With all the praise the 2 previous chess pieces got from friends and family how could I help but make more. Frankly, I'm enjoying the unusual pace of these pieces as well. As with the previous sculpts I'm averaging about 16 hours on each one but that average is coming down, especially if I keep experimenting to a minimum. Spending way too much time on a single piece of art is not new to me. What IS new is my concentration on a number of pieces that are in the same vein like this. Usually, after working on one sculpture for a few months, I begin to long for something different: a different medium, a different subject, a different size, anything different. True, it is also source of pride when I can amaze a person with my "jack-of-all-designs" display of sculptures; big bugs, little bugs, lighters, buckles, complex textures, robots,...
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Where have you been?! I was worried. You didn't call, I didn't know where you were... phew. So, I've become an even fuller-time daddy than the full-time daddy I'd been about a month ago. It truly is a special sort of mind-suck and I couldn't see writing you blog after blog about the Funderdome! That really is a real place and a handy indoor playground on rainy days when the Master needs to expel some energy to nap so the Blaster can get some projects done while he sleeps. My recent art project is chess pieces...again. Since Solafar has been a "dot com" I've been making (among other things) chess pieces from the oven bake clay, Sculpey. I want to make a chess set so bad! The problem: I haven't finished designing or sculpting a full-set of chess pieces. Dragons, bugs, robots and now dinosaurs. I'd posted Instagram pictures of...
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The current chess piece I'm working on is slated to be the Queen. I'm trying to base it's look entirely on the Chinese description of the dragon which, to me, looks nothing like the bearded snake that's so often illustrated. Last week I completed the head and basic body shape. Over the weekend I completed most of the detail on the body, which is described in Chinese literature as having "scales of a Carp". Honestly, I know as much about fish as I do about the stock market: Carp swim around in water and stock traders stand and shout in a room. Is there really more to it than that? I needed to do research so I don't seem so ignorant about the important things... so here's what I've learned about Carp: they are an oily freshwater fish that are native to Europe and Asia and they have been a primary...
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There have been a couple few ideas floating around over here, and I'd be lying if I told you they were all mine. My current sculpture was inspired by my correspondence with a lady who has a polymer clay sculpting website of her own. Christy has a great website that was part of what inspired my own - Skygrazer!. She's helped answer questions for me regarding both websites and sculpting. I had left a comment on one of her blog-posts a couple weeks ago about my affinity for dragons and the information I gathered about them to use in designing my tattoo. She responded with an incredible bit of information regarding the Chinese dragons - which is what I'm working on. So, the current piece I'm working on is another chess piece that will probably be the Queen. It's a Chinese dragon based on the information Christy gave me. Oddly enough, it doesn't really correspond with how...
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I'm spent some time testing the molds I made... As you may recall, the blue 3-part mold had not come out as well as I'd hoped, so I was very interested to find out what it would make. I have yet to complete the mold for the second half of the lighter case, so I still can't say with certainty what went wrong, but I hope to have answers on Monday. The 2-part mold of the Rook came out as planned, so I am more confident - knock on wood - that casting it will go smoothly. Otherwise, I've been brainstorming on creating a base for all the individual chess pieces. Something simple, I'm thinking a little wooden "puck" with a felt bottom. I've been poking around the interweb trying to find something like that. Ultimately, I suppose I could buy a wooden dowel and slice it into half or quarter inch...
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