Aaaand... ACTION!

Some starting sketches for a dream that I figured is time to start!  More information in the written bits below, I guess...

These are the initial research sketches and ideas for a little figure I want to make.  I've been toying (surprise pun) with the idea for a long time, and doodling has been as far as I've taken it; up to this point.

A vinyl-type figure that I can mold and cast copies of is something I've been wanting to do for years, but simply never known where to start.  I figured "somewhere" is as good a place as any, so after a ton of doodles and research, I grabbed some tin foil, made a ball and four sticks, and Milliputt'd around it until I had something that resembled a human figure.

I'd been working with it like this for a while and thought that it kind of lacked something, but I couldn't put my finger on it...

Then tonight, I just drilled some more holes in the tops of the arms to see what it would look like with the palms facing inwards, as opposed to backwards; and now I love it again and that excitement has been revived!

I wasn't a fan of the left hand on this guy; the process was as follows:  I balled up one big and one small ball of tin foil and Milliput..ted around it to get a basic shape; made tin foil sausages (4) and Milliputted around them and made rough arm and leg shapes.  Then I rolled out a ~1/8" thick sausage and cut it into smaller sausages and left to cure to make the fingers out of.

Once the fingers were cured, I got a small disc of cured Milliput and used hot glue to attach the fingers and bulk up the hand some.  I was able to sculpt the shape somewhat with the nib of the hot glue gun on the glue once it was on the arms, which cut down on any excess and errant glue wisps.

After sculpting on some more detail, I didn't like where the left hand was going.  Something about how I'd attached the fingers had sat them a little awkwardly, and I wanted to redo them.  Which further moved the idea on to articulate at least some parts of the figure - I drew that out below.

I think that if I use the same gauge of ball bearing (1/4") for the ball and socket joints on the figure, I could cast a small mold for that 1/4" ball and make a few casts in order to keep the same size for the ball parts that I'll sculpt to the arm-side of the shoulders, the head-side of the neck, and the hand-side of the wrists, respectively.  Then I'll drill out the body-side sockets at the shoulders and neck, and the arm-side sockets at the wrists, get some Milliput in there and make an impression with my 1/4" ball tool.  That way, the sockets and the balls will all be a consistent size and more straightforward to make.

Here's where I'll be cutting the figure once it's sculpted up fully.  I've got two more hands (one for each side) that I'll also be able to work on - easily, because of the consistent gauge.  I can pop a 1/4" ball on those and they'll fit into the wrist sockets no problem.

For casting, I'll be using the method that gives me two halves of a mold as opposed to casting this completely and cutting out a removal slit down the side.  I'll have the head on its own, body and legs together, arms separate, and four hands separate; I'll mold some Plasticine around the (approximate) half way point around the length of the model parts, and pour some silicone to set the first half.

Once this is done, I'll scrape off the Plasticine, cover the first silicone half of the mold with Vaseline in order to release the second half (silicone sticks to silicone), and then pour the second half.

After that, it'll just be a case of pouring a cast from resin when I want to make a new figure to work on.  If I can get over the step of actually making the mold and casting the figure, I'll be at a place where I can cast another prototype to further the design and maybe cast again to make a second run and improved design.  It's quite exciting.

I'm picturing something that's versatile and customisable, but that could look pretty good on its own.

That's where I'm up to right now; amid a host of other projects, of course.

I'll keep you posted on how it progresses.  I've got some more cutting, sculpting, and rethinking to do, but I'm getting to a point at which I'm pretty happy.

Peace.

New kid on the block.

I realised but a moment ago that I haven't posted an update here in a while.  I've been pretty sidetracked with a few things.

To name a handful:
My wife's Melanoma diagnosis.
The birth of our third son.
The removal of all of the Melanoma.
The launch of my Kickstarter campaign.
The application - and approval - of hosting international students for this coming school year.

So from the top...

My wifey was checked out by her dermatologist on her 6 month appointment (redhead in the Arkansas sun), and they took a mole from her neck to send for testing.

Three weeks before scheduled C-section due date for baby boy number three, she was told that it was Melanoma, and that they had cut through it, not around it completely; so there was still some left, and she needed to get it removed.

