The Midnight Sculptor

This concludes my demonstration. . .

2009-10-15T00:06:00.004-05:00

. . .of a creative block. Sorry folks, I know I have been less than entertaining for the past . . .oh. . .erm. . .how many months? If you think it was depressing waiting for me to post something new . . .you should have been here to witness my uninspiring self in person! YAWN! Our new sofa has a nice indentation in one cushion that perfectly matches my behind. Alas, even though my creative juices aren't exactly flowing freely yet, I have come to the point where I have to do *something* before I find myself slipping into a permanent catatonic state. So, I have directed my attention back to a project that I started a few months before the sculpting drought set in.

Ahem . . .inspiring, isn't it? I can't imagine what's been keeping me away from it all this time! Seriously, isn't it fantastic? *insert sound of my head banging against the desk repeatedly. . .*

One man's trash. . .

2009-03-31T06:11:00.003-05:00

O.K. I've been away from blogging for awhile. . .sorry about that folks! I've also been away from anything resembling actual WORK for awhile too so my most recent activity has been cleaning. . .and cleaning in my studio. Mind you, my "studio" is a 10 x 10 foot room that doubles as the dumping ground of choice for various things that have no official home. Yeah, I work in the JUNK ROOM, there, I said it! Don't laugh. . .you have one in your home too, you're not fooling anybody!

Anyhow, I need to clear some space in here and get back to sculpting. This is NOT an easy task because;

1. The entire main floor of our house is about 750 sq. feet.

2. Jim and I are both total pack rats

3. There are frequent differences of opinion as to what is valuable and what is not.

For example, the most recent addition to my space. :^\ Yeah, I've been known to go and pluck various treasures from the neighbor's trash after dark. Something which, BTW, Jim has voiced disapproval of in the past. Ironic, considering his recent acquisition of this ENORMOUS four foot tall stuffed Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer, wouldn't you say? "Why would they just throw something like this out? I couldn't just leave it there" He said, with a smirk on his face. Now, this gaudy (and somewhat smelly) item was dragged in on a Saturday morning as a joke, and indeed it was funny. But then Kermit, our French Bulldog, instantly developed an amusing love/hate relationship with it and Rudolph became a long-term guest in our home. *sigh*

This really doesn't have anything to do with sculpting. . .other than the fact that it's incredibly distracting and uninspiring and it's stinking up the place. . .I didn't have much else to talk about and I decided to write a small homage to it before I threw it down the basement steps. I wonder what the neighbors will think when they see it show up in *our* garbage pile in 10 or 15 years?

Trapped!!!

2008-12-06T06:36:00.005-06:00

Well, o.k. so I'm not really "trapped" per say. . . but I feel like it! It's a sad thing when winter is *just* beginning and you're already feeling claustrophobic about being stuck inside while Jack Frost plays fast and loose with the snowflakes! I have things to do and places to go, but here I sit because I need to get my brakes fixed and I have to wait until Tuesday for my turn at the repair shop. I was looking for ways to keep myself amused during the most recent mini-snowstorm (which kept me from absconding with hubby's car and making a late night shipping run to the 24 hour post office at the airport) so I made some good progress on the Strawberry Jam colt and listed something to Ebay. I haven't listed anything in years, but I've got this odd item that I've been meaning to sell and Ebay was the best place I could think of to put it. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290280895695&ssPageName=ADME:L:LCA:US:1123

Pretty neat huh? I had planned on framing it in a shadowbox with a mat. . . but I'm running out of wall space in my little house. :^)

I'll have photos here soon of the Strawberry Jam remakes. Once I looked at the photos from the last post again, I realized how over in the knees the NSH filly was! EEEK! Too much time spent trying to re-do the pastern angles without the padded shoes and not enough attention to what I was doing to the rest of her legs in the process! AAAHHH! hahahahahahaha!

Life after the unicorn!

2008-11-20T04:18:00.005-06:00

Whew! I can't believe I finally finished writing all the unicorn stuff down! I have to admit that I seriously regretted my commitment to documenting that project about 4 posts into it! I swore that I was going to finish the blogged journey though and I did. Anyone who knows me will know what a BIG deal it is for me to actually finish something I started!

