharky & the Witch Troll Screamers have just (10 minutes ago) been given their LAST dark skin tone coats of paint & are NOW drying & awaiting their final hi-light skin tones & final detailing work (around the eyes, gums etc). They still need to have their tongue fitted & then teeth (in that order) but this is how i do that part of the job anyway. I have a small selection of pre-made tongues to choose from but can't seem to find the teeth i had pre-made. Not to worry i can make the teeth reqired in about an hour or so. The Troll Screamer witch will be having a dress fitting tomorrow lol. So having said that they WILL be finished come Monday then i can get to work on doing NEW short video for Sharky to post under the give away competition rules.

My first dragon vase has a short time ago had it's second 'base coat' added which will show through & hi-light the cracks when finished. So sometime tomorrow i will be mixing up a medium sized batch of bone mix dragon skin (off white) which i will be breaking down into smaller amounts. Each smaller amount will be coloured accordingly so i can then paint it onto the dragon vase to create the 'aged' cracked porcilane finish.

OTHER THINGS RUNNING ON SCHEDUAL TOO

One of the two stores where i normally buy our large 16" rotting room fans from is getting a supply in next week. They will only be a limited amount, but with luck my wife B (Barbara) can zip up the street which is a 10 minute taxi ride from where we live & buy two. So hopefully next weekend i can FINALLY get on with making my air cooled drying chamber. I will of course post the very simple HOW TO both here (a static picture based step by step HOW TO) as well as a 10 minute video HOW TO on YouTube.

Once i get these first two Troll Screamers done i can then concerntrate on sorting other WIPs & repairs ready for selling. More on that later though. Right now it's just been so long since i have been doing things ON TIME that i thought i might share my good mood/news with you all lol.

Right break time is over got to go get back to work on Sharky lol.

SOME THINGS ACTUALLY DO GET MY UNDIVIDED ATTENTION - SOMETIMES

For the remainder of the week since yesterday (Wedensday) untill Monday the three projects below have been & will continue to get my undivided attention, allowing for short breaks of course.

First up the two Troll Screamers Sharky (the prize give away Troll Screamer first left) & the witch Troll Screamer (to be sold when finished farthest right). Due to a combination of how they are constructed (hollow) & the nature of their limb joints (shoulders, hips, elbows, knees, wrists & ankles) along with their multi-toned skins. I have to paint them only two skin tone layers at a time so the 'joints' do not get too wet & they then would lose the poses they have (final poses shown) due to the wet joints & the weight of the wet paint on such large creations.

Since any given Troll  Screamer has 6/8 skin tones that are merged during painting throught out any exposed skin area's i can only add two NEW layers of skin tone a day wihout comprimising the final poses. Supporting arms & legs etc during the drying periods after painting is not always an easy option as often the area's i'd need To place the end of a support at may itself be covered in wet paint. If these guys were smaller (current sizes roughly 60cms tall) wet weight during painting may Not have been such an issue, but i don't like to make small thnigs lol.

My first dragon vase (shown above) is to be finished as are ALL those to follow with the cracked effect i decscribed in my last post (Tips & Trick No.6). I want the vases to have an 'aged' look & feel to them. Unlike the black vase in the afore mentioned post i plan to 'enhance' the cracks by painting the 'base coat' (under the cracked bone mix dragon skin) so that the cracks stand out more - visably. To do his i am going to paint on a white base coat which will stand out inbetween the cracks of the final coat of off white bone mix dragon skin finish

Around the embossed dragon on the vase shown above i intend to paint a small section of 'coloured scenery' or back drop, but the main vase itself will be plain in colour similar to aged pottery vases of this type would be. An off whie aged glaze colour which explains the reason for the 'cacked finish' i mentioned in the Tricks & Tips post..

I should have the Troll Screamers finished by this coming Monday (i have to pop out tomorrow to top up my PVA glue supplies) & will post some pictures of these guys then. The first of my dragon vases how ever will have to stand undisturbed a few days more & so it may be sometime through the week or next weekend before i can show the final project pictures here. So with this closing sentence: Stay tuned folks for more.

