Baby #5 gift for Lisa

I think the fates didn't want me publishing this blog. I had to redo it after my Internet stopped working right when I went to publish it. Then my dang sensitive mouse pad kept highlighting parts and deleting them as I typed the next part. HOLY MOLY!!

Anyway...

My best friend from high school recently had a picture on her facebook site and I was just in awe at the beauty of the picture. As an artist I wanted to capture the beauty in a way that I like to do--so I action figure-ized her and her man. She is giving birth to her 5th child and since I slacked on being a friend with baby 1-4, I figured it was about time to step up and do something special for her.

This project was not an easy task, maybe even my most challenging one yet. The hardest part was keeping this a secret from her and I trying to ask her for as much information about her picture without giving away the idea for the gift. My only question I asked her was how they were sitting. I'm sure she thought this was an odd question but she told me and that gave me at least a idea where to begin. What you see in the picture is what I had to work with as far as what parts to use and how I was going to do this statue. Here is the inspirational photo and I did get Lisa's permission to post it.

As you can see there was not much to see, and no color. So here is what I decided to use for Lisa: I used a Fred head, a Chandra (Rising Stars) chest and torso, Fred legs and "You're Welcome" Cordelia arms. The arms were not exactly like the picture but I figured they were a good place to start.

I was originally going to have Lisa sitting on her butt with one leg out-stretched and the other leg bent under it. As I was piecing Chad together I noticed she was sitting very low and I needed her to be almost as tall as him. I put a pillow under her but it still wasn't quite right. So I ended up breaking the legs and cut them so that they were positioned like she was on her knees and sitting on her feet.

Here are some (early on) before pictures:

This is how I changed it.

For Chad I used a Colonel Sheppard from Stargate Atlantis head, a "Graduation Day" Angel torso and arms, a Spike hand, an Oz hand, and the deluxe Angel legs. I wasn't sure if Chad was shirtless in the picture but I figured since Lisa was "in her pjs," I'd make him in his pj's, too. I had to cut up his legs as well and I put him into a kneeling position and then sculpted his bottoms. I cut away Sheppard's hair and resculpted Chad's hair. I then did my best at sculpting over the joints but I didn't do all of them since the clay was not smoothing out like I wanted it to and I didn't want it to look lumpy.

I think I did the sculpting at this point in the most difficult way possible! Of course I was not sure how else to do it. I had to join the two figures together to get the hands right among other parts. Some things worked out well, some things turned out not how I wanted. Lisa's hair turned out great along with Chad's. Lisa's belly looks great. The sculpting around her legs and around Chad's legs was hard and not all that clean looking. I knew I was going to paint their clothing black and I knew black covers some mistakes plus the bottom parts were going to be hidden for the most part. Sculpting Lisa's shirt was probably the hardest. I had to sculpt around their arms and I was using a stick to help me mold it into the correct position. Somewhere in the process of boiling and sculpting the figures, Lisa slipped a bit from Chad so his hands are no longer resting on Lisa's belly. Since I had already super glued the joints I decided to leave things the way they were. Also, in order to get his head close to hers he had to be leaning forward. In order to do this I had to have him propped up on pillows. I then used the pillows from the Charmed figures to build up behind him to cover up some of the back area. It worked out well. Here are some of those pictures.

I decided I was going to have the two on a bed. For the bed I used a plastic tray that maybe came with a watch. I attached some plastic parts to the bottom for the legs. It was a pretty solid piece of plastic and I assumed I could boil this without warping the plastic...wrong! The dang thing curled on me and you can see that in the pictures. It was too late to do anything about it so I let that go as well. After the mattress was sculpted (using yellow FEMO clay) I decided I wanted to build up some blankets around them. It serves a dual purpose. One is it really adds to the whole scene and makes the bed come to life, and two, it covers up some of the lower sculpted parts that were not done as cleanly. To harden this clay (since I couldn't submerge the bed into water or the plastic would warp more, I had to pour boiling water over it MANY times. The parts of the sheets hanging down didn't harden all the way so I used hot glue and filled in the area behind the blanket to make sure it wouldn't break...plus the heat from the glue did harden the clay. I didn't glue the figures to the bed yet. I did this so they could slip out of their spots which would make the painting so much easier. In the final piece I glued the figures to the bed.

Here is the bed. The legs of the bed looked hideous so I ended up using some of the foam board to construct legs and hide the original legs.

I figured for the base I needed to have something long enough for the bed to sit on and I wanted a wall. Lisa is a gifted artist and she likes abstract art. I did a google search for abstract art and I came across this picture. I thought it was very Lisa-ish and I had an old dollhouse frame that I put the printed off picture into. I used two Buffy wall bases for the wall and floor. I covered the floor with some wood looking contact paper and I used plain, tan contact paper for the wall. I then glued the picture frame onto the wall. This painting also gave me a little motivation for how I was going to paint the bedsheets since I have no clue what her bed really looks like.

Here is the finished bed. The extra purple shiny blanket is something I added at the end to mainly look like she's sitting on it--it covers the dead space under her butt. I have another piece hanging down on the side of the bed to make it look like she's sitting on the blanket and part of it goes over her leg and hangs off the bed. I did this to cover up some of that area.

Okay, and finally the love birds. It was very tricky painting the hidden parts (like Lisa's shirt when it is between Lisa and Chad). Every time I went to paint a spot out of immediate reach, I'd bump their arms or hands and get black paint all over them. I'd have to quick get a wet brush and try to get some of the paint off. What I couldn't get off I'd have to repaint with about 5 coats of paint! Chad's hair was tricky, too. I think he has dark blond hair and I tried to reproduce that. In the pictures it looks gray but it looks better in real life. I had a hard time painting his face as well. I have not met him to get his features in my mind and all I had was this reference photo (also off Lisa's facebook).