So, here we have a couple of pics of some things I am working on currently. Well, actually, I started working on them just before Breyerfest in July. I continued working on them *at* Breyerfest during free moments in my room. I am *still* working on them right now. . . but, eventually, something is bound to get completed. I bit off a little more than I could chew by tearing apart and trying to customize 9 resins all at the same time. That's a little self defeating move I like to call, counter constructive creative clutter clog. (O.K. I don't really call it that. . .I just made it up. . .but it does sum up the problem that I seem to run into again and again! )

The first two. . .yeah, I know there are three horses here, but the middle one is a control subject to highlight some subtle differences. . . anyhow, the first two victims are Strawberry Jam resins.

The one in the foreground is on her way to becoming a NSH filly. Her neck has been adjusted ever so slightly forward at the poll and throat latch into a graceful silhouette. She has a slightly dished profile that I am still working on. One of her rear legs was removed completely, cut up, and repositioned into anatomically correct stretched position. Since National Show Horses don't show parked out like Saddlebreds, she is now in a more appropriate halter stance. She will have a new mane and tail and her stacked shoes have been removed.
The one in the background has been made into a colt. His profile is a bit more bold and his neck is stretched out a little more than the original. I think it gives him some "attitude" that's fitting for a colt. His tail has been removed and will be replaced with one that isn't as flagged.

I have more to post, but I will try to get these completed before moving onto the next ones. These will be available for purchase, unpainted, when they are finished. I will probably accept offers privately or use Auction Barn so, if anyone is interested, please subscribe to my yahoogroups list for up to date information. (link is available through my website at http://www.boguckiresins.com/)

Let us never speak of this again.

2008-11-16T04:30:00.013-06:00

FINISHED! With only an hour to spare, which is good because I needed that hour to drive it back to Lake Geneva.

I did get him looking *almost* new and undamaged again. It was reasonably simple to touch up all the rubs and scrapes (he sure got petted on his nose and horn a lot!) and refresh most of his paint overall, but the hairline fractures proved to be a bit more than I could figure out.

The best I could do was to rub white paint into the cracks and try to diminish their appearance. It worked o.k. but they were still visible from certain angles. The final coats of finishing spray helped to smooth them out a bit too, but I wish I could have eliminated them altogether.

I did add quite a bit more dappling to his body so that went a long way toward disguising a lot of little things as well. So, these are the last photos of this critter.

Strangely enough, I no longer wished I could have him for my very own. I was happy to be rid of him and he brought a good price ($3,000) at the auction the following afternoon. All's well that ends well eh?

In the future, please direct all requests for my participation in public art fundraisers to my manager. . .

Almost. . .

2008-11-16T03:43:00.007-06:00

Ahhh, the last 24 hours! AGAIN! Whoopeee! I only stopped to photograph the finished resculpting before the paint went on. There wasn't any time to photo the paint work in progress so the finished pics will be the next and LAST entry about this project. *sigh*

So, the first pic shows the semi-repaired shoulder. I stabilized the broken pieces as well as possible and then sculpted additional decoration over the damaged areas. I had to get a little creative with that loooong crack going down toward the leg. Even the curliques are covering some sort of damage. ha! The Dragonfly was added to balance out the new vining because I couldn't stomach trying to sculpt yet another flower in that spot. Since I had added an insect to one side, I figured I should probably add one to the other side for some continuity. I threw in a couple of curliques on this side too. Be kind when judging my bug sculpting skills. I was exhausted and too darn tired to go looking for pics of any real dragonflies or butterflies. I know they're not the most realistic things around, but I had high hopes that some pretty paint would distract people from that fact.

!@#$%

2008-11-12T16:54:00.013-06:00

Ummmmm. . .Yeah. . . so, that didn't work the way we expected it to. Once we removed the brace between the legs, it promptly cracked open again. The only way to be 100% certain it was fixed, was to break the leg the rest of the way off and start fresh. No wonder the previous fix didn't hold! That leg alone was VERY heavy, at least 10 pounds!

A glimpse inside the hollow leg stump and into the body. You can see the thin layer of fiberglass sandwiched between the two (interior and exterior) coats of resin. They must brush the resin into an open mold, lay the fiberglass on top, put the mold halves together and slosh another coating of resin inside the whole thing. That's just my best guess. . .I'm sure it's a bit more complicated than that.