TIP & TRICKS No.6

Do you remember the custom vase i made a little while back... The one i made from sections of pizza box cardstock...This one below?:

I was going to paint it black then put an embossed dragon on it. Then add some red & gold trim in paint. Instead i tried an experiment with it using my 'bone mix' dragon skin. My dragon skin was made to make my first ever large dragon heads as thin as possible in paper, but then add a shell like coating to make them as as light weight but as super strong too. Anyway how to make the basic mix is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFhUEVQDs1M. You can add colour during or after the mixing of it & 'bone mix' is simply made using slightly more PVA glue than flour. The basic mix & the bone mix CAN be altered to suit any/all needs.

If you look more closely at the vase above you can just make out a series of relatively similar sized cracks running through the surface skin of dried bone mix dragon skin. Here let me blow up a section for you to see it better:

Here is how to create this simple effect::

STEP 1: Watch my HOW TO video on YouTube to learn how to make some dragon skin up. It only takes a few minutes to do & you only require water, plain flour & PVA glue to make it. YES ANY 'white craft PVA based glues will do & you CAN keep it for several weeks in the fridge too.  You would not believe how many times i have been asked that.

NOTE: The shown mix in my video makes a large batch so half the mix shown to make a more manageable amount. The mix is 'adjustable' so do not worry about making it identicle to MY shown mix, it WILL still be useable dragon skin lol.

STEP 2: Use slightly less (around half less) plain flour in the shown mix to make a 'bone mix' dragon skin mix.

STEP 3:  Mix up an 'undilluted' PVA glue with a suitable 'base colour' for MY vase for instance i mixed up some PVA & black paint. Now paint the whole project with the PVA/paint base paint you just made. A nice even coating not too thick, but thick enough to handle being painted over once dried fully.

STEP 4: Paint over with undilluted PVA (no colouring or water added). This will create a seal that allows the bone mix dragon skin to bond whilst NOT having total cohesion... It sticks & slips forming the cracks basically!.

NOTE: If you use a brush on varnish or clear gloss spray sealer then the dragon skin WILL react differently looking more like raised up rust clusters on the surface. You can see the 'rust effect' as i call it below on my wall mountd grim reapers scythe blade. I sealed the blade with metalic silver spray paint before adding the basic dragon skin mix. I still have to add the rust (& aged blood) colours yet, but the 'wrong' effect WE want for the cracking effect can be seen clearly enough. 

STEP 5: Now paint on a very thin layer of your bone mix dragon skin, less than 1mm if you can. Just a realy 'thin' coating ALL over. Then place somewhere where the temperature is cool & steady. I placed MY vase on the floor in the corner of a medium sized room & left it there until TOTALLY dry.

The dried dragon skin SHOULD slip slightly on the sealed under coat evenly forming the cracks as shown in MY vase above. Once FULLY dried i then sealed MY vase with a clear brush on varnish both to 'fix' the dragon skin in place perminantly (it might flake off if knocked) as well as making the vase totally water proof & fnctional too.

ADDITION TIP

IF you want more cracks or more defined cracks once the dragon skin layer has fully dried then simply brush the whole surface 'gently' with tepid to warm water with a soft brush. Then leave to dry once again. This will cause the dried dragon skin to soak up the water you just added & because it is so dry then crack  further. You CAN repeat this process a few times on projects where you have used basic & bone mixed dragon skin that is at least 2mm/3mm thick to create different amounts of cracking in multiple area's creating a mix of crack sizes or area's over the project or an even cracking over the whole projects surface.

FINAL NOTE:

Remember i use water based paints or tempera paints as a rule so have NO idea how using any other paints will effect or change the results i described above.

WHAT I DID THIS WEEKEND - 15/16 MAY

As i am moving closer to selling what i make i figured best to start with some simple projects that have a relatively fast creation time (once i can dedicate more time to them) but that still look good. As well as a few of my older finished (most now requiring major repairs) projects i am thinking of getting started by selling my dragon vases, large ornimental dishes & a few custom swords. The latter is of course being what i have been featuring these 'what i did this weekend' posts on, all be it mostly late going to post.