Onwards!

Talking about the third boyo...  Josiah Timothy Martin Fairweather was born on the 21st of May!  Weighing in at 6 lb 1 oz, he was lighter than the other two at birth for a couple of weeks!

He is super chill and very smiley, which is absolutely great for a third child!  Brothers love him and have a great time taking care of him and holding him.  Plus, they've really come into their own with playing together, which is great!

Little Man had his introduction day at Kindergarten on Tuesday, so Giddy Bug and I went out and had some ice cream (as consolation for a surprise shot at the doc's).  We ran around and spent some time fishing a flooded lake, too.  It was pretty chill.

Since Giddy's introduction day was just a test session to gauge his level* for Pre-K, I didn't have a lot of time to do something with Little Man, so I saved that time for today and we went fishing.  We didn't catch anything ** but we had a good time picnicking at the edge of a pond and having a good heart to heart.

* he was the first Pre-K test kid in 12 years for his teacher that counted down from 10 to 1 with no problem.  Proud dad moment.

** Frustrated side note:  I was using the tackle and bait, at the pond, the spot in the pond, and a good temperature that was advised to me from someone who caught a dozen or so catfish last time we were there.  And nothing.  The first time I've done what had been advised in order to catch fish and nothing happened.  Maybe in a month when the weather is cooler, I guess.

We didn't think that a 2-month-old baby was enough, so we took on two exchange students this year!  They're super cool and I'm looking forward to hosting them and showing them what rural America looks like!  They'll be gutting fish and skinning deer in no time.

Nhi (back left) is from Vietnam, and Itxi (back right) is from Spain.  They're great.

I launched a Kickstarter campaign!  Admittedly, it's not really doing all that well... but I think that the making of it and putting myself out there as a big step, at least.  I was going to make four dolls to be modified by 16 different artists as they travel across the world; I'll be making a little coffee table book that documents their journeys; with photographs, illustrations, maps and a showcase of the works by all of the artists involved.  I'm super excited about it, but as I said, I have a little under $400 towards the $9,250 at the time of writing.

That being said, I am massively encouraged by the support I've been receiving by those who have pledged.

If the campaign isn't funded, I'm still going to do the project, but on a much smaller scale; one doll and four artists - three of the four that were going to be the initial four for the bigger project.  We'll see what happens!

Peace.

Sort of short-term goal.

There's something that I've been working on recently (surprise, surprise) regarding D&D.

It's a project that started as a side thing to do while giving me a break on commissioned stuff, and it's kind of come into its own over the last week or so - to the point where I think I might be able to keep it going and maybe make something Etsy-worthy.

Goodness knows I need some success on Etsy; I've sold a grand total of one keyring in the last few months.  I don't really mind - it's a set-it-and-forget-it kind of thing at this point.  A $4-$10 every 6 months set-it-and-forget-it, mind you, but something that I can just have in the background from day-to-day.

I've also got a few doll commissions in the pipeline that I'm really excited about.

So I have this D&D thing nearly to the point of being done.  So what do I do?  Stop doing it so I can write about it, of course.

I've sent myself the pictures of it all, but they're taking a while to come through; in the meantime, here's a little breakdown of January and February this year:

I went ahead and dismantled the trampoline, brought it inside and ... re-mantled it for the boys to have something to burn off energy while it was cold.  It's a hit.  They spend about an hour and a half every day bouncing all over it.

It was pretty cold there for a solid week.  8 inches of snow over the course of about three hours one morning gives you a good idea of how quick the weather around here changes.  We loved it.  I got a few nice shots of the field and the trees before we all came outside and then the boys and I built a snowman, and poured some honey onto the fresh snow and made honey snow treats...  That's the best name I could come up with.  Wifey sat inside after getting the boys bundled and had a nice time watching.  She doesn't much like the cold.

More time spent indoors was used to focus on art and creativity, which is always a hoot.  The boys have very different styles; #1 is very much tidy and straight-forward, whereas #2 paints himself most of the time.  Here's a Bulbasaur from #1.  They're getting pretty into Pokemon right now.  Which Dad here absolutely loves!

Wifey continues to be pregnant.