We opted to go for a giant version of how the leg on a small resin horse can be fixed. Since the leg was already hollow, we skipped the part where you carefully drill into each section. We also skipped the part that involves fitting a thin metal pin into the two halves and opted instead for pounding a 2 x 2 into one side with a mallet. After packing the area around the wood with epoxy putty and letting it set up for awhile,

we fitted the other end of the 2 x 2 into the body portion of the leg which had also been packed with a generous amount of putty. We were careful to extend a thin layer of putty over the edges of the leg so there would be a tight seal between the pieces that would be easy to smooth and finish for a "seamless" appearance.

Once the two pieces were firmly pressed together, the holes that had been drilled for the earlier failed attempt at a repair suddenly came in handy. We were able to tightly pack more putty into the holes with the pieces in place to ensure a solid bond between the wood and the inside of the leg. Once everything was in place, we stood him up and adjusted the leg so it lined up properly with the hoof flat on the floor and the body weight supported evenly. About 15 hours later it was solid as a rock, ready to be sanded smooth, and finished with a fresh coat of paint! Yay!

Operation leg fix. . .

2008-11-01T09:08:00.010-05:00

So, here's the plan. . . The leg is attached *barely* but it makes sense to try and mend it while making use of the small bit that's still hanging on. We'll drill a hole in the top of the leg. . .

Then we'll drag the horse off the table, turn it around, flip it over, put it back on the table and drill a hole in the *other* side of the leg. . .

See? A nice round hole! Looks like we've got something absolutely ingenious planned here!

O.K. now, take the horse off the table again, turn it back around, flip it over and put it back on the table again (be careful not to snap that leg off now!)

Look at that nice mesh cloth! Ooooh! We can wad it up, shove it through the little hole and naturally it will spring back into this exact position and we can use it as a backing for the superglue/baking soda mix that will magically bind this whole mess seamlessly together! Yay!

But first. . .pull the cloth back out through the little hole and spend about an hour and a half with a pen light, a chopstick, and a bent wire trying to position it correctly inside the leg.

Ahhh, sweet victory! Look at the beautiful skinny seam all packed with the miracle mixture.

Propped up and waiting to dry rock hard solid, holding that leg on like heavy duty cement, making it completely impervious to breakage, even if it falls off the roof!

Nurse! Scalpel. . .erm. . .make that a hammer!

2008-11-01T07:45:00.009-05:00

Yes, he's on an operating table of sorts. We did some "manipulation" before laying him down . . . it was too hair raising for me to consider stopping to take photos though. Essentially, we used an icepick and the tip of a steel file to pry apart that big crack on his shoulder and then pounded on the uneven surface with a combination of my Father's fist and a leather mallet until the edges were butted against each other instead of overlapping. Before we even started that, we had to remove a couple of large chunks that were just getting in the way. They weren't really attached anymore so they would have caused more trouble than they were worth.

*Plus* it gave the opportunity for the second photo which shows the inner fiberglass mesh. I think I saw something that looked a whole lot like that in Alien. . . except it was throbbing and one of those face hugger critters leaped out of it as soon as the camera got this close. . .

But yeah, that's fiberglass in there. Little chopped up strands of glass. The top layer is resin. Probably Polyester resin judging from the powerful aroma whenever it's sanded, or drilled, or heated slightly above room temperature. *blargh!*

Once we got things a bit straightened out, we could finally lay him down and get to work putting ol' Humpty Dumpty back together again.

A lot of people will think it looks like we're filling the gaps and cracks here with cocaine and spit, but the model horse folks will recognize it as the ever popular baking soda/superglue mix. Awesome stuff for working on repairing resins, but, are we pushing the envelope a little by trying it on a horse *this* size?

We were throwing caution to the wind and plugging on ahead. We were determined to see it through and nothing was going to stop us from using as many cheesy cliche's as possible! I'm not exactly sure why the "wound" looks pink in this photo. it's most definitely *not* blood though. I think there was something on the brush that was being used to dust things off.

Who's sorry now?

