Art in Progress - Scraptrich Pt. 3

Welcome back! Oh illustrious readers!

I hope you've enjoyed this sneak peak into the world of The Iron Phoenix as I finish off this series of 'Art in Progress'. This is something I'll be doing more of in the future, particularly with large projects.

Now... on with the tale!

As mentioned before, I thought that, at last, I had completed my work. Everything was in its place, head and wings and feet all where they should be.

But alas... upon arriving home with my completed work, I was horrified to discover that one of the welds on the face had broken. And since the ostrich's face was attached to the skull by only a few welds, this just wasn't something that could be overlooked.

Not only that... once I had a chance to step back and review my work and fully take it in, I realized that the sculpture was, indeed, not done. There were a few aspects of the design I just wasn't satisfied with.

The head was angled a little too far to the side. The eyes, with their faceted depths, looked odd and bug-like. With the way I had constructed the legs, the body bobbed just a little too much, which raised some stability concerns.

It seemed my work was not yet done. And as soon as I found the time, it was off to the studio I went!

The first thing on my agenda... Fix the Face.

The broken weld was repaired, and this time I made sure to solidly apply the weld across 3 pieces, as well as adding a couple additional welds to the top of the head. That way if one broke, the whole face would still be secure.

Next... I needed to fix those eyes.

I'd debated putting pupils on them. But after comparing various washers and discs, I decided that just wasn't going to work. I needed something that would narrow the view of the eyes, so they weren't so huge and round.

This is when I came up with the idea to put eye lids! Eye lids would soften the eyes and give them more personality, while also shadowing them and reducing the bug-like faceted quality of the gems.

Now, if you've ever made anything where you have to add eye lids... you'll know that doing so is not as easy as it seems. There's a bit of a fine art to adding eye lids and not making your subject look angry/dopey/worried/sleepy/something other then what you want/etc.... In this case, I wanted the eyes to look... kinda neutral. Or a little cheerful to match the big grin I had going with the beak.

What I managed to get... was something that looked a little... stoner-ish? From the side it looked cheerful and happy! From the front... a little odd. Like I said, creating eye lids is something of an art form all on its own, and one I have yet to master.

Buuut... it did do the job I wanted it to. The large, round eyes were softened, the gaze narrowed, so rather then looking bizarre and alien, the eyes now had a spark of personality and felt as if they belonged to the ostrich.

The eye lids also livened up the face and added some additional detail. While an actual ostrich head is basically just a pair of eye balls and a beak stuck on the top of a neck, I wasn't liking the way the face looked. It was too... simple. Too devoid of details. This is also why I went back and added some extra feathery 'tufts' around the head.

Another thing that had been bothering me for some time, was the beak. It was too flat and straight, and didn't quite feel right. So I gently bend the edges of the beak, softening the edge, which made it more organic feeling.

Once that was complete, it was time to fix that stability issue.

Unfortunately, with the way I'd crafted the legs, all the parts were welded onto the rebar frame, but because the pipe was in segments, rather then whole, solid pieces, the rebar was basically the only support. And seeing as it wasn't thick rebar, that made it flexible. I didn't want to add anything that was going to be really obvious, as that would defeat the whole purpose of having the segmented legs. So, I took a couple of 1/4in round bar, and ran them up the back of the legs, on the inside of the pipe, opposite the rebar (which was welded to the front half of the pipes) and welded the pipe segments to the round bar. While this wasn't a complete fix, it did prevent the lower legs from being able to flex so easily, which greatly improved the stability of the whole piece.

The neck was stabilized by adding scrap around the base, welding it securely, thus ensuring the neck couldn't easily move around.

With these repairs made, I was at last satisfied with my creation!

The finished product came out to be around shoulder height to me, which put it at around 5ft tall, give or take a bit. It probably weighed around... 40-50lbs maybe? I could carry it without assistance, though for ease of transport, I opted to be lazy and used a dolly.

The whole sculpture will rust in time, which should make it really pretty. The large green eyes, being glass, will not fade, so they should remain bright and green and really visible, which is what I was aiming for.

By the time I completed this, I think I put somewhere around 18-20hrs of work into it, plus another 6-10hrs travel time, just trying to find the various bits and pieces I would need!

And so ends this session of 'Art in Progress - The Creation of a Scraptrich'.

I hope you've all enjoyed reading about my adventure with this sculpture! This was a fun experience for me, and I learned a lot. Particularly the difficulty in acquiring materials. But large sculpture is something I would really like to continue doing in the future. I certainly have the scrap for it!

Next up on my Art in Progress.... The Whipple Shield

Art in Progress - Scraptrich Pt. 2

Welcome back everyone!