In the original photograph it looks like their eyes are closed but I wanted to make the figures looking dreamily toward each other. I do like how that turned out.

Here they are!

OH, and I just have to mention this again to put my ego at ease. Keep in mind that the pictures when you click on them are going to be magnified versions of the real deal. So if there is a tiny miss brush stroke, it's going to look really bad. In real life these are 6 inch figures and you can't see the mistakes unless you are staring at it looking for mistakes! So, yes, some of the pictures look sloppy and bad but it really is not bad at all (and if you haven't been able to tell, I'm blunt and honest about my work and I'm hard on myself)...so if it was was bad, I'd say so!

Here is my dear friend. She just got the gift and I think she was pleasantly surprised. Good luck with baby #5 Lisa!

Clem's Dream

Have you ever had an experience where something happens in the real world and before you wake up, it happens in your dreams? Like before you realize your alarm clock is going off you somehow picture the music in your dream. I had this neat idea of making Clem (from Buffy the Vampire Slayer) sleeping with all these cats on him and then above him have a dream of himself eating cats. In the show he is a demon that eats cats. So I thought it would be neat to create something with this in mind.

Here is what I planned. I had a plastic bed, it might be a Barbie thing I found at a junk shop. I covered the bottom with some FEMO clay. I was originally going to use a grave stone as a pillow but I ended up using two of Wesley's briefcases. I had to cut one in half and one corner out of another and sculpt clay around them so that they looked like the were being squished with the head resting on them. I also wanted an arm resting on the pillow so that is why I had to cut a corner out.

I have these Xander eye-patch heads and I was going to use one of those heads to sculpt over for Clem...but I figured it would be more work sculpting over that head. So I ended up using a cast of a D'hofferin head. I used scrap parts for the body of Clem. When I re-did my Giles figure (from the Primeval set) I had this body left over, so I used that. I was going to use his arms, but I came across some LOTR action figure's hands/arms which was bigger and that is what I wanted. Then I used some scrap arms and leg parts so that when I sculpted the blanket it gave the illusion of legs. I think I used a thigh part for a deluxe figure, a Master's leg, a LOTR lower leg and an arm joint from a Stargate figure.

Here are some pictures of what I was planning on (The second picture is more accurate to what I used.)

Then I drilled a hole in the D'hofferin head and attached that to the Giles body. I didn't attach the arm since that all was going to be covered by the sheet. I love how Clem's hand is up on the pillow and Willow's cat is playing with it.

I then sculpted over the head to give it more wrinkles. I also sculpted the ears, neck area and the top of the chest. It was rather easy to sculpt this character. He has many folds of skin and wrinkles. The hardest part with this was getting the clay to stick to the casted head. For some reason some of my casts turned out bad. I'm sure I mixed the plastic ratios wrong. So this clay doesn't' stick once it's boiled. But super glue is my friend!

I took a break at this point to start working on the Dream Clem. I had this Spike figure that had his mouth open and I thought it would be funny to have him eating a cat with only the tail left. I had to cut some of the vampire face off Spike since the eyebrow line had a mean look to it and I wanted to convey pleasure on Clem's face, so the eyebrows needed to be slanted upward. I also had to cut down the body/jacket so that I could attach it to a flat wall base. Here is what I used for starters...

This is a picture of a side by side comparison of the sculpted Clem and how the figure started out. I didn't actually use this Spike, it was one with the rubber coat figures, but you get the idea.

Now for the dream state I tossed around many ideas. I tried drying some scenic water with flakes of fake show in it. I liked how it turned out so I made more so it would be all around the Dream Clem. I then wanted to add some cotton fluff to make it have a smoky effect. Here is what I planned...

I did end up having to make a cat since I didn't have one that was sprawled out. I wanted a cat to be in his hands ready to be eaten after he finished the one he's got in his mouth. It turned out larger than I wanted, but I kept it. I also ended up using the Master's hands for this figure. They were big and they had the right look to them. The hardest part with this was having to make the cat separate from the end of the tail, the part in Clem's hand. I had to glue the parts together and it didn't quite fit together, but I had the cloud covering some of that part anyway, so it's ok. This Clem is attached to the base with a screw.

Here is the painted Clem. The eyes look bad here but you'll see later on he's looking down at the sleeping Clem so I took these pictures at a weird angle.

At this point I made the bed sheet. First time it was too small and I was piecing the clay parts together and it looked awful. I decided I had to roll out the clay with a rolling pin in some wax paper. As I was finishing up rolling the clay the underside wax paper got wrinkly and when I took it off the paper it had creases in it. I loved the effect. When I positioned the sheet I did make folds in the sheet. It's easy to see in this picture but later on when I painted the lines on the bed sheet it is harder to see the folds. I don't paint shades on my figures and I'm sure that would have improved the 3D look.

Now I wanted to not just have the cats all over Clem. I had this cage in my clutter pile so I decided to make it seem like the cage opened up and the cats got out. There is a litter box (part of Xander's tool box) and a bowl of food and water. One cat is left in the cage. I used a piece of wood floor for this separate piece and what was left over from a carpet piece I used in the Willow/Glory sculpture and the Willow/Tara sculpture.

I did end up repainting the cats. I wanted them to look more natural and have better looking eyes. I like how it all turned out. Now, here is the whole set together. I tried to take many angled shots to give my viewers the full visual of this piece. I do love how it all came together.

I don't take many liberties in my work, meaning I don't stray away from the normal movie/show sculptures but I'm glad I took this risk.