2008-10-24T02:59:00.021-05:00

O.K. So I can *finally* talk about it without twitching or mumbling under my breath! I went and picked the horse up. . .and it was a mess. Worse than I imagined. I took the following photos before I cleaned all the dirt and fly poo off. Apparently a couple of weeks spent living on the street is pretty hard even for a fiberglass colt. He was dirty, to say the least . . .but, oh dear. . .the damage. *sigh* :^(

The first and second pics show just a few of the MANY hairline cracks he was covered with. These thin cracks are all over the place in the other pics as well but not really obvious until you click on the photos to enlarge them. The really depressing part about these cracks is that they're on the *opposite* side from where the impact occurred. The top surface of the fiberglass figure is made of a thin layer of resin material. A good hard bump in one spot can shatter a much larger area.

The third photo is of the crack that runs up between the front legs. There are several fractures that go down the inside of the leg on the left about 6 or 7 inches.

The next two pics show the break that almost completely circled the left foreleg of the colt. Again, this is the opposite side from where the impact occurred but, because the colts feet were bolted to a small rolling wooden platform, the shock of the fall came very close to shearing this leg off entirely. There is only about 2 inches of material on the inside portion holding the entire leg on.

So far, you've seen the not so good and the really bad. . . but now prepare yourselves for the truly ugly.

The photos really do speak for themselves. On the largest crack, one edge has been literally shoved under the the other edge! If you enlarge the first shoulder photo here, you can see the crack extends a good way down the leg toward the knee.

The front photo of the chest (when enlarged) shows the extensive hairline cracks across the area, reaching almost to the other side. Needless to say, I was pretty "broken up" about all this. . .har har. (pun intended) There was SO much work to be done. . . I began to wish someone had just stolen it. . . or maybe it could go flying out of the back of the pickup while I was doing 65 on the highway? Seriously, I wanted it to disappear.

Naturally I didn't really get going on him until the last minute. . . partially because my heart just wasn't in it any longer, but mostly because I had absolutely no idea where to start or even how to go about fixing him. My Dad had some ideas, but some of them sounded sort of scary and like they might cause more damage than they would repair. I heard mention of prying something up, and banging it with a hammer. (?) By the time the new deadline was approaching (Oct 4th for the live auction) I was out of excuses and agreed to let Dad help me however he could.

No good deed goes unpunished.

2008-09-19T03:55:00.023-05:00

Yeah, I had a premonition. The plan was that the S.M.I.L.E.S. organization would bolt each colt to a plywood platform with wheels so it could be easily moved around by the various people hosting them for he summer. Something in me thought there might be a problem with a 45 pound, 54" tall, top heavy fiberglass horse being attached to a small wheeled board. It was just a fleeting thought. A week or two later, a blustery afternoon storm blew through the area and downtown Lake Geneva had wind gusts in excess of 70 mph. Do I need to keep typing? My colt didn't make it inside before the storm hit and he got smashed onto the concrete sidewalk. UGH! Well, I couldn't go to get him for many weeks since I was in the middle of getting ready for Breyerfest in July and my Father had some health issues right after that that took priority as well. By the time I went to see the damage to the colt I was *almost* prepared to take it all in stride. Seeing my cute little guy all cracked up was pretty hard though. At first it didn't look too bad. Of course he landed on his right shoulder and side and my initial view of him was from the left. As I looked closer, I could see that what I originally thought were long scratches in his finish, were actually long cracks crazed along his surface! Egads! His front torso is very cracked up. Some of his flowers were broken off, the vines were cracked, but the worst was the approximately 3" x 3" area on the point of his right shoulder that was shattered completely with jagged edges overlapping each other. It must have been the main point of impact. He had to have run into a garbage can or one of the street lamp poles before being blown over. Looooooooong cracks radiate out from that ugly wound, across his sides, between and around his front legs. One of his legs is essentially detached and being held on by the underlying support. I am doing my very best to restore him but I'm at a loss as to how to go about some of these things. Hopefully I will have him in decent shape by October. The organization holding the event is antsy to get him back. He will have to have special treatment from now on though. I don't think he should be displayed outdoors and he definitely can't endure having anything heavy on his back. I think I can make him look good again, but this whole thing has taken up so much more of my time, money, and energy than I ever expected it to. The more time I spend on the project, away from my income producing work, the closer I come to being a non-profit organization myself! Har har! I won't bore everyone with the extended repair process. . . I'll post a few photos but, honestly, even *I'm* getting sick of looking at him!

