Thursday, February 28, 2008

Karate Chop Action!

As promised, my four complete articulated works ( a lot more in the process but still not fired yet, look for more articulated works in a couple weeks). Each is done with a different technique...oddly not on purpose. These have full movement and limbs are attached using wire.





Horseshoe Crab Thing--The ancient fossil crab thingy. Hollow body (sort of formed like a cup), 7 legs (three on one side and four on the other), and a tail. All done with oil staining, a bit of a difference from the original bisque pictures I posted before. It's a really nice effect on this one.





Flying Helper Bucket--Had just been zooming through the atmosphere to find some poor soul in need of a helping bucket! Now calmly resting in some branches, being...less helpful...for a change. The handle is wire and attaches the free-moving wings to the bucket figure. Underglazes with no clear coat, but still slick because of the thickness of the coats. Very cute.





Mummy Doll--Well...he's seen better days... Arms, legs, and head move. Comes with assorted wrappings so you can wrap your own mummy. These photos may need to be redone...it was very bright when I first got outside...I had to check if the flash was on because the pictures looked weird... This guy is done in washes of underglaze rubbed away for slick creases but the outside is matte. Oh and the eye is glossy. Gee kids, doesn't that sound like fun?!



Little Flower Girl--A little blond girl with a flower body and dangling feet formed from the stamens of the flower, meaning, she's made out of a male flower. She's a little tranny flower girl. Made with underglazes and then a clear coat of glaze for her happy shiny look, much more colorful and shiny than the prior images.

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Stains, My Baby Has me Locked Up with Stains

That would probably kill me, those being sort of harmful and most places you lock someone up in would not have great ventilation. This is why we don't have nice things.

I used a different technique on most of these, oil paints as stains. Very messy, will probably kill me someday, but looks really cool.

I did mostly more simplistic staining on these--I mixed the colors myself usually and could add hints all over it, but...specified areas of color were quite tricky--so i reserved that for eyes for the most part, the the last piece shows just how complex I can be--the eye is just careful staining, sort of like doing a lithograph, only in a really slow, stupid, careful, hand done way.

I have four articulated characters that are not posted yet--the flower girl and horseshoe crab I showed before coloring, and two others yet unseen. These should be posted tomorrow as I didn't have time to photograph today.

The first three pieces have both parts that are glazed and some using stains. The rest are only done using stains.





So...it's a little green squat body...and a cow skull that can be worn as a face. This...makes sense.






Little Ruskie: Tiny Russian, big fuzzy hat. Could you ask for anything more...? Well you can...but it is not advised.

Vacuum for Evil Brain Ghosts: One magic vacuum, three evil alien brain ghosts. This totally makes sense. Ask L. Ron Hubbard and his followers--they agree.Vacuum--specially designed for sucking up evil alien brain ghosts.
Evil Alien Brain Ghosts...yes this story does involve a volcano--thanks for asking.




Meat Buddies! Beef Brisket, Chicken leg, and Lamb Rib. All adorable and all meat!



Interchangeable Face Stone Character--body built sort of like a flower and there are three expressions--happy, sad, angry--the basics... That can be put in and viewed through the little face opening.Angry Face stone.



Little Bull...thing...it's a bull, little feet on the bottom, big horns, built like a muppet pear...there is really no excuse for him.



Not-So Helpful, yet All too Anxious, Helper Llama--He's happy, not terribly helpful, and not terribly...llama...ey... Sort of a tough one to decipher due to his shape. The head is back, tail against the top of the head and ears against the rump. The top is open and is the happy mouth. not too certain about the staining here...possibly going to try again with stronger colors and more mottling...not certain...comments...?




Uptown Fetus, a debonair man about town--well...fetus. But he has a top hat. A stylin' freaking top hat.




Probably my most surreal character to date, no name yet or even title. Just this little guy, whose body is a sack, that wears jeans fastened with a belt. And his head is...a smidge disembodied, and flies...or hovers and is made out of moon or whatever. And he can ride it. As you can probably guess from the many photos, this is one of my favorites.