So with all that in mind here is what i got up to this weekend gone:

To begin with i decided to make a NEW axe blade for my skull axe weapon. The original became much heavier than i wanted seing as the skull on the axe is already way more heavy too than i originally intended. I figured why not start over on the blade.

4 of the more swords came down off the wall for the next stage in their creation. That being to strengthen the actual blades prior to the creation of the raised cutting edges on each sword. Here are my first 2 swords. These are around 1 meter long. These swords are a matching pair & will be sold as such when finished. All the swords will come with their own display stands too later.

From the first pair i decided to celebrate my first projects to be sold (later) with a single special edition sword & dagger designed around the custom swords shown above.

Next up another matching pair (again to be sold as a pair) these are more cerimonial type custom blades.

Now to a pair of sword blades that are similar to each other but are to be sold as individual swords later. I like this design & might just do a special edition version of these two blades later, not sure yet time is never on my side.

Now comes my 'other' dragon vases. The first in case you can't read my scribble on the side measures around: 57cms tall by 90cms wide. ALL of the vases i am going to show you were only just started this weekend (gone) so don't look like much at this stage of course. At the moment these are only 1 layer of news print (used to start the paper strip layers on the balloons) then 3 layers of 80gsm white printer paper so far. I will be adding another 3 layers of 80gsm paper strips to ALL the vases shown before adding the dragons & painting with coloured dragon skin later.

The second dragon vase stands around: 53cms tall by 87cms wide.

The next stands at around: 57cms by 84cms wide.

The last current dragon vase stands at a squat: 47cms tall by 92cms wide & of course is a sphere shaped design. I do have other similar & more custom designs planned & will  show you those later (when i make them lol). For now i will post pictures of the development of these 4 as i work on them. 

I SCRAPPED THE REMAINDER OF THIS WEEK GONE & STARTED OVER THIS WEEKEND

What a week!. Around 8pm'ish Tuesday gone my youngest daughter stilll at home (Megan) went & spilt a 330mml bottle of orange pop (soda) over my keyboard which was in fact a replacement  not 2 months earlier from another of the same type she drownd then too. That did not get replaced until late Wedensday evening when i was too sore & tired to do anything of any worth.

Thursday miday i found out my soon to be ex brother in law (my sister & he having split up some weeks ago now) & my niece had 'blanked' my eldest daughter twice in the day. My soon to be ex brother in law having had blanked my wife a few weeks before. We have known him since he was 14 years old & started dating then later married my sister now in his 40's. When he'd blanked my wife some time earlier we took it to be simply as the break up was fresh then & ignored it. Then he & our niece did it to my daughter which infurriated me. The result i couldn't think straight the remainder of the day & got nothing done.

Then late Saturday evening one of my sons & his girlfriend (the one i made the new black mask for & his girlfriend the one in my sidebar images wearing the red wings) came around to let us know they had been burgled on the Friday gone, but caught the thief in the act.

So as the title for this post states i simply scrapped the week gone choosing to not post anything & simply start over this weekend. This may sound like a load of trouble to be having in one week but trust me that was a good week as most our time goes.

Anyway anything i said i was going to do the week gone just forget it. It either never got done at the time (on respective days) or i simply could not do anything right for my head going off in all directions (not much new there i know) I have been busy all day yesterday & today however. Sadly i have been so busy i have not had time to do any pictures etc so will be poting ALL what i did this weekend(s) postings on Mondays from now on.

I have made a few advancements on current projects & have started some new ones too. Since i am moving closer to being ready to start selling some works i am now dedicating weekends to geting things finished for selling as well as creating some of the projects i always meant to sell eventually too. So it's currently 16:12pm here right now & i have a few things to finish up before i can get the photographs done tomorrow.

I really need to stop saying i am going to do something 'until' i know i have it done. That way if things want to come along & screw my day(s) or week(s) up then they can lol.

DAN REEDER 'IGNITES' IN SEATTLE

A much anticipated event finally came home to Seattle the home town for Dan Reeder paper cloth mache artist, friend & idol of mine. These talks are short, fast, but often great fun. Dan gets his point across with his normal flare & humour. Why not have a look for yourself right here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KRxGJy4sEA&aia=true.