I got some more (dirty) halves from one of the banks I frequent.  They hold onto a lot  of their halves for me, since they don't come through near as much as I ask about them!  Small town branches are the best.  These fellas are from between '65 and '69, so they have a 40% silver content.  Probably around the $3.50 mark for silver content - 50 cents apiece from the bank, of course...

I made the inaugural sale on my Etsy account.  The Scarab keyring.  One of my personal favourites.

I cleared some space between a couple of the buildings on the property.  Not a lot of space, but it felt so good to get something done!

We found a dog.  Or he found us.  We only held onto him for a week since we're just not equipped for a dog right now.  It was a fair cost to take him for that long.  He was a good boy.  I called him Daxos, but I doubt that's his name.  No-one claimed him, so we took him to the local shelter.  They're confident they can find him a home since he's so chill.  Obviously been around people a lot; we just couldn't keep him.

Related to the project I'm working on, since this was the first sheet I did.  I looked at the sizes for D&D, Pathfinder, etc.  Tabletop RPGs.  A medium creature takes about 5' (in game) square space, with a 5' reach.  That translates to about a square inch/inch, respectively at the tabletop scale, so I wanted to use those sizes and that scale and make some paper/card cutout characters for a cheaper tabletop experience...

The first batch was pretty good.  I was very happy with the result and had a great time doing it all.  Through this first process, I went from my usual biro and paper approach to penciling out a rough shape and then taking to it with a Micron.  The smallest point I could find; the 005.  I do believe there's a 003 out there, but I haven't been able to track that down yet.

Then I moved onto watercolour to get it all finished off.  It was refreshing to work in such small scale!  I did another two pages after this - a total of 120 characters.  It was a blast, and it led to the next part of the project, which it looks like I'll have to go into in another post, since this is pretty long already.  I'll do that soon.

Last but not least, I got my first herp of the year in February!  Of course, it was a Rough Earthsnake - what else would I find?!  Chill fella in the flowerbeds at church.  Boy #1 is getting bolder and bolder with handling things like this, too.  That makes me happy.

Signing off now.  Got a few more things to talk about coming up, and I'm super excited to be working on some illustration work that I can't share right now.

Now that I've shouted into the void a little here, I can move on and get some more drawing done.

Peace.

2018/2019. A review and some goals and stuff.

2018 was a pretty good year.

I mean...  I didn't actually achieve a whole lot of things from my list of goals for the year, but it was, overall, a very productive year.

Some of the things that I was hoping to do were smaller, outdoor-related things, like catch two fish species that were new to me, to find a frog species that was new to me, and other such outdoorsy things that don't necessarily rank as high priority in the ol' hindsight scale of things, you know?

So I have a few highlights here that I am pretty happy about.  Some of them are to do with collections, milestones, family time highlights, etc.  So in no particular order; here's a very brief overview of 2018:



We started the year in England, which in itself is a blessing to be able to say.  We'd just spent a lovely Christmas and New Years with my folks back in the UK, and met up with old friends and their new kiddos.  It was a blast.  We were able to see the new building for our old church, and visit old haunts with our boys.  It was a lot of fun.

This year was a great year for my coin collection.  Some huge moments added a solid number of pennies to the mass; notably, a 23-coin haul of 1964 half dollars, a two-week span that saw 30 Eisenhower dollars brought in, and several nice little finds in coins rolls - a NIFC 2000 nickel, and a couple of teen 1900's pennies.  I also started down the slippery slope of buying specific coins...
I purchased a couple of Indian Head Pennies, a V-nickel, and a Mercury Dime, along with a bag of 1950's pennies and a pound of Canadian pennies.  I also won a Morgan dollar and a Standing Liberty quarter, among other coins.  It really was a good year for this particular hobby!

I set up an account on Shutterstock this year, too!  I've only got a handful of pictures on there, and from all of the ones I have, this one has done the best.  As in it's the only one that's been downloaded!  My aim is to get some more up there this year and have a bigger selection on my account, but there's something nice about having something going on in the background that can (very slowly) accrue some income.



