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.

The Chess Set Ordeal

About a year ago I sculpted out the pieces to a Lovecraft-inspired chess set, thinking I would mold and cast them into a complete set and maybe even sell a couple.

From left to right: Cthulhu as the king, Shub-Niggurath as the queen, a Yithian as the bishop, an Elder Thing/Old One as the rook, a Deep One as the knight, and a shoggoth as the pawn.

When I molded them, however, I learned an important lesson: Don't buy cheap silicone. Frustrated to no end by the fact it refused to cure, despite trying several times and accounting for several variables (mix ratio, room temperature, humidity levels, etc) and even letting it sit for several weeks, it remained a gelatinous blob of pinkish goo.

Because uncured silicone is extremely disgusting, after scraping off the majority of it, the pieces all sat on my shelf for almost a year because I didn't feel like scrubbing it off. I kept meaning to acquire some better silicone and try again, but figured if I was going to go through the trouble I might as well just resculpt the whole set. I wasn't quite pleased with several aspects of it (mostly the bases, as well as the Deep One and the Shoggoth).

So I finally decided to finally scrub off the repulsive silicone bits on these little guys and paint them, mostly because I want to experiment with painting different types of stone. The actual process of cleaning the silicone out of all the little bitty crevices was not fun.

SO MUCH GOO!!!!!

But after they were clean and sparkly, the painting process was far more fun. Each is then coated in high-gloss finish to lend a look of highly-polished stone (or slimy stone, brought up from the depths of R'lyeh, whichever you prefer)

Cthulhu, painted to look like sodalite. 

Jasper. Need a finer paint brush to get all those bitty little lines.

Mother-of-Pearl seemed particularly appropriate for the Deep One, but difficult to achieve. I was not quite successful. 

Tiger's Eye, also difficult to achieve due to the way the colours shift and change when viewed from different angles. Was less than successful at depicting it in paint form.

Malachite, another favourite stone. A finer paintbrush is definitely in order...

Snowflake Obsidian.

The Stump Tortoise

Having finished my Cthulhu idol and a majorly crazy ink drawing I was mulling over ideas for my next sculpture. I have pages and pages of sketches documenting ideas for sculptures, some of which are in relatively great detail. However, it's always the random scribbles that seem to  jump out at me and demand to be made RIGHT NOW.

I found this while cleaning off a pile of doodles, junk mail, and old grocery receipts from the kitchen table.

It immediately demanded to be made. RIGHT NOW. So, not wanting to piss off whatever Art God or Muse that makes these demands, I set to work on on the armature. I started off with the legs and head.

At first I wasn't quite sure how to approach doing a solid chunk like the tree stump shell. So I just started throwing on wire.

Holy crap that's a lot of wire!

And then I just crunched it full of foil.  And more wire. 

Holy crap that's a lot of foil!

This is probably one of the sturdiest armatures I've built to date, mostly because I sat back and enjoyed building it as a part of the creative process (as opposed to "Blar! Friggin armatures, I just want to get this done with so I can push clay!"). It's also so dense I could probably lob it through a window. 

Of course, with every armature comes the inevitable "Oh god, termites have chewed up my hands!" feeling, which you get from three hours of wrestling wire and foil and accidentally supergluing yourself to every surface in the vicinity. It gets worse the instant you head to the sink to wash off all the metal bits when suddenly you discover "HOLY SH---TINY CUTS EVERYWHERE! IT STINGS!" But it's all good, because the carpal-tunnel syndrome takes care of that, at least for the moment. I'm typing up this post by bludgeoning the keyboard with my half-numb fingers. 

Next up: clay pushing. Hooray!

Cthulhu Fhtagn!

When I first started on this I didn't intend for it to take almost 5 months to finish, but because of a bunch of other things, that's about how long it took. It feels good to finally be done after having Cthulhu sitting on my desk glowering at me in various states of half-finishedness for that long.

Anyway, this is my interpretation of Cthulhu as based on the description in the story (fort those of you unfamiliar with the source material, it's "Call of Cthulhu" by H.P. Lovecraft) I had originally intended to give him a traditional octopus-like head, but when it came time to sculpt his head I opted for a Portuguese man-o-war jellyfish appearance; they have far more of an alien look, and damnit, octopi are just cute. I did not want cute.

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.