sculpture in progress

this is my half-finished Cteno II. "Complete" with wire armature sticking out of her butt.

She currently has no hair or tail and she's still covered in fingerprints and nail marks, but she's pretty cute so far. I think so anyway.
I might work on this tonight. Or I might crash on the couch with a bottle of white wine. I'm celebrating.....Thursday. JOIN ME! Go, Thursday!

current WIP

busy bee

I have been so caught up with Christmas and work, and other distractions, that I haven't been doing much art these past few weeks. Now that the holiday is over, I can get back to business.

I FINALLY finished my commission prize for the second place winner of the contest I helped judge last month, ....two months ago....anyway, I think it turned out nice, even though it took me forever.

I have another commission I need to work on, and I have to finish my second sculpture of Cteno, which will most likely go up for auction.

I have been working more with my new technique involving a grayscale underdrawing.

It helps me a lot with maintaining the style of my original sketch, and with keeping a good amount of contrast, which I tend to lose when I color more traditionally. I used to work almost exclusively in pencil, so all of my drawings were black and white when I was a teenager. It's kinda what I'm used to even though I've been using photoshop for several years now. I like this new technique because it allows me to work more easily with my paper sketches, and with a method of shading that I am more comfortable with. I think there is definitely room for improvement, but I am going to stick with it for now.

too busy sculpting to draw; a good problem to have?

I've gotten so into this polymer clay thing, that I have been too caught up to work on anything two-dimensional. I have three or four sketches I could upload and start coloring, but I haven't found the time!

I completed my first sculpture a couple days ago. It turned out pretty nice for my first try.
I think so, anyway....

It's a pony character created by another artist (who just happens to be my fiance). I like her a lot and thought she would make a great subject for my first attempt. It was a good choice. She's a gooey gal (the character is actually supposed to be made of goo surrounding a pony skeleton...) and I felt like I had a little more freedom with the surface texture. Plus, I got to use a ton of gloss, which helped to hide most of the flaws.

Making the glasses was a challenge. I thought of several ways I could go about it, and finally settled on the use of liquid Sculpey over a wire frame. I had never used this stuff before and wasn't even really sure it would work the way I thought. But it did! It cures translucent and gives a really nice effect. I have to experiment with it a little more to improve my technique, because it ended up having a lot of tiny bubbles in it.  :/  It doesn't really affect the overall look too much, but I'm a bit of a perfectionist....

I am actually working on a second sculpture of this pony, Cteno. It will be about half the size of this one, but I learned a lot with my first attempt and I'm sure this one will turn out even better. It might even go up for auction once it's complete. The body is mostly done, just need to work on the tail (which actually makes up almost half of the sculpture) and the hair. Then it will be ready for firing!

stringmouse

I have had a deviantART account for many years now and have been using the same one for two years. Which is not very long for these things. Many accomplished artists have had the same account/username for 8+ years. And in my two years, I hadn't really acquired a very large following, so I have decided to make a change. I am renaming myself for the purpose of spewing my art all over the internets. Don't think too hard about the new identity. Stringmouse.

It will take me a while to build up my new gallery. I will be resubmitting a lot of my older work and mixing it in with new work. It will be a long transition, but I think it will be a good move for me. For some reason I have been reluctant to do anything too expressive. Fear of judgement and/or rejection, I guess. But this new name has a little bit more feeling. It's kinda cute, a little confusing, kinda feminine, but not really. Like me! It has meaning to me, but does not represent anything really specific. I mean, who really knows what the hell a string mouse is...?

I will probably continue to post journals on my old account for a while, maybe a couple months. And I will keep posting here, but the blog will eventually be renamed. I'm a little scared. But I think once I get things started, I will become more comfortable with it.

WIP Experimental

I am trying a new coloring technique with one of my latest sketches.

it starts with a grayscale underdrawing. and ends with color. somehow.

FIZZY!

adventures in polymer clay

My first polymer clay project is now complete. 

I made little teacups and painted them the colors of the My Little Pony Friendship is Magic "Mane Cast".  I am extremely happy with how they turned out, and it was definitely a learning experience.

I started out with a hand-sculpted teacup that I designed in my brain in a half-waking state one morning before work. Then, somehow I remembered it later and put it down on paper. I used an air-dry modeling clay for the original.  The tiny details were difficult and I actually worked on this 1x1 inch little cup for about 2 days before I decided it was good enough.

So the next step was to create a mold using a silicone based molding clay. I had never used a clay like this before and had only a little experience with firing clay of any kind.

It was such a small shape, I figured I could bake it in the toaster oven.  This was a great idea, except that my toaster over was purchased at a goodwill and is probably older than me. So the elements do not heat properly or evenly and get really hot really fast. So....my first mold turned out like this:

You can kinda see the cup shape but it exploded outward a bit and looks really distorted. And charred to a crisp.

So I actually went out and bought a new toaster oven.  Kinda crazy, but whatever, it was only $29.

So I tried it again and this time it turned out awesome!

So after that I was able to make more and more little teacups. Each one still needed refining after coming out of the mold,  and some sanding/smoothing after firing.

Then, I had to paint them. I was most nervous about that part. I chose 3 different brushes, one for the base color, one for the hair color inside the cup, and one for the small details of their cutie marks.  Paint is not a big deal for me, since I've been painting for as long as I can remember, but the details were so small and it had to look as smooth as possible.  After the first few, I got into a rhythm and it was pretty simple.

This first batch is on eBay right now. I might make a second batch of the mane cast, then maybe some of the other ponies. (Including some G1 classics?)

I'll also be doing some teacups in classic designs like a blue and white floral, and.... something victorian?
Who knows?! But I think I've discovered a new favorite medium.