I caught one new fish to me this year; the Creek Chub.  I was very happy with that, since I had to battle my way through spikes and thorns, through the summer heat in Tennessee, unwillingly donating half of my blood to the local mosquito population in order to get to the little pool in the woodland creek and land the thing.
I also went hunting a lot more; crossbow and rifle, when the seasons allowed.  Didn't see anything, but it was nice to get out more than ever before.  A wave that I want to ride for as much as possible for the next short while, as I only have two months left until the end of the season.  My goal, as has been since we moved over here, is to harvest as much meat as possible for the family from the fields and streams of this countryside.  Good, clean, happy meat.

I was happy with my personal growth and life lesson/life skill additions this year.  From the top; a friend and I went up into our attic space to disconnect the furnace and a/c ducts through the end of summer, since the units had died (of old age) early in 2018.  This was pretty interesting - nothing I hadn't really done before, but this time, the house was mine and I knew the end goal pretty solidly.

Next, I changed out parts on my car's engine!  I would never have thought that I would have done something like this, so to have taken some parts off, replaced and reassembled them - and then to have the car start up first time - was amazing!  I replaced the thermostat and the water pump on my Blazer.  Not at all a thoroughly complicated job, but as someone who went from not having a car until they were 27 to having to learn how to keep one on the road, this is a huge step in skill level and confidence for me.
Of course, as I type this, it's at the mechanics, because I haven't got the time to replace the head gasket, which I'm pretty sure is done for.  So there's that.

Bottom left, we have my legs sticking out of the bottom of our deck.  This was fun.  I just ripped up an old, rotting panel, put some more support beams underneath, and replaced the panel with a new one.  Again, not a huge task for most, but one of the first homeowner repairs that I've made.  And I'm very happy with it.

And then bottom right is (half of) the closet space I made for the new furnace and a/c unit.  We had a bloke install them for us, but the housing and such I did as much of as I could to help out keep costs down, and also to make their job easier.  Now we have a warm house!  It's lovely.

We got a cat!  This beautiful little stray was found in the abandoned house towards the back of our property.  Covered in ticks and fleas, we cleaned her up, got her fed, and she's been happily clawing my arms ever since.  My vote for a name was Roosevelt if it was a boy.  My wifey insisted on Queen Victoria if it was a girl.  So Queen Victoria it is...  She's pretty chill.

Family time was a premium this year.  We saw some fantastic development in the boys, as well as some lovely time spent as just me and the wifey.  As much time as can be found alone with two young boys, mind, but we relish every minute we can have to chill out together.
The year was full of fishing, flipping rocks, building LEGO, and lots of drawing, building forts, playing tag and hide and seek.  And we got a trampoline at some point through the year, too, which is an amazing energy burn for the lads.

I also did a few things that I was pretty happy about; I made a small animation to go with a Kickstarter campaign that I'm planning on releasing a little later this year; I made a chicken wing rub that is probably my favourite dish of 2018; I released a 4-part series that I completed on this blog; and I made a few commission dolls that will hopefully get a little word-of-mouth going.  They were shared through social media a little, and people I didn't know that knew about them were asking about them.  As much as I think I can do all of this social media, I find it a challenge to capitalise on things like this.  But maybe this year will be a breakthrough year for that.  I have an Etsy account going, and the Shutterstock that I mentioned earlier.  I'm trying to push myself and get my work out there as much as an Englishman can...

Little Man started Pre-K this year, too.  And he's loving it!  He's flourished in this new setting, and is learning a whole lot of new skills and abilities.  Some better than others, but hey.  He's 4, and they'll iron out.  He's having a blast, and making smiley faces on his report card most days!

Oh...  And we're adding to the clan!  Boy number 3 on the way in 2019!  Absolutely cannot wait to meet the fella, and Gideon will most likely enjoy being a big brother (he doesn't quite grasp the concept yet).  Micaiah was super hopeful for a sister, but I know he's going to adore another sibling to roughhouse with.  It's going to get noisy, muddy, scrappy and all around mental up in the Fairweather household this year.  My goodness.

So that's been about the year we've had.  A lot of things that came around unexpected (my car repairing adventures were on one of all three that broke down), but we're doing well and can't wait to see what 2019 holds in store.

More repairs to something, I'd imagine...

Happy New Year!

Peace.