This is how the fellow travels, sitting on his flying moon face. Most of these photos were done with flash due to the setting sun.

Body, an old sack...wearing jeans...kept on with a belt.
Flying Moon Face
Face and body united at last.
Dim light--the sun was going down as I was photographing--this was the last character I got to do.

Whales, Minimalism, and Mr. Polyp

Here are a few new pieces done in underglaze and clear glazed (except for the first set which is just underglazes, and sparsely done at that).

My tribute to minimalism. Four tiny characters with underglaze only--it fired smooth but the bodies are all buffed unglazed ceramic. The set includes (from left to right): Sleepy Cone, Deceased Sphere (comes in three pieces), Homicidal Cube (with a bloody knife taped to his...head?), and Lusty Oval Thing (no comment).
Flapjack Whales--these little whales evolved into being flat...sounded like a good idea at the time. Each comes with one, two, or one and a half barnacle friends.
Mr. Polyp and Two Dumb Stupids That He Hates A Whole Freaking Lot--This is Mr. Polyp, he has two friends that go everywhere with him--and he hates them a whole freaking lot.
Difficult to adequately photograph, three heads on one little body

Idle...Playthings...Are the Devil's...Hands...? What!?

This work is based on a sketch posted by [ idle. ] on the Rotofugi forums:


Find more [ idle. ] work at: http://www.idleware.com/

and check out Rotofugi at: http://rotofugi.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc
or just try typing rotofugi.com


Charles : 5" H, 4" W, 6" L Stephane : 5" H (6" with hat) , 5"W, 7" L

Both are painted with washes of underglaze on the faces, the hats, Stephane's collar, and Charles' smoke plume have stronger gunderglaze coats, highlights, and clear glaze.

Charles and Stephane


Another view of the duo
Charles side
Charles back
Stephane side
Stephane front view
Stephane without removable hat

Sunday, February 24, 2008

UVoD Figures!

I recently did a whole troop of the characters from Goomi's Unspeakable Vault of Doom, a web comic taking a lighter, yet still adorably morbid, look at the characters from H. P. Lovecraft's writings. Check it out! Hilarious stuff--and read the weblog and check out the other fan art.

http://www.macguff.fr/goomi/unspeakable/vault251.html

These vary but are around 5" tall, done in ceramics, and various sorts of underglaze washes to add some strange mottling effects (though Yogzotot is stronger coats and then white underglaze over it) and then quite a few of them have white highlights.


I am considering putting some of these on sale at my online shop. I may make articulated dolls of these characters and others...depending how things go...and as always, I'd love to do an installation. These are approved by Goomi and a portion of the sales go to him, so this is totally on the level.






Cthulhoo, big, angry, likes to eat folks, surrounded by delicious cultists--Yum Yum!
Nyarly, cynical, more of a hands on evil god...
Dagoon, he's sorta dumb, but at least he lives under water. He is highly revered by the deep ones, that are also dumb and live under the water. Birds of a feather... Comes with handy monolith...no idea why...I think it's like a security blanket--security monolith? Fish folks find rocks cuddly...I guess...
Shubby, she's fuzzy, has horns, and numerous progeny.
Shoggies, numerous eyes, mouths, and blobby selves, and are...gross and really dumb...and yet...so cooooooool!
Tindaloo, a hound, a companion, a slight dimensional snafu. Also: hates curves.
Ygo, small, crude, grayish, and a mouth on each hand... Like the beach boy song: Two mouths for every Ygo! Though...I would not like to hear the version for the shoggies... or really most shoggy related things.
Zathoth, giant, cosmic, powerful, and vastly stupid. Favorite song: G! Favorite movie: G! Favorite show: G! Favorite shape: Horrid.
Yogzotot, the gate, the key, and a great many other things. But not soap!
He is called many things, because you can't say his name--or else your head will go sbloorsch. "This is your brain, this is your brain on Lovecraft--SBLOOORSCH!!!"