I am very happy to say that a bit of good luck has rolled my way and I had orders come in for the holidays that kept me busy and put a bit of money into my business so I'll have a buffer heading into this new year.
I think I ended up with a grand total of.... 7 or 8... orders to fill by Christmas! Which isn't very much... but when I only work at my shop 3 days out of the week, 8 orders can take a long time.
3 of those orders came from my landlords. Have I mentioned how awesome my landlord is? He's been really great about working with me about rent and supplies. Once in a while, when I know money will be tight, we work out an arrangement where I make him a few things and he doesn't charge me rent. Thus was the case this holiday. 2 months rent-free in exchange for 2 mini-flying pigs and a fish sculpture.
Have I mentioned how awesome my landlord is?
I also had an order off my Etsy shop for another mini-pig. My pigs have started to do pretty good on there. I'm hoping sales for next year keep going up! Also hoping I start getting some variety orders. Most of the Mini-Pig orders I've received are just for plain pigs with a bell collar. But I offer customization options... ear and wing patterns... different collar designs... hair designs... etc... You can even make special requests, since it's almost guaranteed I won't have any in-stock and will have to make it for you. So I am hoping for some orders like that... bit of variety is always nice.
The next item on my list was a small Elk. I'd actually been given this order by my dad a couple months ago. It was to be given to his hunting guides who he goes with when he's Elk hunting. I wasn't sure when this was due, so I'd had it on hold until he got back to me with an actual date.
Well... I happened to be bumming around the shop, and I'd finished some other work and didn't want to go home yet, so I made the Elk up real quick. Turns out this was a good thing because his Elk hunt was that weekend (thanks for not telling me!).
I've been wanting to make a 'leaping Elk' sculpture for a while now, so this was the perfect opportunity to do that. Most of my elk designs so far have been pretty static, in that they're usually walking or standing. I wanted this one to have a bit of movement.
Speaking of right before... had one last Etsy order roll in at the very last minute (so to speak)!
Sold my first posable feathered dragon! Woo hoo!
Since it's the holidays, it takes at least a week for a package to get anywhere, and the order came in about a week and a half before Christmas. So I had to put a priority on shipping sculptures to make sure those were finished and sent off in time to arrive for the holidays.
Isn't he handsome? Up to this point, I'd only made one posable dragon; my Iron Phoenix Dragon. And because that was the only one I had, its been serving as a placeholder image on Etsy. But my Iron Phoenix dragon is my own personal design, so I'm not going to recreate that for anyone. But the customer wanted a feathered dragon. So a feathered dragon I made! With a few modifications...
Well, that WAS what I was planning to say... and then I forgot to post this blog right after Christmas. Heheheeeeee..... go me!
My friend has since received his gift, so now I can finally post images!
This big boy was a lot of fun. Not only did I put together a new pattern (which will be my default 'spiny dragon' pattern now), but I tried out some new designs.
Thanks to a inquiry on Etsy about a wyvern-style dragon, I decided I'd give that a try. The notion of building one of these with wings instead of forelegs had piqued my interest. And since this was going to a very good friend of mine, I wanted to do something special for him.
As you can see, I painted this guy instead of heat-coloring. But I found it still looked a little plain, and there wasn't a lot of contrast between the segments. So to fix this... I took my Migi Nail Art Pens (aka- nail polish in a pen! Great stuff!) and decorated all the spines, wings, and face. Made a huge difference in the dragons overall vibrancy and really made it stand out, where as before it was just a big blue lizard.
Lets see.... 3... 4...6-7... 7! That brings me up to 7 orders so far!
Hmmm... guess I had 9 to craft this month. 2 more to go!
These were my 'big projects' of the month. Special orders from customers here in Salt Lake City. Since these were local orders, and could be picked up in person, I finished them up last.
I think it was the Wheeler Farm Farmers Market where I met Michelle. She is a local artist specializing in painting and paper machete, and she has a studio called 'Blackened Raven'. We'd talked a bit about crafting a scrap Raven at the time. But I didn't hear back from her until the end of November when she contacted me about making a sign for her studio.
This sign is about 2ft x 2ft in size and hangs on the wall. With a little creativity, you could find a way to attach chains to the loops on the back and hang it, in case she ever goes to shows or markets.
The Raven itself was fun to make. To date, all I've made for scrap birds are Owls. An Owl is very different then other birds, with its flat round face. They're easy to make, instantly recognizable, and I can throw together a head and weld it to a body and it's done. But a long-faced bird like a Raven requires a little more work. You have to have an actual neck. You can't just cut out a round face and stick a beak on it. It won't look right.
