A Painted Turtle!

GOOD LORD!!

It's done!! IT'S DONE!!!

I actually had completed "Stumpy's" paint job before the holiday madness, but I only now got around to photographing and editing photos of him.

Tree bark is, quite possibly, more frustrating to paint than it is to sculpt. Trees are an odd sort of non-colour, not quite brown, or grey, or tan, and old tree stumps have all sorts of patches of greens and browns and blacks from the various things growing on them. After some excessive cursing and perhaps more layers of paint than I care to admit, I think I got something close.

Now that my Stump Tortoise is finished, it is ONWARD to more sculpting madness!

Stumpy the Tree Tortoise is finished

Good lord! I just looked back on the blog to see when I'd started this guy....I originally built the armature in July. I can't believe I've actually taken that long to finish him...though I guess I've had a number of other things competing for my personal sculpting time, including other sculptures. Anyway, at long last he's done, and I will commence painting soon. And I already have a heap of other sculpture designs on the table, just waiting for me to start them...

His design was based mostly on the giant Galapagos tortoise, though the legs are based on the African spur-shinned tortoise, which has these wonderful rough spurs/spikes on the front of its forelegs. The tree stump is based almost completely on an old gnarled stump in the local park, from a huge tree that was knocked down by a freak storm a few years ago.

A Brief Break from Sculpting; The Forest Colossus

The Forest Colossus wandered. No one knew who had originally built it, or if indeed it had been built by the hand of man, or of some greater civilisation; many suspected it had been birthed from the earth itself. No one knew how it was powered, or what its purpose was. It had been around for as long as any generation could remember, and the growth of centuries had created its own ecosystem upon the creature's body. Great streamers of moss and vine hung from it, trees sprouted from its back, and its flanks were coated in lichen and fungus. Though its purpose and makers had been forgotten, none dared disturb the colossus; as it showed no malice towards man and weapons did not exist that could harm it, it could continue to wander, and likely would until the end of time, or until it crumbled to dust itself.

I have been having increasing difficulty focusing on sculpting; after finishing Cthulhu I decided it was time to take a break from clay and work on something 2-dimensional.
This has been sitting on my desk looking like this for about a year:

So, in a mad inking marathon over the past few days, I finished it.

I have mixed feelings on the result. Ultimately I have a love-hate relationship to this piece; I have alternately liked it, hated it, despised it, thought it looked awful, thought it looked OK, and mostly I'm just glad it's finished. I had originally started it nearly two years ago after being inspired by the game Shadow of the Colossus, and had almost abandoned it when my brand-new super-fine Rapidograph pen started failing, and I got frustrated, shook it violently, and it barfed ink everywhere. The finished photograph is admittedly terrible; I don't have a decent setup for photographing paintings. Every inch of the 16x20 inch board is covered in dots or extremely fine lines.

I had intended mainly for it to be an experiment with applying coloured ink washes to my pen-and-ink drawings. I've never really used ink washes before, and I'm not sure if I like them or not; they behave almost identical to watercolours except for being waterproof, so I don't have to worry as much about turning them into mud by applying multiple layers of colour. They're not very forgiving for the same reason, though.

Onward to more art!

Borfus

Meet Borfus the Dragon. 

Borfus, along with the Desbok, is part of a bestiary of creature designs I have been compiling. Borfus started out as an entry for a creature design competition held back in November by the Shiflett Brothers, in which the only premise was "monster rider." Because I like to keep a sense of fun about things, I went for a huge, unruly dragon.
And I mean FRIGGIN' HUGE.

Borfus, all told, is two feet long with a nearly two foot wingspan.

I don't think I intended to make him quite so enormous, but as I built the armature, that's what happened. So I went with it.

Unfortunately, due to a bout with the flu (and the fact that I grossly underestimated the size and therefore the amount of time necessary) I didn't end up getting him finished before the contest deadline.

 

I did, however, enter him in 2010's Spectrum Annual, but didn't get accepted in. Better luck next year I guess.

Borfus ended up being my take on the classic dragon and rider motif. Usually depicted as a wonderful, magic bond between the dragon and its rider, something that is coveted and desired by whatever human race occupies that particular fantasy realm, I went a different route. In Borfus's native homeland, his species have been domesticated for generations by skilled and extremely patient trainers; they are the quickest and most effective mode of transportation over dangerous terrain such as marshland or mountain passes. However, they are none too intelligent, difficult to control even when dragon and rider have been bonded since hatching, and are prone to veering off mid-flight whenever they spot an appealing morsel, leaving their frustrated riders clinging desperately while attempting to get them under control.

Dragonriders would in fact much prefer to be riding something else, but being as large flying animals capable of being domesticated and trained to carry riders and cargo are few and far between, they are stuck with these guys. The neighboring continent is occupied by a civilized, intelligent race of dragons who hold Borfus's kind in deep scorn, and would rather not have to claim them as distant cousins.

The Desbok

Being a large, sturdy pack animal bred mostly for caravan travel along dangerous mountain roads, desboks are good-natured and docile, if a bit dim-witted.

This creature concept originally comes from a drawing I did some seven or eight years ago and stumbled across in a sketchbook while trying to brainstorm ideas for sculptures. He's part of a "bestiary" of sorts I have been working on for some time.

The sculpture itself was completed about two years ago, one of my earliest--as well as being the first with a proper armature stand and aluminum wire. Prior to this one I had been making free-standing sculpts with coat hangers for armatures which, I can tell you, is not the best idea. At the time I also did not have the giant box of sculpting tools I have now, and all the detail was accomplished with a toothpick and a bit of bent wire.
Enjoy.