Leech Update...

Here's a quick photo update of about where I am with the Giant Leech Prop.  I've been sick for a while, so I've been steering clear of the studio and all the dust/fumes/chemicals and other randomness that are contained within.

Mouth Sculpt (clay with Sculpey teeth)

Mouth Sculpt (alt angle)

Scrap plastic & clay made mold boxes
(figured while I was at it, I would mold the puzzle pieces I did a long time ago as well)

Poured the silicone molds

Puzzle Piece Mold

Leech Mouth Mold

Casting the Leech body out of Foam (Soama Foama 25 - awesome stuff, though doesn't hold minute details well)

Mouth & Puzzle Piece foam casts

The foam expands 2-3 times it's volume, and pushed the body mold halves away from each other, also with the 90 second pot life the mouth was poured second and the foam did not get into the teeth molds at all 

About what it will look like...

 I ended up re-casting the mouth and the puzzle pieces this afternoon, I will post pictures from that tomorrow night most likely...

-eD

About Time...

I finally put up my 2 paintings.  I'll be starting a 3rd in November once I clean up our Halloween mess, and figure out exactly how I want it to look...

"Nostalgia" on a wall

Figured this one showed it off a bit better in the "dining room" area.

"Hollywood" on a wall!  This one is in the Den, so I'll see it every time I come down the stairs.  The room feels more comfortable that the walls aren't empty.  I think the 3rd piece will also end up in this room...

 Besides these new pieces up, we've also cleaned the house and reorganized some parts, so the house as a whole feels much nicer and welcoming.  It sounds lame, I know, but what I mean is that I wouldn't mind inviting new people over right now.  Maybe not after the weekend, we shall see...
-eD

There were some large crows above the garage when i started 2 work. The largest started calling others over. decided 2 close the garage door. Then it poo'd. -eD

Run For Your Lives (& Stuff)

Last year Rich, Ben, and I registered for a 5k Zombie Run called "Run For Your Lives".  We were told that it would be a 5k with obstacles and zombies.  It was a great experience but holy crap there is really no way you can train for this race.  I rode my elliptical bike, and ran a few times before the race, but it's more of random obstacles and a whole lot of sprinting around people dressed as zombies.  You start with 3 flags, and at one point after all my flags got snagged a random zombie hooked me up with an extra flag.  

But it seems that regardless of flags or not everyone got a participation medal.  I knew I wouldn't place but just wanted to have fun...

The only picture of me from the race...

My attire from the Zombie run.  A lot of mud/sand and nasty water.  

 Once October is over and my prop projects are finished I will be going back into the studio on one more 24x24 painting that will be more of an installation piece.  Then I have a grand idea for a series of pieces.  As gifts but mostly as a fun experiment and other fun stuff.  I will post progress of images if I am able to (some may be top secret).
 Big plans though most of the hands on projects will take a slight back-burner while I jump back in cg stuff.  There are a few characters that need modeled, and other possible cool freelance stuff coming on the horizon...
-eD


PS...

Colored Faux Fur, not as expensive as I thought.  Maybe 2013 will be the year I finally make my own hoodie for my extensive hoodie collection.  I've already been getting better at sewing...

1st costume "Game-Over Knuckles"

First off for those of you who do not know/remember who Knuckles is, he was a character from Sonic & Knuckles for the Sega Genesis.  A picture of him is below...

Knuckles the Echidna

The first idea as a group that we made was Zombified Video Game characters.  Then after we decided on it and I started figuring out stuff everyone else backed out.  Granted I had much more free time to work on stuff, and here are some behind the scenes pics on the steps I did for the pieces of the costume...

Red shirt, made little cuts and shoved Styrofoam bones through the holes.  the first fake blood pass didn't really show on the red shirt, but then after mixing the fake blood with some craft glue it thickened to a nice nasty red color.  Though after it totally dried it had too much of a glue look.  Added a fringe of hair for the chest tuft that was also covered in blood.

Made some shoe additions out of cardboard and 16oz pop caps, spray painted them with a chrome silver I had, then threw blood all over them.  The fake blood pooled too much, so i sprayed some clear coat on top, popped the bubbles after it dried and sprayed air to spread the blood around a bit more.  added them to new slippers that looked the closest in color to Knuckles shoes.

Tail work.  I cut apart some sweat pants and used the fabric for the tail parts.  I hand sewed the base and tip of the tail, as well as the belt loops that I attacked at the end so I could take the tail off with ease and not ruin the main pair of sweats that I would wear.  Once the parts were sewn up inside out, I flipped them back, inserted trash bags into the fabric and used the spray foam stuff you get for insulation to bulk up the fleshy bits.  I thought doin this would help it keep it's shape as well as letting me run a large wire through the whole tail using the foam as support.  Worked out pretty well, with a vertebrae foam piece in the center, also covered the bone and nubs with the blood glue mixture I made.