Oh and by the way . . . The person or people who actually called and complained to the S.M.I.L.E.S. folks about my colt? The ones who were displeased that he was on display with his injuries and not being repaired right away in preparation for their viewing pleasure? The person who actually called my colt a "disgrace?" Thank you for making an already unhappy situation even more unpleasant. I'm sorry that 2 minutes of your shopping day was ruined by my misfortune.

Intermission for an official website blurb

2008-09-19T03:55:00.017-05:00

Here are the websites where you can see all of the colts in the Horsing Around Town, Lake Geneva public art project.
My colt's official name is: "If you'll believe in me, I'll believe in you."

http://horsingaroundtown.net/servlet/SmilesWebAuctionServlet.servlet The complete site with multiple photos of each colt and short profiles on each theme. Apparently you can bid on them too.

http://www.walworthcogetaway.com/ click on the People's Choice Award logo to vote for your favorite. I will even forgive you if you don't vote for mine.

http://midwesthorse.blogspot.com/2008/08/horsing-around-town.html This blogger has a neat slideshow with photos of many of the colts in the display areas where they've been all summer.

O.K., now hand it over. . .

2008-09-19T03:55:00.014-05:00

Before we left the house, I gave the unicorn several coats of Frog Juice (a protective, UV resistant coating used by commecial sign makers.) When he was dry, we loaded him into the truck and headed off for Lake Geneva, only an hour late. Grrrr. It didn't really matter since we got there with plenty of time to unload, get his picture taken, and look at all of the other colts. I forgot to sign the little bugger so I had to take along some paint and a brush and extra Frog Juice, so I could do it there. It felt pretty good to have him finished and no longer my responsibility but all I could really think about was getting something to eat and crawling into bed to nurse my aches and pains. Yeah, I know I'm wearing the SAME shirt in these pics as I am in the profile photo to the left here. I promise that it is just a coincidence! I actually own several other shirts! I'm not like that gal Jerry dated in the old Seinfeld episode with the "Superman" dress! (Season 7 Episode 13 The Seven for the hardcore Seinfeld fans out there) So, the day was over, and it was time to leave him behind. Just look at him watching the other colts. I guess the herding instinct is strong even in fiberglass horses. With his new name tag around his neck I left him with his blue buddy there and headed home. I would not have expected to see him again any time soon. . . except, I had a premonition. . .

It's all in the details. . .

2008-09-18T01:29:00.009-05:00

Most of these are clickable for ENORMOUS photos!

Approaching the finish line

2008-09-17T07:08:00.009-05:00

I think I stopped painting somewhere around 9 a.m. on Friday morning. I didn't look at the clock, I just dragged myself up the stairs and fell onto the bed in the guestroom. I had to get at least a little sleep because I still needed to make the one hour drive (and another hour back home again) to Lake Geneva to deliver the little guy. My Mom woke me up around noon with a concerned tone in her voice, "were you able to finish it?" I actually had finished it, with the exception of the protective coating that would help protect the paint work from hundreds of inquisitive hands as well as day after day of UV exposure. I popped out of bed with renewed energy (yeah. . .RIGHT!) and ran (staggered) down stairs again to see if it looked o.k or if it looked like it had been painted in a partial stupor. I seriously don't remember much about the night after I put away the airbrush and started hand painting. There's just a long and seemingly endless stream of close-up images in my head as I moved from spot to spot, mixing paint and dabbing away with my small brushes as fast as I could. I do recall that somewhere around 7:30 I opened up the wildly colored little pans of Pearl-Ex powder I'd purchased a few days before. I was looking for something to make my white (as he was supposed to originally be) foal a little less. . . well. . . white. Having never used these highly concentrated pigment powders before, I, naturally, wanted to experiment carefully and find just the right technique to use for the optimum visual effect. . . which is why I grabbed a brush and frantically started applying every color I had to the mane and tail and flowers, and horn, and . . . Haha! Given the fact that I was making things up as I went, it didn't turn out too badly.

Ready. . .set. . .PAINT!!!

