The Sculpt, The Room and The Whirlwind

First off, apologies for the blurry pictures. I was messing with the shutter speeds and hand-held shot these with 1.5 second shutters and thus, the blurry effect. Starting off with the sculpt:


This is an early shot. I ended up giving him a collar and propping the bowtie forward a little bit.

The 28mm lens really skews the dimensions a little bit, it's a lot more lanky in person than in these pictures. I had a few ideas for his outfit. It started with a magician get up, then a tux, then a shirt with a tux painted on it. In the end I just made him wear a dorky desk-job outfit and I plan to put a piece of fabric (imagine wearing a towel cape) behind him. If that towel thing doesn't work his getup still seems fine. I think I'll color his outfit in the ways of Dwight Schrute.
I'm extremely proud of myself for even being able to do this, as simple as it is. I thought for sure that I was gonna have to ask a friend to do a sculpt for me. It may be a little ugly and crude, but it turned out way better than I first imagined. This was a crucial victory for me as now I know I can do the entire thing on my own. Help is definitely appreciated but I know at least that I won't get stuck anywhere if I'm going solo.


I know that the shoes are no special feat but I'm so proud of them haha. Maybe it's because they were the first things I've ever sculpted in my life. Ever.

Here are a few snaps around the room, again sorry for the blurries.


These are the only two tools I use. I should get a few more but these are working fine for now. The rubber tipped brush is my favorite. Here is the rig I work on.

And the camera I shoot with:


Hah. Just kidding. The guy I bought the d70 from threw his box away when he bought it. He recently bought a d90... get this... "for fun" so he didn't need the "leftovers" that was his d70 anymore. My sister picked it up for me and told me of all the cameras and lenses he had at his place. A spanish camera enthusiast he was. He kept the d70 in pristine condition. To be honest I was afraid of handling the camera because it looked so nice and I didn't wanna mess it up.


And... the final curtain:
The Whirlwind Effect. Here is how it works. When someone asks you what the hell happened to your room to make it look this way. A whirlwind did it. In the next 2-3 days I'm going to clean this whole place up and organize my tools / materials.

The foam material is coming soon. I'm grabbing my oldschool oven on saturday and the only thing left to do is grab a mixer, preferabbly 3-speed, and possibly a pin-spot light. I'm thinkin maybe a 16 Par Can that'll run about 15 bucks.

After cleaning up I think I'll be ready to create some puppets and set up the camera for animation. Just need to citri-solve the sculpt and smooth it out after I finish the hands.

Another major concern is the mouth. I want to go with replacement mouths but the only reference I have is Justin Rasch's little girl puppet . He uses a flat foam surface with baked clay replacement mouths... I think. I don't even know how they can stick together so well... foam and clay. For Moe I would have to work with the flat surface of the upper jaw and replace the bottom lips. I don't know how heavy baked clay ends up being but I'm hoping it'll work out for the best. But all in all it's a blast.

Excitement she wrote!