Hope you enjoyed the first look at the creation of my Scraptrich. If you're interests is still piqued, continue on!

Now that the body is completed, it's time to move on to the construction of the head, wings and feathers.

Now, here is where I delved in to a bit of research. I was an avid Discovery Channel watcher when I was a kid, so I'm familiar with a LOT of different animals, how the look, how they're shaped, and for the most part I can build them just off memory. But usually with a specific request, I'll go back and familiarize myself with the animal in particular, make sure I'm getting the designs right.

And this is where Google Image Search comes in!

This is literally how I 'research' just about everything I craft. I do an Image Search, then peruse the result and re-familiarize myself with my subject. Since what I'm crafting is sculpture and not meant to be realistic, I'm not worried about all the nitty-gritty details of my subject. I just need to know the basic overall look.

I checked a few things... like making sure Ostrich have 2 toes instead of 3 (though even if they had 3, I wasn't going to go chopping up the feet for 1 extra toe at this point), I looked at their feathers, at the shape of their heads, their beaks, their eyes, how their bodies looked.

Once I had an idea of what I was going to do, it was off to the shop!

Well.... ok, maybe not RIGHT off to the shop.... after all, now that I had the body done, it was time to round up the supplies I would need to craft the face. Which meant I needed a pair of eye balls.

Now, making eyes isn't really that hard. There's a lot of ways you can do it in a sculpture. The issue with this particular piece though.... was that I wanted eyes that would stand out. I didn't want eyes that would rust. Or that were a color that would 'blend in' with the dark silvers of the metal, or the dusky reds of rust. I wanted eyes that would be noticeable, irregardless of what color the steel was. Eyes that wouldn't fade, would discolor, wouldn't chip or flake.

I wanted marbles. Big blue or green marble eyes. Marbles are made of glass, and glass does not fade, does not chip or flake, does not rust, and the reflective properties of glass tend to give sculptures a liveliness that's hard to achive with just metal parts.

And they had to be big, because this is a large ostrich and ostrich have big eyes.

Now this is where things got to be a bit difficult... because I wanted a pair of eyes that were roughly
1 1/4in - 1 1/2in in diameter. They needed to be large so that I could recess them into sockets and mold the metal around them to hold them in place, yet still have them be noticeably visible. Unfortunately, marbles don't normally come in those sizes, if you can even FIND marbles anymore.

I checked online first, hoping to score a good deal. But none of the marble sellers had anything in that size, and the few large marbles I did find were either the wrong colors, were too decorative, or too expensive.

So with that idea foiled, I spent most of a Saturday afternoon driving all over the city trying to find a pair of glass balls. Found plenty of crystal balls of assorted colors. Some stone balls. But they were all quite expensive (I was not going to pay $40-$100 for a pair of eye balls). I finally managed to track down a pair of green 'gem cut' glass decorations at a rock shop. Wasn't quite what I was looking for, but they fit the size range I needed, so I decided to roll with it.

If you've ever look at an ostrich head... you'll notice that they're basically just a long neck with a pair of eye balls and a beak stuck on top. There really isn't a whole lotta brain power up there, nor decorative anything. So building the head was pretty straight forward. A pair of bearing sleeves were used for the eye sockets, since they were just small enough that I could set the eyes in and they wouldn't fall out. A great big beak (which was probably a little too big, but oh well), and a little, feathered cranium in the back.

With the head done it was time to attach it to the body.

About here was when I ran into another snag. I had positioned the feet too far forward on the base, which put the birds body too far forward, with its 'center of gravity' right about where the front edge of the base plate was (if you draw a line from the center of the birds body, roughly right in front of where the legs connect, straight down to the ground, you'll see what I mean). This made the bird just a little too forward heavy. It wasn't tipping over, but I was worried that it would be a little too unstable as it was. So it was off to the plasma cutter to chop it loose and reposition!

I wish I had gotten pictures of this next part.... because here is where I start adding feathers and wings and stuff. Buuuut... I forgot to bring my camera. So you guys will have to settle for some rough sketches and fill-in pictures.

In case anyone was wondering... I didn't use patterns for this sculpture. Other then the beak, everything was created free-form. I just find it easier to free-form designs a lot of the time. Unless I need to have a specific look, thus requiring me to take the time to actually make a paper pattern, I just build my large sculptures on the fly.

That's also how I usually how I make feathers. Most feathers don't NEED to have a specific look to them, they just need to have the right general shape so you know what they are. And it's just way too time consuming to draw out individual paper patterns for half a dozen different feathers of assorted sizes and shapes.