THE 'CUTTING' EDGE OF PAPER MACHE

Just about done for today (got to tidy away agggggh!), too sore & tired to sit here anymore lol. I have however just finished drawing up 2 more 'pairs' of custom sword blades. These are slightly shorter than the first two custom swords shown below in the last post (what i did this weekend). These are more intended more for double handed close quarter combat/battle with more sweeping style ornate blades. Unlike the first two that are individual swords, the two i just drew up are matching 'twin' blades . I also finished off the drawing out of a commissioned sword too. This is  HUGE sword at around 5ft long & is the anime' character Ichigo from Bleech's sword.

I will post pictures of the new swords on the wall (now that a couple came down for further work earlier) tomorrow. Just too sore & tired to do the deed today lol.

I was supposed to go to the bank yesterday to sort out swapping banks so i could 'online-bank' but i only go out the house 1 day a month as a rule & just did not feel like wasting part of my day sitting  having some snotty nosed bank clerk fill out a form so i could change banks. B (Barbara my wife) said not to worry she'd make a new appointment & go up the street & sort it for me next week. Soon after i can start selling some work. I am going to have to get my act together & get things ready for selling eh lol.

Anyway off now back tomorrow. I bought myself a couple of DVD movies to watch yesterday: Watchmen & Avatar so fun viewing in store for me lol..

Enjoy.

WHAT I DID THIS WEEKEND - 08/09 MAY

Sleep. so help me i  need regular sleep. Not getting to bed until some nights (most) 3am. Not sleeping well & waking &  rising early due to pain 24/7 thanks to my dissabilities is slowing me down no end. I meant get this posted yesterday (Tuesday) but then thanks to sleep loss did not realise it was my 1 day a month out the house (mostly to get art  supplies) so i am posting this now - late again!. Right enough moaning & blame side stepping & rambling lol.

So this weekend gone what did i get up to then?

Well to begin with i finaly decided on a colour scheme for my first of many to come dragon vases. I have decided to go with a golden dragon  with a golden trim around the top of the vase rim as well as around the small base too.  I taped off the rim & painted the dragon & rim. Around the dragons upper half i intend to paint a crude (oval) section of scenery including some sky & clouds which will give way to a black back drop/background around/over the rest of the vase. The vase stands at around 49.5cms tall as will most of them when done.

I still have to make the embossed symbol for 'dragon' for the reverse side yet.

The base of the vase is simply two 2mm thick cardstock discs glued together, then 2 matching 2mm doughnut discs glued to those first two. I then trimmed all in 140gsm paper & then 2 layers of news print strips.

Next came my small custom swords (under a meter long) which are similar to a design i found online & altered to suit my liking. These were mapped & cut out of some 2mm cardstock sheets i am managing to get my hands on from my local super store (ASDA). Other than layng these flat & laying weights on them there is NO way of preventing these from warpping baddly making them usless as the swords i intend them to be. also i simply do not have the working space or any large wooden sheets to make them on. So i am like all my swords from now on making them on the wall.

To maintin a flat working surface i simply 'pinned' the blades to the wall using drawing pins (thumb tacks). I then coated the whole surface with 2 layers of news paper strips. I will cover these again in 3 later of 80gsm white printer paper. Once dry i will flip these over & repeat. Once all that is dry i can then get to work on building up the shape of the blades proper.

Next came my two sword 'half' blades which will only be that & around a meter long (a little over full measurments later), 1 side of a sword blade (each). They will become a sword styled wall mount for dragon heads. Unlike the small custom swords these will be built up with 2 layers of news paper & a layer of 140gsm paper then news paper again. I will repeat this untill i have 3 layers of news paper & 3 layers of 140gsm paper. Once fully dried they will be flipped over on the wall & the backs will get around 6 layers of 140gsm paper over a core layer of 2mm thick cardstock.

With 'spaced' screws to fix them to the wall when finished they should create a working wall mount for the large dragon heads. More on this another time though. 