2008-09-15T07:11:00.012-05:00

My Mom came downstairs at about 11 pm to bear witness to the beginning of the airbrushing portion of the project. She snapped a few photos and shared the observation that she couldn't imagine how I was going to have it finished by the time we needed to leave the next day. Honestly, I couldn't imagine it either! So, this first photo pretty much sums up the mood of the evening. See how stooped over I am? My back had absolutely had it. Too much bending over, crouching on the floor, and standing on concrete. To this very day my left index finger, my right thumb, and my left big toe, haven't fully recovered from the experience!
I spent a LOT of time picking hair off this critter. . . my parents have 2 German Shepherds (better known as German Shedders) and their loose hair was everywhere! There wasn't really anyplace else I could do this though since my Folks have all the necessary equipment and a LOT more space than I do at my house.
Can you see the tiny little metal cup on the underside of the airbrush I'm holding in the first photo? Now, imagine how many times I had to fill that little cup to put a fine layer of pearlescent white paint over the whole foal? Haahahaahaha! It boggles the mind! But it was worth it. He's all pearly and iridescent.
So, the solution to the botched lacquer on his butt ended up being to make him a dapple grey. The dappling helped camouflage the unsightly area and gave me the peace of mind I DESPERATELY needed at that point. The hard-core horse people will say that no foal that young would ever be a dapple grey but unless they provide me with proof that unicorn foals *don't* come in dapple gray, I will exercise my artistic license and do what I please! So, BACK OFF! I'm tired and cranky! ;^P

. . .apparently I'd painted some vines and leaves by this point. . . I'd have to estimate the time of these last four photos at about 3 am.

Prime time!

2008-09-15T05:59:00.008-05:00

Whew! The stickies were all gone by Thursday evening! I had purchased a new batch of Sculp-Epox for this project and, apparently, I was just used to how quickly my 11 year old containers of the same stuff set up. With the small scale stuff, those quart containers last a LONG time! Haha! I hadn't worked with fresh Sculp-Epox since 1997!

I quickly primed the epoxy sculpted areas with sandable auto body primer. (that's the gray stuff) The primer isolates the epoxy (and any exposed fiberglass areas) from the paint work to prevent any odd chemical reactions and gives the paint something to hang onto. The little horse was already primed in white when I got him so that gave me the nifty, time saving, idea of having the first coat of his paint job come out of a can of white glossy auto lacquer! It was a FABULOUS idea. . .bound to make up for the fact that I was finally starting to paint at about 8 pm on Thursday evening with 19 hours to the time when it needed to be delivered. First one can. . . hmmmmm. . .that didn't exactly cover the first side very completely. . . did I only buy two cans of this stuff? With nothing but blind hope, I confidently sprayed on the second can of glossy white lacquer and came up short. There was still more than 1/2 of the piece still showing the gray primer underneath. *sigh* So I had to spend 45 minutes that I couldn't spare running to Farm and Fleet for more paint. When I got back to spraying. . .I let my anxiety rush things and ended up with a few drips! AAAHHHHHHH! Repeat after me. . .never ever EVER E-V-E-R touch a drip in half dried lacquer! It's the painting equivalent to picking a teensy scab and ending up with flesh eating bacteria trying to consume your entire arm in under a minute! You know you shouldn't keep touching it. . .but you can't help yourself. . .and the yukky blobby mess just grows and grows even though you're convinced that *this* swipe/dab/blot/ will smooth it out and solve everything! Did I finally leave it alone to dry like a sane person? Nope, it would have been too easy for me to sand it smooth later. . . I had to try the old nail polish trick of applying an extra heavy layer of the same stuff. I thought I could knock down the bumps by drowning the half dried and sticky layer in fresh lacquer with all of it's wondrous and smelly fast evaporating thinners! Naturally, that made more drips. . . that I touched. For my own sanity, I finally had to abandon the entire project for a couple of hours to let everything dry. At that point, I was WAY too traumatized to take photos of the damage. . . I was just trying to figure out a quick way to cover it all up and get on with the show! I do think I can see it on this photo of his rear end. . . there is a faint gray area visible on the side of the foal's left haunch sort of due east of that shiny highlight near his tail. it was about 5 inches long and three inches wide, and that photo doesn't give anywhere near an idea of how utterly horrible it looked. :^( Actually, come to think of it, I'd probably already "worked" on it a little bit at this point. By "worked" I mean calmly and sensibly (after my earlier meltdown) sanding it lightly and reapplying a * very light* spritz of lacquer to the area. It was smoother. . .but it was still not good.