I've made long-faced birds before... mainly Phoenix... so I used that basic design idea for this.
Most of this sculpture is uncolored. Welding the texture onto the branches darkens the metal naturally. If you don't put a clear coat over it, it had a dusty grey-brown look. When you clear coat it, it turns this dark grey and looks like bark. Really pretty, and one of my favorite textures to do.
The raven I heat colored, since Michelle wanted the bird to have that rainbowy, oil-slicked look, rather then solid black. Had to be careful with the torch on this one. Because this is a Raven, I wanted the colors to be dark as possible over the whole body. Thin metal can be tricky to heat color because it'll go from gold (the 'just starting to warm up color) to neutral blue (the 'too hot and won't change color anymore' color) in a second if you get it too hot. Purples and deep blues are the mid-to-end range colors.
I kept the letters plain for contrast. Instead of taking a flap disc to them and grinding them shiny, I buffed them with a wire wheel instead. This kept some of the rust-induced-texture in-tact, while also shining the metal up just enough that it'll stand out, especially in lighting.
Michelle been doing the artist thing here in SLC for much longer then I have, so I spent some time chatting with her about places to go and networking and things I could try. It was a good opportunity to learn more about the artist community here in Utah, which I've been struggling to find and fit into. I will have to look into the places she recommended this next year.
The last sculpture I crafted was for an acquaintance friend of mine from a few years ago. She contacted me out of the blue at the beginning of December (we hadn't talked to each other in years at this point) and asked if I could craft something special for her family.
She and her siblings wanted a special sculpture representing their parents and them. It would feature a pair of bike riders (the parents), along with their pet dog (this great, big, black, brown and white fluffy of a dog), and 3 tulips for their children. The actual lay-out would be up to me.
I knew right away I wanted to make this a multi-directional piece. What I mean by that... is that there's not a definite 'back side' to it. I wanted it to be something you could set in the center of a table and it would look good from any direction.
And as a bike-themed sculpture, I wanted the figures on it to be moving. After all, that is what bikes are for! They are for riding, and moving, and racing down hills! I wanted this sculpture to give the impression of figures in motion. And what's one of the favorite places to go bike riding? Why... down a trail! Or a park path!
In this case, a cobblestone path.
Since time and customer finances were limited, I decided a stick figure theme would work best. Humans are surprisingly difficult creatures to craft, and trying to build a bunch of sheet metal figures was going to take too long and cost too much. At the same time though, I didn't want them to be plain, unadorned stick figures. They needed to be recognizably male and female. To that end, I crafted them some simple clothing and hair.
The dog also got the stick figure treatment. He probably should've been fluffier... but that design didn't quite look right. Plus... he's a stick figure!
Again, because I wanted this whole sculpture to have the impression of movement, the dog couldn't simply be standing. If you've ever owned a dog, and ever gone bike riding with them, they like to romp all over the place. So I wanted this dog to look like he's been racing all around the park along side his owners.
The tulips, I think, are the most important feature of this whole sculpture. I was given specific directions on what type they should be and how many.
The tulips represent the 3 children of the family. Their specific coloring and design though is from a particular breed known as the Parkinson Tulip (pink petals with white edges). You see, her mother has Parkinsons Disease, and so my friend wanted to represent that with the flowers.
I hadn't originally planned on this lay-out. But once it was done, I really liked the significance of it. Because you look at this and you can see the parents and the 3 children they bore and raised between them, and the dog they brought into their family. But you can also see how this disease has crept into their lives, creating this separation between their mother and the rest of their family, as she falls behind and they continue on ahead.
I'm not much for symbolism, but I do like little things like this. To have this happiness, this peace, this family together, and yet you look at the other side of the story, and there's this sadness and melancholy, and have it all wrapped up in this one sculpture.
EDIT:
OMG!!! I almost forgot to add this!
Ok... one last sculpture!
Since the above bicyclist sculpture was a pick up, I needed something to do for a few hours while I was at my shop waiting for them. I'd told my boyfriend earlier in the week I'd make his nephew a little dragon, since he was having a hard time figuring out what to get his nephew for Christmas.
I'd originally planned on making a cool little bike chain dragon, with claws and spines and stuff! Buuut.... after all of 3 tack welds... I ran out of welding wire. It was the middle of the day on Sunday, so everything was closed. I didn't have any spare wire. And I was working all day Monday, so no time to finish it up then.
I had to do something! So... I got creative with rivets!
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