Back when I had time to kill, and babies were things only other people had, I discovered an art term that had me at "hello": Papercraft. It's like origami but without all the rules; you can cut, tape and glue all day long. Similar to origami, the models come in a range of difficulties of which you can lose your mind on a step or two. There are tons of papercraft models you can buy on the internet to print and assemble. If buying art on the internet is your thing...well... have you seen my shop? If freebies are more your style there're a plethora of free papercraft models as well... and... have you seen my shop? Those of you familiar with Papercraft may know it as Pepakura or "Pep" for short. If you REALLY are familiar with it, then chances are good you live in Japan and Europe. Here...
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Dang! I had a lot of pictures in my last post! Some might say... too many? ...I might say that. In hindsight, I should have divided the images from the last post into 2 posts, but I was excited and proud at how this chess piece was coming along. I've "finished" sculpting it, and I'm happy with how it turned out. Since I'm still unsure which chess piece it'll be (bishop, knight or king) I may add horns depending on what piece we decide. Until then I figure I'll just keep working on new chess pieces as I come up with them, and let relativity decide which piece he is. The finishing touches I've completed on this piece are subtle but necessary. I'll show you what I mean by comparing some before and after pictures. Note the differences that were made on the neck. I used what're called mini ribbon tools...
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Over the last few days I've divided my time into frantically searching for ideas and trying to get my mind off my lack of ideas (hoping that would spark some ideas... geez). The veil has finally lifted *knock on wood* and I'm fairly certain I'm on to something now. It's an amalgamation of both old and new ideas embodied as another chess piece. Before I began this website, I tried to make a chess set, but it came out too small and way too... crappy. I wanted to finish the full chess set so badly I didn't pay enough attention to the individual pieces - their designs and execution were half-assed and rushed. Below, you can see the rough design and widdle-bitty bishop I made before. To be fair, there were a couple good ideas in this tragedy. The first was the crest on the dragon's head that was meant to look like a pope's...
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Oh baby, my baby doesn't have the croup, he has a repertory infection... now, we ALL have respiratory infections. I haven't been sick in years and I just want to lay down... he just want's to play. The good news is I have been getting more sleep the past couple nights. The bad new is 4 hours isn't a whole lot of sleep to be proud of. I'm only slightly worried about that since my giraffe research led me to the fact that giraffes survive on less sleep than any other mamal - 4 ½ hours. LOL, with that in mind I tried to get an extra half hour in this morning but it was not to be. I've "finished" the Queen! I was determined to get her baked last night, and I did. There are still a couple more minor details that I'd like to add but she's done. I'll show you what we've...
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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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