As I said, I forgot to take pics of this part of the process. But I drew a quick sketch to show how I draw the feathers on the metal. Since ostrich have large, fluffy, rounded feathers, I drew a lot of big, curved, rounded coma's, squeezing in as many as I could close together. The dashes are to indicate where to cut so it creates a much more feathery look then if I'd left all the pieces solid.

I don't have a picture of the finished feathers either, but you can see how they turned out here.

Since ostrich are raggedy looking birds, I fiddled with the feathering around the edges, bending them in different directions to give them a fluffier, more organic look.

With the feathers ready to go, I built the tail and then the wings. Since the wings needed to have more structure and stability then tail feathers (which were just welded onto the body), I used rebar for the wing frame, welding it in place just in front of the legs so that the rebar frame would all be connected.

If you've ever gone and looked at an ostrich, they have odd shaped wings. They're not quite like other birds that flex out like arms, they're more like an oval paddle with fluffy feathers (or at least that's how the look when the ostrich has them spread). So rather then making a V shape, I curved them like a bow, arching gently away from to the body in a relaxed pose. This way you could see the wings, but they weren't way spread out, which would've made the sculpture even more front heavy..

Here's some sketches of roughly how the wings were built.

Scrap was added around the base of the wings to help not only 'fluffy-up' the outline of the wing, but it also filled in the gap between the wing and the body, making the wings look as if they were part of the whole, rather then separate limbs sticking out the sides.

Again, I wish I'd thought to grab my camera and take pics, because at this point, I thought I was done. The head was built, the wings and tail were built and expertly fluffed. The body was modified to give just a hint of raggedyness. Everything was good.

Uuuuntil I took it home... and discovered one of the welds on the face had broken. And since the face is connected to the head/cranium by only a few welds, it had to be fixed. I was also told by a certain someone.... *coughmomcough*... that it's eyes were weird and made it look angry.

Upon further examination, I decided that yes, the eyes did make it look weird and bug-like. I also decided I didn't really like the way the head looked.

It's so much easier to notice flaws in a design once you have a chance to take it home, get out of the work environment, and just LOOK at it. Unfortunately, it was rather late at night and I had work the next day, so repairs would have to wait.

So, the following week, it was back to the shop!

To Be Continued....

Art In Progress - Scraptrich Pt. 1

Hello all my readers! I have got a surprise for you all today!

Doing something a little different here. This is actually something I've wanted to do for a while now, but have either not had a good opportunity for it, or have just plain forgotten to until it was too late.

But since I had a large commission come my way, it seemed a perfect opportunity!

I often get the question of "How do you come up with these ideas?" or "How did you make this?"

These are questions I secretly have a desire to ramble endless on about (because what artist doesn't enjoy talking about their work?), yet I often dread hearing them, because they are so... hard to answer concisely.
How do you explain the creation of something when it's something really obvious? Like my Horseshoe Frog. It's just a horseshoe with some eyeballs and legs stuck on it. What's there to explain?
Or conversely; how do I explain how I craft something complicated like my Beagle commission? It was based off the owners actual pet, and I spent a good, solid week putting it together, making sure the shapes were accurate, having to make adjustments on the fly, taking extra care to get the coloration correct and put fur texture on it, etc...

These questions have a lot of different answers. As many answers as I have designs and sculptures. But, I am not here to try and explain every single one. I am here to talk about my current project. And perhaps answer some of these questions for all you curious minds.

The Great Scraptrich

 Ok, teeeeeechnically, this is an ostrich. But I like calling it a Scraptrich, in the scrap theme I've been rolling with on similar sculptures.

To start at the beginning....

Towards the start of summer (2012) I was given a commission from a local pottery yard where I sell some of my artwork. A customer was looking for a large ostrich sculpture, and the owner was nice enough to pass the request on to me.

The request itself was simple and open-ended in its design. The customer wanted an ostrich about 4-1/2 ft tall, and they sent me a few images for reference.

Both these designs are very different, but what I got from it was that they were looking for something with a lot of detail. Something that was going to be decorative and interesting to look at. Something more interesting then just a simple cut-out, or a wire frame. They also wanted an ostrich in a 'relaxed' pose. Head up, and either standing or walking.

I like getting commissions like this. It gives me a loose frame work on which to build, but leaves me free to do whatever I want with it.

So, with these design ideas in mind, it was time to get to work!

Time to bring out the time-honored brainstorming tool of any artist.

The Sketch Book

One of the most basic tools of an artist, the sketch book is where ideas are jotted down, designs are fleshed out, themes are experimented with, and in general, it's where an artist does much of their most important preparations prior to beginning on a project.

