365/2013 - Day 130

talk about making up for yesterday -- man!

Work-wise I put in a lot of time on the croco-creature this afternoon.  And of course I am stubborn enough to not be willing to give myself a break once I get going..."I can still do this stuff"...yeah, right!

First I worked at positioning the lovely new crocodile eyes from Van Dyke's Taxidermy Supply.  I always figured I was going to be repositioning them at some point, I just didn't realize I would find nicer crocodile eyes than I had before.

his right side...I was surprised by just how much I needed to adjust the eyes

his left side moved down this much

looking down over his nose to see how they look -- balanced enough? -- I think this guy is going to have to be a "good enough" kinda guy because his head is cocked a bit and his jaw twisted while it was drying waaaaay back when -- this is the very first plaster cloth guy I ever tried to make and he was supposed to be a sort of dragon trophy head hanging from the wall

Positioning the eyes wasn't difficult but it was time consuming.  At that point I needed to physically work on him...to feel like I was doing something.  The next task was to strap the cinder block into place on the wooden base.  After the first experience with the thicker gauge strapping strip I wanted my work gloves and of course they were not were they should've been.  The drama of looking through every possible hiding place in every room -- twice -- came next.  Then I finally found them in a paper bag under my work table, along with all of the other stuff I was going to be needing.  Sheesh.  And then, you know what?  Those gloves were too stiff and thick to work with and it turned out the newer thinner gauge metal strapping strip thing is cut-able with the metal shears and doesn't have all of those sharp metal splinters.

I ended up with regular vinyl gloves (just in case) but man -- do I ever make things difficult for myself -- maneuvering the drill between the wire tiers of the tomato cage and trying to get close enough to the cinder block was a challenge.  I ended up having to put in one screw with a regular screw driver. 

that cinder block isn't going anywhere!

The other thing that made this part so hard on me was that I was sitting in a chair bending over at the waist and trying to work upside down and between my legs.  I think I know the feeling that Joan was describing the other day.  Wow.  

But was I done -- hell no.  That only fueled the need to work on this NOW because I knew I wouldn't come back to it tonight.  (And of course that only makes a difference to me -- this croco-creature has no deadline looming -- I just seem to think I can still work on things forever with no consequence later.)  So on to the next part with no break!

I have this wacky twirly lawn sprinkler thing that I salvaged from another project from around the same time period.  I was thinking that the copper twirly thing would be really great on the croco-creature's staff.  But that meant I had to cut it away from the old construction.  Mini hacksaw time!  (I really need to get a "real" hacksaw and/or replace the very bent blade on this one.)  

the old construction

geez -- why can't anything be easy -- I was still new at getting things to stay together when I made this -- it is kind of overkill inside of there

gah -- and then I hit another snag with the scissors and hacksaw -- oh yeah...the hose-attaching thing

man -- this saw will cut pretty much anything!

 

And naturally I couldn't stop then, either...I had to look for the chopped off piece of already plaster cloth'd tube so I could see what the staff might look like...and HEY...it fit into the tube!!!

I left the bit of construction that lifts the twirly part up enough to twirl

but then again...maybe I could make something that looks better -- I will keep the other part for now, just in case

At this point I was starting to feel that deep-down-to-the-bone fine tremor you get when you overdo things...like if you carry something really heavy and you insist on taking it all the way into the house instead of setting it down and resting for a minute...you know that feeling, right?  BUT I had to get a sense of how the staff might look with the arm...and hand.

So I positioned the temporary arm assembly onto the tomato cage with masking tape, quickly blew up a vinyl glove and stuck it into the "cuff" and taped the fingers of the glove to the pole and took a few fast photos.

And this is enough for tonight...man!  Now I have the full-blown shaking going on -- I feel like I have been struggling with the reins of a very tall, very wide horse all afternoon that has been pulling me all over the place.  I. am. beat.