Day 144 - 365/2014

Day One Hundred Forty-Four

Hmmm...a change in construction plans is necessary.

I was talking with Joanne's husband Kurt (who is also an artist) and it turns out he has a bit of daytime time on his hands.  I was telling him about my troubles with screwing the rabbit guy's legs into place and Kurt agreed to give me a hand...hopefully in the next few days.

Rabbit guy propped up against the wall.

When I pulled the parts out of the studio to see if I would need to buy anything before Kurt comes over I realized a couple of flaws in my original construction plan.

It looked pretty good on paper but when I was setting the rabbit guy up I found that he isn't really stable with the original design...not to mention it was going to be difficult with his legs that close together.  I really like the look of the tall skinny rabbit, but he needs a bit more substance to balance better and for me to be able to work on him in the stages that come after this.

Here is the new plan.  Because his torso is hollow and there is not much edge to attach the smaller plaque, I decided to affix it in place now with masking tape.  This will make it very secure and will give us a base to screw up through the second plaque and into/through the smaller one.  Then we can attach the legs with the little L-brackets at the top to the second plaque.  With the legs wider apart it will be easier to work on him.  Next we can either screw some long screws up threw the bottom of the base into the legs to anchor him to the base or just attach his legs at the bottom to the base with larger L-brackets...or do both.  The fronts of his legs will be covered up by the shoe forms, and I can probably hide the other brackets with a little more plaster cloth and paper. 

He can actually stand on his own with the second plaque and his legs farther apart.

I don't know what his arms and hands will look like yet, or what he will be wearing...I am just anxious to get the construction done so that he is ready for more work.  I hope he won't need to be weighted on the base...the base piece itself is fairly heavy...we'll see.