True Love

I had a few other ideas for a title for this one, "First love", "Love at First Sight", "Mine!" were a few options, but I came back the original.


The hardest part of this was that @@#%^*(&$# coffee machine!
Polymer clay is fundamentally squidgy stuff. Making it look like machined metal is expletive deleted difficult!

And she got a silver one!
It was going to be orange or red, but she wound up getting a silver one. "Silver" polymer clay does not look anything like metal, so I had to look at alternatives.

Now that I've got that off my chest.

For me, coffee is a hot drink and a foul tasting one at that.
But Laura loves coffee.
I mean she looooves coffee.
Starbucks would go bust if she stopped drinking it.

She had lusted after one of these Espresso machines for months (that I know of, maybe longer) and her husband John bought her one for Christmas (and it was silver! Did I mention that?). She was rapt.
So the coffee machine is black polymer clay (DuKit again, of course) with the metallic effect coming from a coating of Pearl Ex powder. I'd never used this before, but had some small jars of it ready for the day that I knew I would. I didn't realise the powder would rub off easily even after baking, so I lost a bit on the back as I worked on it. That forced a stop to varnish it. The varnish made the markings on the dial run, so I had to paint the dial in white and redo-the markings.
I made a U shaped framework of aluminium wire inside the machine in case it sagged with the weight of that projecting top. I got the proportions a little wrong, it's actually more square than rectangular.


Aluminium wire for the rails around the top and translucent clay for the clear section that warms the milk or something in the back. I really know nothing about making espresso.
I forgot to add the steamer spigot (tricky) and the drain grills (easy), but we'll call that artistic license.

I covered the process of making the face for NinjaGirl, so just read that bit again.
I guess the only substantial difference is that the eyes are closed here and I had no idea how to portray that accurately. Fortunately the hair was going to cover most of the face, I have no idea how Laura sees through it, so any deficiencies were going to be largely obscured.


In the background you can see the arms ready to attach and an earlier version of the torso and legs that were far too bulky. Laura would probably say they're a more accurate representation, but who's making this thing anyway?
An annoying point is that I forgot the blasted laces on the shoes. I did them on the chunky bottomed version and forgot them on the final one. Bother!


Keeping your final vision for a piece in your head when you're looking at this is not easy and I lost it a couple of times. I had to start over and get back on track

Hands. I "cheated" and used one of Maureen Carlson's "what a figure" push moulds.


Pretty much finished figure.


I used Katherine Dewey's hair colouring and texturing techniques, or nearly for this and it was much better than anything I'd tried before. I didn't quite emulate Laura's hair cut (as copied by Katie Holmes and Posh Spice more recently) correctly, but I came pretty close.

The top (blouse?, I'm a guy, what do I know) was a challenge. I scratched my head for a bit trying to figure out how to copy the detailed flower design on the one Laura wears sometimes and decided to go for the same general look by slicing off shreds of red clay onto a sheet of pink and pressing it flat in the pasta machine. It's almost completely hidden in the final version, but I wanted it to be there.

Final assembly. Using a file to hold things in place while the epoxy dries.

There is an aluminium wire running inside the topmost extended leg to give it some strength against the occasional knock
I should have done one inside the bottom leg too, but the figure was originally going to be standing on that leg and reaching up to hug the espresso machine so it wasn't needed. As I went on I figured the figure could be laying on it and the idea of Laura making a flying leap (all the box jump practise Jason and Jeff make her do) onto the machine was much more in character.


Finished product

and


More angles and the rest of the photos are here.

NinjaGirl

This is the one I started first (October?) and finished last (0130 15-2-2008 NZDT).

I had two previous tries at setting up an armature for this one and they both kept growing until I was looking at a final height of about 8 inches for the overall sculpture. I kept being thrown by leaving portions of the wire extending beyond where the feet where supposed to be. I couldn't visualise that correctly and made the legs too long, so I made the body longer to match and the darn thing just grew.

