Woodland

A bit of concept art for a film. Character design for a (possibly malevolent) woodland spirit. Who you gonna call?

Anvil: The Story of Anvil

For some reason I became a bit preoccupied with the icon of a proper ACME anvil a while ago (something to do with effort and work) and had a mental image of a glowing concrete anvil on the wall. It felt like a memento mori — some reminder to stop dicking about and make something.

There were lots of experimental batches with different concrete recipes. Sand, aggregate, glass spheres, chopped glass fibre, PVA, talc powder, cement all in varying proportions.

Jigsawed in MDF.

It took much more than this.

Steel mesh reinforcements. It wasn't going to take much mechanical stress but many of the test pours didn't feel strong enough.

Fine white sand and cement only.

Lucky accident! The concrete didn't fully slump around the mesh so left these small voids through to the rusty steel. I was initially going to use the other side, but preferred this.

Thin backing form cut and epoxied to the cast, then wrapped with LED strip lights.

I packed more iron powder into the cavities and rusted with peroxide-salt-vinegar mix.

Fin.

Carnegie Hall.

A few more. The tip of the tip of the iceberg.. Between 30 second and 30 minute poses.

Lorra lorra sketching

Despite the lack of updates I've been churning out quite a bit of 'work'. Much life drawing, a few down below (the tippity tip of the iceberg). All charcoal on sugar paper, newsprint, or primed cardboard.

Because we love you..

I found an old CCTV camera in a skip while on a job, and now I done an idea...

Original condition — cracking, flaking paint and lots of crumbling, oxidised metal.

Gutted, a few of the electrics can be cannibalised and used for the lighting.

Stripping the remaining paint back. Nitro Mors is pretty nasty stuff it turns out. Gets right up your beak and needs a fair dash of tonic to go down.

Grinding and sanding away the oxidised metal and the last of the paint.

Primed and ready to paint.

Several dustings of paint and a few layers of clear coat later...

Seated an LED light (low temperature so it doesn't melt anything or burst into flames) in a block of blue foam and coated the inside with aluminium foil tape.

All wired up and ready to test.

Next frosted the glass and figured out how to put it all back together again.

Just have to find/make a bracket to fit it to the wall and its done.

Skullking around.

Playing with some clay pre-halloween and decided to cast it and call it part of a costume. It was done in a real hurry so had to make do with whatever happened.

The initial clay skull, just wanted something vaguely sugar-skull related and this happened. Actually pictured after removing it from the mould so the details are a bit battered.

Initially tried making the mould from alginate but, as I found out, multiple batches will not bond to each other! 

Shortly after this the different layers all slid apart like some clammy, rubbery blamanche. So into the bin it goes. On the plus side its the stuff dentists use so it made the place smell a bit minty and sterile.

Next round in nice reliable silicone. First detail layer had added silicone fluid to reduce viscosity and help it flow into all the tiny pockets and details.

Then a couple of layers with thixo additive to get it nice and thick. Then plaster mother mould to support the floppy silicone when casting.

First time casting in jesmonite (acrylic/water based resin with plaster/stone powder) and I was pretty pleased with the results. Fairly hard, and stronger than plaster, and a quick demould time. Unfortunately at this point I noticed there were quite a few tiny bubbles in the mould, but there wasn't enough time to remould/cast them.

Base coat of black primer.

Dry brushed white/blue to pick out details (it would mostly be seen in the dark so needed to help them pop out a bit).

More highlights, more paint.

Would have liked more painted details but was in a real rush so just left it at this.

On to the second bit — an old ram's skull found last year, I knew it would come in handy eventually. Finally there was meaning given to its death, and indeed its life — to eventually have its brain-case worn to a party and be gawped at by drunken hallo-weeners... Sorry Ram.

I was painting in a rush so didn't want to risk tape pulling up undried paint hence tinfoil mask.

Phew! A long day, and not perfect, but it felt good to have something concrete at the end of it.