WRONG!!!!!!!!

2008-09-10T04:43:00.002-05:00

ARGH! I was going to start painting on Wednesday evening but everything was STICKY!!!!! Oh boy. All of the last batch of epoxy that was added the night/morning before was faintly shiny and tacky. The best case scenario was that it just hadn't had enough time to cure or that the humidity/temperature were slowing the process down a little. The worst scenario was that I might not have been as careful about mixing equal amounts of parts A and B and the whole thing was destined to never set up properly. So I waited. . . and waited . . . and worried . .. and finally decided that the only thing I could do was go home, get a good long rest, and be prepared for a marathon painting session the next day/night if it finally cured and stopped feeling like it was coated with a thin layer of syrup. So, at about 3 am on Thursday morning, with only 36 hours until I was supposed to have the horse *in* Lake Geneva . . . I went to bed.

The tail end. . .literally.

2008-09-10T04:30:00.010-05:00

The last of the sculpting to be finished was the tail. I just didn't have the strength or the time to re sculpt the whole thing so I scattered some hair texture over it to blend with the hair marks that were added with the power tools and the rasp and hoped it would do the trick. A few little flowers at the top and VOILA! Ready for paint in a few hours, right?

Pasty pale pansies playfully prance . . . eh, whatever.

2008-09-10T03:37:00.027-05:00

So, the flower and vine sculpting carried on late into Wednesday night and early into the next morning. I spent a frantic half hour scanning through gardening magazines for FLAT flowers ( that would be relatively easy to sculpt on little to no sleep ) and settled on pansies and clematis. My Mom also suggested that, since my horse would be displayed at my Sister-In-Law's shop "Strawberry Fields" I should include some strawberries. Aaaaaaand since Strawberries need leaves to look proper on a garland. . .they might as well have flowers too. . . and there should probably be some other leaves to fill in the spaces . . . and eventually there were also some teensy little made up flowers put in to take up more space and add some lacy-ness to the whole thing. I did my best to keep everything flat and well adhered to the form so no one could pry them off or get snagged or hooked on anything. My Parents actually hung out in the basement with me for awhile and poked at some epoxy themselves. . . Mom did a Strawberry and Dad added a few leaves here and there. They left for bed at about 3:30 am though and I was, once again, the lone sculptor, fighting off yet another deadline in the deepest darkest night.
(any of these pics will enlarge with a click)

What is that delightful smell?

2008-09-07T04:51:00.010-05:00

Ahh yes, the mysterious scent of Sculp-epox! By this point it was all over the place. . . little bits were on my shoes, my clothes, the floor, the walls, even various places on the horse. Most of all, it was in a scummy, scrubby, dry, crackled, multi-leveled layer of goop all over my hands. Ugh! It isn't *supposed* to be all over your skin, especially not for prolonged periods of time. . . you know, like in a hardened shell covering your palms and fingernails? There's just no other way to work with it though, sculpting with latex gloves on is like playing the violin while wearing mittens. (and I have actually tried both, so you can take my word for it!) So, I have thrown caution (and a material warning sheet) to the wind and continued on with the work. The first pic here shows his newly defined nostrils. In the next photo you can see the wrinkles between his nostrils. I wasn't so sure about these, but they can always be ground off if I change my mind later. Oh yes, and THERE are the beginnings of his garland! The flowers don't look like much now, but I have high hopes for the power of paint! har har! These were taken at about 3 a.m. on Wednesday morning. The epoxy flowers smelled faintly of popcorn. . .and desperation.

Throw some hair on it, it'll be fine!

2008-08-21T02:06:00.010-05:00

Ahhh yes, piling on the hair, an artist's way of saying "I don't know how to begin dealing with what's under here so I'm going to go ahead and cover it up." You can hide a lot of troubles with the right amount of mane and tail. . .eyes, ears, an occasional leg . . . and here I am trying to hide fetlock joints. Actually, I'm trying to hide a *lack* of fetlock joints. Either way, If I put on enough feathering, I won't have to sculpt fetlock joints, which would inevitably lead to re sculpting knees and hocks and I absolutely don't want to go there! This little critter has an overall "horsey" appearance, but taken piece by piece he starts to look more than a little bit unusual. Alas, there wasn't any hairy way (short of making him into a Clydesdale) to cover his poor little, oddly shaped, footsies . . . I decided I would just leave them and try to disguise them with paint later. So, are we looking at front legs or back legs? Well, I can see a ball of putty put on his undersized front hoof, So I know that the first two pics are front legs and the third (with the legs close together and seen from the rear) is back legs. I ended up adding a LOT of epoxy to that shrunken little front hoof to make it more even with the other one. It turned out to be a good spot to pile leftover putty up when I was done working in an area.

