Session One
After working on that sort of small guy yesterday I really needed to work on something larger. The legs on the camel-like-creature have been bugging me and that was just what I needed to get started on today.
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| time for some plaster cloth surgery |
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| much sawing was done |
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| I found some basic structural problem spots three holes plus a hairline fracture -- those needed to be filled in |
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| When I add wet plaster cloth to dry plaster cloth I often have to get the area of overlapping-ness really wet -- it occurred to me that I could solve two issues with one fix -- I could keep the area wet enough for the first layer of wet plaster cloth by using some wet Scott rags -- this would also help with the filling in of the valleys in the texture of the base creature's real papier mache. |
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| [buzzer sound] -- Wrong! Well, it did fill in the valleys nicely, but it also started nearly melting the old real papier mache! |
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| yikes! |
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| I nearly put my thumb through the surface while I was smoothing this area! I am really glad I only applied one small section of wet Scott rags! (They work just fine over older super dry plaster cloth.) |
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| Wow -- it took a long time to cover over the last of the original base body areas -- lots of smoothing and lots of being really careful because it turned out the wet plaster cloth was also "melting" the old real papier mache...just not as quickly as with the wet Scott rags. I also needed to be careful (even though I double-gloved my right hand) because that papier mache texture is really really sharp! Break time and time to think about what to do next. |
I went in search of baby/young camel leg examples. I realize I am not going to be able to make an anatomically correct camel...this is a camel-like-creature. I don't know enough about skeletal structure and muscles and stuff to attempt anything very realistic (and I don't really care enough to study about it) and I much prefer making my creatures over realistic animals anyway.
So...back to work...lemme think about this.
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| Also -- I have a basket of pool balls that I got from a garage sale a couple of years ago. I have been wanting to use them and this might be a good excuse. |
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| Hey -- I could use the pool balls as joints to join the leg sections -- they can make crazy angles -- yay |
After another break and a lot more thinking (and trying stuff out) I decided that those legs would need to be cut a few times, not just once. I needed to get a bit of an angle going on the back legs (and I will probably need to reshape the top/haunch-y parts) but I needed to saw off another section of both of the back legs.
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| The pool balls (and any wooden balls I already had) were too big for just joining sections so I came up with this solution -- wadded up DRY Scott rags with discarded vinyl gloves over them to contain the wad plus be able to stand up to the wetness of the plaster cloth. |
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| Oh man -- you would not believe how long this took -- adjusting and holding and masking taping and tweaking and pulling and positioning and holding in place and flipping the creature over before the plaster cloth set...all while standing up and leaning over the table...I am DONE for tonight! |
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| Here is the camel-like-creature drying -- propped up off of the table surface -- this is going to be a lot more work than I counted on -- but that's cool -- I like this guy and I am learning more about plaster cloth and real papier mache and making angles with tubes...and...and...and... |
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