So instead I re-read some of my books on sculpting and adopted a variation on Maureen Carlson's technique. I started with a small core of clay for the torso, which gave me a comparison point for the proportions.

I knew I was making more than one Laura face, so I spent a day sculpting one, baked it, made a mould of it from Miracle Mold (fantastic stuff) and used that as a push mould. I then realised the face looked nothing like Laura and spent another day on each one doing the best job my limited skill would allow to get a resemblance.
Lesson, polish the rust off your sculpting skills before you make masters for your moulds.

I finally got the nerve to try Katherine Dewey's technique for making eyes for sculpture again although I adapted it slightly. I coated round headed pins in a little clay and used Miracle Mold again for the mould that produces a nice hemisphere. No mould release required. If you want the full technique, buy Katherine's book. I have a signed self-published first edition. *smug*

The half completed face, resting on the mould









I had tried the eye making technique before, but the varnish I used stayed tacky for months and lost its shine when handled, so I had to find a better version.

As the figure was standing I used aluminium welding wire as armatures for the legs, I knew I'd have to bake it standing at least once in the process and I didn't want any collapses.

Legs and head as baked.
















Then I hit one of those logistical things that hack you off.

I desperately wanted to get the arms on to work out the positioning, but I realised I needed to get the Gi jacket sorted out and first and to do the arms I needed to get the hands ready. So onto hands.

3 or 4 tries later I got some that looked like fists and weren't too big.



The two best views of the finished product are:

and



The overall positioning irritates me immensely. Laura set herself in a nice balanced position for the original photo and I emulated that, then tipped the whole thing over onto its toes for some reason that probably made sense at one in the morning, but which I cannot recall now.

You can see a few more angles, and all the rest of these photos here.

The original was this. Laura trying on her new Gi for Kenpo.

Laura's birthday

Happy Birthday Laura!

This post is partly to say that, partly to brag and mostly to put an end to Laura's misery.

I've been dropping hints to Laura since before Christmas that I was working on a present for her. Originally as a Christmas present, but when I missed that deadline I switched my focus to her birthday, which fortunately is, well today. I technically am not going to make that either, the package is still in transit, but I got it on the courier before the day, so that's got to count for something.

The present was in 3 parts:

• Two sculptures in an NZ made polymer clay called DuKit, think Fimo or Sculpey, but much, much better, at least for my purposes.
  The Sculptures I titled "True Love" and NinjaGirl", see individual post where I explain their inspiration and construction, and weasel out of the deficiencies in my skill as a sculptor.
  
  Sculpting is something I love, but haven't done much of recently for a variety of reasons. Since late last year the itch to do some has been growing and ideas for figurines have been coming to me.
  These two were inspired by comments made in Laura and my email conversations.
  As you can see, I like doing what amount to caricatures and although I would like to try my hand at more realism, capturing character in a fun and amusing way is a skill all of its own. I'm not where I want to be in that yet, but these sculptures restored my faith that I might be able to get there if I keep at it.
  
• Some lollies which I think are unique to NZ. Oh, that's candy to Americans and sweets in the UK.

The research into the lollies was interesting. In a global economy it's hard to be sure what is unique to, or originated in, NZ and especially hard to differentiate between Australia and New Zealand. I'm sure I've claimed a few things I shouldn't have.
One big surprise was Minties. I thought they were an English lolly that had migrated here, but apparently they started here. A taxonomy of confectionery would be an interesting study.
The final list of lollies was:

• Minties
• 2 x Picnic bars
• 2 x Crunchie bars
• 2 x flake bars (original yucky milk chocolate, not the white or dark chocolate versions)
• 2 x Pinky bars
• 2 x Bounty bars
  

The contents of the package looked like this before it was packed.









"True Love" is in the striped box, but you can see "NinjaGirl" still. She kind of grew as I made her and didn't fit in the same sized box as "True Love" when she was finished.


Oh, and a ton of bubble wrap.