Well, go figure . . . Here I am typing about how I was NOT going to sculpt fetlock joints and I can CLEARLY see on this last photo that I did, in fact, make an attempt at giving him somewhat more pronounced and rounded joints. I guess there's only so much a person can do with hair after all!

Sure, but can you grow a moustache to go with that beard?

2008-08-21T01:22:00.012-05:00

I'm having trouble remembering just how far from the deadline I was at this point. . . hmmmmmm. Let me think for a second. I guess this is somewhere in the middle of the night between Monday the 26th (of May) and Tuesday the 27th. The colt had to be delivered by 3 p.m. on Friday the 30th so, when I took these photos, I had PLENTY of time left . . . har har har! I had to time it all *just* right because all that epoxy had to have a good 24 hours to cure before any paint went on it. Anyhow, what we've got here is the completed little baby unicorn beard and the best effort I could make to blend the power tool re sculpted mane with a little bit of new sculpting on top to bring it all together. I didn't have the time, or the strength, to knead together and sculpt all the epoxy it would have taken to re-do the entire mane, so I worked on what was there a bit more with a large rasp (file) and added a few bits all along to match the new fore top. He's shaping up pretty good! From the shoulders forward at least! Haha!

The second to last photo here enlarges quite nicely if you click on it.

All those in favor. . .say "eye"

2008-08-19T17:17:00.014-05:00

At this point it was GREAT to finally see *some* of the sculpting actually finished. In case you just started reading this blog, I should probably point out that the last several posts here have been chronicling the creation of a public art project piece for Lake Geneva, WI. It was actually completed at the end of May but, in keeping with my procrastinating nature, I am only *now* getting around to putting up these photos. Those of you who have been reading all along might be wondering why I am suddenly posting more often. . .occasionally two in one night . . . well, there's a reason for that but you'll just have to keep reading to find out. So. . .what's new in these pics?

Well, he's got a spiffy little tuft of hair around the bottom of his horn, and fuzzy hair texture inside his ears. But the thing that's made the biggest difference, in my opinion, is the newly sculpted eye area. The better defined lids and cute little lashes give him just the expression I was hoping for. Sweet and innocent, Awwwww!

So, stay tuned . . . there is a LOT more to come . . . way more than I bargained for, actually. :^\

Filling in the gaps

2008-08-16T01:36:00.008-05:00

All righty then. . . let's get back to filling in those holes! The epoxy putty I am using is a two part sculpting epoxy that has to be kneaded together and used immediately. It stays pliable and nice for about 20 minutes before it gets too stiff to work with. Once it starts to harden it takes about 24 hours before it is 100% cured, so I had to jump from place to place on this critter to give each area a chance to set up. The tail area was a BIG mess. I could see I was going to have to sculpt over the whole thing somehow to disguise the weird vertical "hair" marks. The withers and neck were pretty choppy too, but I figured that the garland would take care of covering a lot of it. Wheeeee! I had a LONG way to go at this point and only about 4 days before the deadline! This all happened MONTHS ago, and I am still feeling tense writing about it! hahahaha!

So, I think I mentioned earlier that one of his ears was shorter than the other. . . I added to the tip and started packing the holes in the fronts of his ears so I would have a solid surface to sculpt over when I added the fuzzy hair texture in them. You can also see the beginning of his foretop. I couldn't resist adding the little Superman curl there. I was trying to balance out the side of his face too. Somehow the right side was sunken in on this casting and it made his face look crooked. He has brand new *round* eyeballs here. Nice little orbs to replace the flat ones he came with. I will come back and sculpt lids and eyelashes over these when the epoxy is hard enough.

So far, things are going pretty well. I only wish I had started a week or two earlier. Ah well, hindsight really *is* 20/20! He's looking sort of cute though, isn't he?