Of course, if you've been following my blog, you'd know that I am a terrible sketch-booker and don't bother wasting time with all that 'professional brainstorming' silliness.

Since I'd gotten the commission at the start of summer, and didn't actually start working on it till beginning of September, I'd had a lot of time to think over what I wanted to do with it.

I knew right off the bat that I didn't want it to be exceptionally details. There was no way I was going to sit there and cut out 49075642905705739-270 feathers for this bird. I highly doubted they'd want to pay me for the amount of work and time that would take, not to mention the hell it would be actually welding them all together.

Fortunately, I already had a design concept in mind. One I'd used several times before with great success.

I also wanted this sculpture to be partially found object. Not only did this save me from having to create patterns for specific body parts, but it made the overall sculpture more interesting to look at. People always enjoy seeing every day items built into a sculpture and used in unique ways.

Since they didn't say anything about what kind of base they wanted (or lack thereof), or where they were planning to put it, I wasn't quite sure if I should make it free standing or mount it.

I eventually opted to set it on a small, simple base. That would give it better stability then if it was free standing, and it would give the customer the option of adjusting the base according to however they wanted it displayed.

Once I had the general idea of where I wanted to start, I rounded up the materials I needed that I already had on hand.

Pic of my work table here with some of the stuff I was using. 

Rebar for the frame.

The large domed lid was used as a template to mold scrap around it for the body. By welding 2 halves together, it makes for a sturdy, oval-shaped body.

The 13in x 1/4in round plate I used for the base.

Pair of 2-pronged tractor parts. Makes good bird feet.

Lotsa bike chain for the legs.

Pipe for the neck and legs.

Pair of pliers for bending the sheet metal.

Pile of scrap for constructing the body.

Assorted other bits and pieces and tools.

I started off building the body. I didn't have my camera with me, and didn't think to snag my phone, so no pics of that. But I built it the same way I build my Scrapowl/itty/puppy, by taking assorted bits of scrap from around my shop and bending them around the outside of this large serving lid. I welded a few more large scraps along the inside, which gives the body more texture and depth then if I'd left the interior hollow. Once the halves were done, I welded them together, and tada! Body done.

Next was making the basic frame. This is where the rebar comes in. I cut 3 pieces, each 3ft long. Two were bent in half for the legs, the 3rd was gently curved to form the neck. Once I had the rebar legs situated on the base where I wanted them, I set the body on top and welded it in place before attaching the neck. Since I wanted the whole frame to be attached for greater stability, I added a pair of bars branching from the neck to the legs. Then I attached the feet.

Or course, if I'd paid attention to the nagging thought in my head, I wouldn't have fully welded the legs to the body since I was going to string pipe on the legs. But paying attention to nagging thoughts was never one of my strong points. So I ended up cutting them off later.

At this point I needed to flesh out the legs and neck before I continued. Which meant tracking down pipe of the proper size. Too small and the neck and legs would look thin and spindly. Too large and they'd look thick and bulky compared to the body. The pipe also needed to have thin walls, since that would reduce weight. I didn't have anything at the shop, so off to my favorite steel yard I went! And as fate would have it, they had a bunch of pipe in their scrap section, cut at 10ft lengths in the exact size I needed.

Once I had the pipe, I measured it out in 3in lengths in preparation for cutting. I'm a big fan of making things that have a lot of texture and details without actually having a lot of parts or extensive designing. This is why I didn't want the legs or neck to be made with solid pipe. Straight, solid pipe is just not very fun to look at, nor does it lend itself to organic curves. I also don't have a pipe bender for making something like... oh, say, the neck. 

So the pipe was chopped up. During that process though, I would take several sections and string them along the rebar to see how it would look. This is why I decided to chop several smaller sections. The 3in segments just didn't look very good when that was all you had. It didn't flow properly. So I turned part of the pipe into 1-1/2in segments, chopped off a few 2in segments for transition pieces, then chopped most of it into 3in pieces. 

As you can see, even though the pipe is the same, it gives the legs and neck the impression of transitioning from strong and sturdy at the base, to slimmer at the top.

Once all the pipe was in place, I welded the legs back together (see above comment about having to chop them off the body) and started in on the fun details.

Since I wanted knee joints to be prominent, which also serves the purpose of giving the legs a defined angle, I couldn't use the pipe. It would make the legs look too... noodly. So it was off to my assorted junk bins!

Here is where I have to give my Uncle kudo's, because he had this old weight set he wasn't using and he let me scrounge a bunch of parts off it. At the time, I had no idea what I was going to do with these round, black, clampy whatever things. But I figured they'd come in handy for something. And it turns out, they were just the right size and shape for ostrich knees.