My dragon slayer (broad swords) blades were taken down off the wall & then joined together tacking them together with masking tape until the PVA glue dried the two halves together. Once dried i removed the masking tape then sealed the whole blades in turn in 2 layers of news paper. Once this is fully dried i will then give each sword blade around 3/4 layers of white 80gsm printer paper, then sand into shape. Then i will work on the top setion of the word so they can be mounted onto thier respective hilts. When completed they will be a little over a meter long. Again as with the sword wall mounts full measurments later when finished.

Next came Sharky's (Troll Screamer give away prize Troll) sword. This is based loosely on a 19th century naval boarding cutlass. I have left off the 'finger' guard section as unfortunatley at the time i had no idea just what type of cutlass to give Sharky so did not in the end allow for the finger guard to slide over his large troll fingers. The real naval 19th centuray boarding cutlass shown below:

This is the first of 2 large dragon heads. The first of which i started this weekend gone. Here it is only at the armature stage, quite devoid of any real defining features. They will follow very soon. At the moment i am merely working on building up of the heavier facial features first before adding the finer details to it later. Like each of the mounting sword barckets i will explain more & show how this is to be fastend to the sword(s)/wall later. The dragon head(s) are around 3ft or so snout to back of head/kneck in height.

Below a front view

I have also been trying to find the lost time i was spending on a project for an artist friend. Sadly such is my nature of working i start something then get side tracked. This last few weeks of growing sleep loss & constant pain build up have only added to my getting behind in promised custom projects of wich i now claim fame to 4 of. More on ALL of these soon. For now how ever that is what i got up to this weekend gone. Who knows perhaps NEXT weekends regular post feature just might, note i say might be posted on time lol.

WIP WATCH UPDATED

WIP watch has just been updated with 3 new WIPs (5 new images) for your enjoyment. More soon.

EVERYTHINGS RUNNING AS SMOOTHLY AS EVER - SO I APPOLOGISE

Firstly where'd the dam week go - again?

Hmm i think i better explain something before i go explaining myself here i think. Some years back now i got the back of my head ripped open with a moutain bicycle seat (the metal clamp underneath) The results of which if i get too angry or stressed out i TOTALLY lose that day!. I mean gone nadda NO memory of it. As a result NOW my weeks can be as long (or short) as only three days. My average year is only seven to eight months long would you believe?

Anyway this weekends post is late again partly down to it (i think) being a stressful week & partly down to what i have been creating needed time to dry out before i could go moving it all around to take pictures of. So as a result 'what i did this weekend' WILL still be here, but later today - I do appologise for this folks. If you would all kindly forgive me i will go now & get to sorting things out for this weekends work posting so i can move on with projects & posts for this coming week.

DAN REEDERS NEW FORUM - ALL ABOUT THE PIGS

Dan Reeder the fantastic paper mache 'cloth' artist father of the orignal monster screamers, many many dragons & other wonderful monsters of many forms has at last let loose on the world something that has been on his mind for a while now.

Dan has never ceased to amaze & break new ground with his creations & for some time has been a mache artist idol of mine too. Dans latest forum offering takes his works to a new level how ever. Dan like many of us in our own respective countries has become enraged at not just the 'corperate machine' but the corrupted corperate machine in it's many shapes & forms. It's not the actual machine itself that Dan's enraged at however it is those greedy money hungry people who are driven by nothing less than utter selfish greed & with no care for the little people who suffer under this regiem who have Dan enraged. Tell you what here is a quote from Dan himself to explain it better:

"This blog is about pigs, but of the immoral, greedy, human variety. This blog is dedicated to those who have enriched themselves (sometimes obscenely so) at the expense of everyone around them. I see these people profiled on the news and I get angry. But what am I to do? With money comes
power. They have piles of money. And they have armies of lawyers defending their castles. So what can any of us little people do? I’ve decided to launch my own small protest with the skills I possess. Since I’m a paper mache artist, it seemed appropriate to portray these people as they really are. Pigs. Oink, Oink, Oink!"

Dan HAS launched not only his new forum but also has added the first of many paper mache cloth pig creations & will be adding a NEW pig each month.

So who is first to feel Dan's wrath then. Well i am not going to spoil it here you are going to have to go over to Dan's new forum to find that out for yourself lol. You can go there & leave a comment too by clicking here: http://papermachepigs.com/.

TRICKS & TIPS No.5

When casting in plaster especially in ordinary plaster you HAVE to remember to make the thickness of the plaster molding a little thicker than you normaly require around the subject to be cast.

Take my Troll Screamers for instance. Great fun to make & you would think extremely simple because of their size. Yet the hands & feet by the very nature of the shapes of them they can be a little time consuming to do, especially if you need two or three pairs at a time. With time in mind i decided to cast a set of hands & feet in plaster rather than the normal foil copying method i use for the body, legs, faces etc. Whilst i need to make two complete feet (left & right) both upper & lower foot seperately for each single foot. The hands can simply be flipped over after being cast from a single hand casting (two halves of one hand).

Unfortunately for me on one side of the hand i didn't add enough plaster to the mold & the result was a thinner half mold section than was viable to use. By that i mean when i opened the mold the thin section snapped in half!. All is not always lost though as you can see below:

The PVA glue i use has many uses everything from basic glue to wall (dry wall) plaster sealer before painting to reduce plaster cracking etc, wood glue & much more. Mercifully the snap in my plaster casting was a very clean crisp edged snap. So using undilluted PVA glue i bonded the two halves together then wrapped & glued a cardstock case/support around it. To add even more strength to the repaired casting i then ran a strip of the thinnest paper i had over the join (telephone book paper) then sealed the whole surface in again undilluted PVA glue.

Whilst it now looks ugly & unproffessional it WILL work perfectly allowing me to create many many dozens of pairs of Troll Screamer hands before i have to go & make a complete new set of castings as i would at 'some pont' in the future anyway.

WHAT I DID THIS WEEKEND - 01/02 MAY

To make sure i have something 'reguar' to post since i have been trying to get things finished/repaird to sell (soon if i can) i just can't guarantee that i have something worthy of posting on a regular basis. So i have decided to run a little what i did on the weekend regular feature. Unfortunately 'this' weekend i have been hit by a stomach bug (hit me Friday gone) so i didn't actually get much done. As a general rule though my little weekend feature should be more interesting after this first outting. So without any further rambling here is the first weekend feature installement for you.

My sword blades moved on to the next stage. This time i added a single strip of 140gsm grade brown packing paper. It is still classified as paper but it is very close to very thin cardstock too. You can find this stuff laying between kitchen or toiletry rolls in stores. Would you believe our branch of ASDA actually throw all paper/plastic wrapping & boxed waste in a in store furnace? Yet they sell many enviromentally friendly goods. Most stores are happy for you to just take these sheets as long as your not messing up the shelves too much lol. They can vary from 1 Meter square to larger this IS a valuable paper stock for most art forms believe me.

Each strip was glued in place with undiluted PVA (white glue). Before they dried i then wiped the surfaces down with 50% PVA glue & 50% water soloution to slow down the drying process slightly. The theory being the thicker glue underneath will soak into the thick paper slowly whilst the watery mix will soak in faster but dry faster too being exposed to the air up on the wall as they are, thus sealing the surface & slowing down the drying & reducing the warpping effects that will naturally occure.

Two new sword blades went up on the wall too. They are similar to a design i saw that someone had drawn so these are still in the cutting & altering stage to make them more of my own design when finished. I will go into more detail as to how i am gong to create the heavy angular cutting blade edges on these when i get to that stage soon (next weekend probably).

I have been working on some 'blank' dragon head designs that i can then copy, mass copy but then change in minute ways to make each NEW head very different. Above are two that were initially designed for a sword hilt but also a stand alone head for a full bodied dragon(s) too.

Again another dragon head but also my original dolphin form & a latex creepy skull form. Both sets of dragon heads etc will be cast in plaster for mass production just as soon as i can persuade someone to mix & pour the plaster for me lol.

So as i said not much going on this weekend. I was hoping to get to my first dragon head sword hilt this weekend too but sadly this stomach bug has left me somewhat pre-occupied so to speak. Well i am off to watch some movies one of my sons brought around with him & his girlfriend (the one I am making the mask for. His girlfriend is the one in the sidebar FINISHED PROJECTS she is the one in the red dress wearing the small devil wings).

So i am off more soon.