Last but not least, the coup de grace!

Ostrich are known for their powerful legs. So I needed to give his bird some impressive looking stompers. The pipe on its own just wasn't going to cut it. It's a good thing I like bike chain. There's just so many fun things you can do with bike chains! I've got a whole box full of chain! And in this case, they made perfect scaling along the lower legs, giving them that touch, rugged look you'd expect from a bird that spends its whole life running around.

Now that the legs were done, and the neck was done, it was time to start building the head and fleshing out the body.

To be continued....

Oh the Joys of Summer Colds

Well.... here it is. Sunday afternoon. 2nd day of September.

Its been a bit tough getting back into the swing of things again. As you all know, my "BIG EVENTS OF THE SUMMER!!!" turned out to be a whole lotta disappointing. It hit me pretty hard, and I was really depressed there for a bit after that. I just didn't want to work on anything. But after a few days of letting it stew and feeling frustrated and unhappy, it worked its way out of my system. Just in time for my Aunty Chris and cousin Tabetha to come up for a visit, and for an awesome case of con-cooties to set in! Woo!

Nothing says AWESOME like getting a cold.
This one, fortunately, wasn't that bad... especially since I had this great nasal spray that kept my sinuses clear. Afrin is great stuff.

No, the bad part was when the cough set in. Tried to go to the shop and get some work done, but being around all that dust and fumes and crap just killed me. Spent most of that evening trying to hack up a lung, which is always a ton of fun, as I'm sure you know.

So here it is... September 2nd... and I haven't really made much headway into my work. Between being sick, work, and depressed, these last couple weeks have just not been super productive.

It was fun seeing my aunt and cousin though. They never come up for visits so this was a nice surprise. And it gave me a chance to go over some of the commission detail with my aunt about her dragons. That's going to be an interesting project this winter.

I also have some better details on that shield I'm going to be making. Already I can picture what I'm going to be doing with it, and it's going to be pretty freakin cool.

And I've been racking my brains for designs with that ostrich. I have it partially built, but I really want it to look nice and detailed. So we'll see what I can throw together with what I have.

Now this weekend has been a bit more productive.


I had a chance to run up to the Midway Swiss Days yesterday (Saturday) to check that out!

This was another show I had applied for but didn't get into. And I nearly missed seeing it this year, because I just completely spaced the date. I thought it was later in September, so it wasn't until I heard someone else talking about it that I realized it was this weekend!

I had heard from other people that some vendors will go up during the festival and set up shop on the side of the road to do some sales. So, after throwing a bunch of stuff into my truck, I cruised up there to check it out and see if I could make some money,

Well... turns out it's not that easy.

Apparently, street side vendors have to make prior arrangements with the property owners surrounding the festival. Most property owners also charge rent on the spaces, and many artists end up paying as much to set up as they would've in the festival.

Maybe I was just on the wrong street... but it didn't seem that setting up a little stand was going to work out at all. But, I did get a chance to wander around the festival itself. And that was fun and enlightening.

There were absolutely TONS of people! This was the kind of festival I'd been hoping for!

I'm going to have to do some serious overhauling on my show registration content. Get me into some of these big shows next year!

I checked out the various booths. Chatted with a few acquaintances. Eventually ended up in the booth of an artist who also crafts steel sculptures.

I think I must've easily spent 20min just wandering the booth looking at everything.

Some people can completely engross themselves in photography. Others in paintings. Or poems. For me, it's sculpture. And their work is so fun and whimsical... I find it inspiring. If I'd had the money, I would've happily splurged $300+ on that booth alone.

I ended up purchasing a small hanging Opossum, a Flat Cat, and a Flying Cat. I REALLY wanted to purchase the Peacock, Armadillo, Rooster, and large Fat Cat.

Now, I know what you're thinking.... why buy metal sculptures when I could just craft it?

This is a trap I find myself falling into. Not wanting to purchase work from an artist because I could just make it myself. But I remind myself that those artists were once just like me. Struggling to make a living out of their work. Trying to figure out where they fit in, how to sell, how to price, how to advertise, how to run a business, etc...

It's not easy. There's no instruction manual. And it's so hard with art because each artist is unique.
Each artists will have different needs, different expenses, different styles, and thus different methods of running their studio.

As an artist trying to make it in this world, I've come to realize how important it is that we fellow artists help each other out. So I like to buy a few things whenever I go to a show now. Even if they're small things... I'm still helping to support my fellow arters and crafters.

Plus... they're pretty dang cute. I love the style. And they're really great for inspiration. Helps me find new ways of looking at designs.

Now I just need to find somewhere on my wall where I can hang my Flat Cat.