My face mold,  we didn't really know what we were doing, and after this experience we know a lot of stuff to not do next time, and other ways to go about it better.  Used a novelty straw to breathe out of (which whistled while I breathed in or out of) because I knew the prosthetic was mainly nose so I wanted to make sure I got that molded the best.  The mold turned out good for what I needed though the lip areas were skewed because of how I was using my lips to clench the straw.  Also should have matted down my goatee, that was not so much fun to clean...

the finished mold and an ultracal cast of my face.  Considering this was our first head mold/cast I think it went pretty well.  Enough that I could do what I needed for this costume at least.

Nose prosthetic sculpt.  First prosthetic sculpt I ever did.  pretty happy with it.  It even had working nostrils.  

Nose Sculpt Mold and foam casting...  The Ultracal we used to mold the nose was too thick to pour into the nostrils, but it did go in a bit.

Foam Nose Prosthetic.  had some foam overflow, so it needed to be trimmed down.  I also shoved dowels and then straws through the nose to try to recreate the nostrils so I could breath out of the nose.  It worked a little bit, though since the lip part was already slightly off the prosthetic slowly worked it's way off of my face from my mouth and nostril areas (most likely from the moisture).

Full Costume, You can't see but I have cuffed green socks, the sweat pants were bigger than I thought , but I doubt mediums would have fit comfortably.  Sadly, I couldn't get spooky contacts to finish off the Zombie Knuckles look, but I'm still pretty happy with it.

Tony as Scarecrow (2.0) / Me / Les as a burn victim (he had cool flesh latex on all exposed  flesh including his R arm)

The only Picture that I had taken of myself.  Think It's the creepiest of them all though...

Aftermath...  After I took off all the gear I took a pic of my prosthetic, then  I wiggled my head back n forth and the  prosthetic finally gave way, the 2nd pic was taken 2 seconds before it fell off, then I place it back onto my face cast where it resides in the studio.  Should probably clean it off though...

This is where the tail now resides in our studio/garage.  

So my original intention was Zombie Knuckles, at the party it was called Roadkill Knuckles, but I think the best name for it would be Game-Over Knuckles.  Like he was in the game and fell down a hole or lost too many rings and had a game over.  I dunno.  it was fun to experiment on stuff.  Still have my second costume. I will be posting stuff about that soon enough...

Been so busy as you can see.  I think most of those behind the scenes pictures were taken last week, hence why I haven't been updating as often as I would like.  Also finished another back cover for The Adventures of Wally Fresh #8.  It's the best one yet.

-eD

6 flags

Went back to six flags today for a few hours.  We rode some rides, had a good time roaming around, and since I had a season pass it was pretty much besides gas considering I didn't pay for gas.
also since i didn't want to run the risk of having to take my chain wallet back to the car, I brought my normal wallet.  the funny part is that  i have a joker's card in all of my wallets, from different packs no less.  I actually have two in my normal chain wallet.
Yup, I rock joker's card wherever I go...
Also almost bought a Batman cape again until I remembered I was 30 and it wouldn't be as cool as I thought it would be...
-eD

Monday Mold Finish Day...

I mixed and poured the second half of the mold for my sculpt.

I measured it pretty well.  only a minor bit of spill over

It cured enough to be able to remove it from the mold box and open it, here's a large image of it all.  with the sculpey sculpt and the clay sculpt stayed in tact as well.

Here's a close up of one of the halves.

I'm going to let the clay that is still in there to dry out overnight and I will finish cleaning the mold tomorrow.  Maybe trim it up a bit.  I think it all worked out pretty well considering it was my first sculpt/mold.  I learned a few things that I need to do better with, but that all comes with time.

Of course I still have to sculpt the mouth piece.  There's always tomorrow I suppose.  3 more weeks of time before Halloween, but only 11 days until the first costume party.  Still have to learn how to do life casting to get a face-cast to sculpt on for the one prosthetic that I need to make.  But I'm feeling confident... for now...
-eD

Sunday Pics...

went to bed at 5 or 6 am, woke up and out the door by 10 to pick up some small wood pieces from Michael's craft stores.  Then home to work on the mold box a bit.  The sculpt kept a lot of it's moisture but dried enough to really hold the details that I added into it.  Something to remember for future projects.

Mold box start...

More time spent on the details of the leech.  It ended up a few inches shorter than the sculpey version but I think it will work much better this way actually (and save some supplies for casting).  Surprisingly if I stood up the sculpey sculpt next to the lazy susan both sculpts are the same height.

The sculpt in the box, some clay added to save a bit on supplies for the molding.  didn't totally think this one through because I put the sculpt in before adding the clay to fill it up more, but I didn't want to possible bump the sculpt and mess it up.  Though I did need to seal the wood seam with clay behind the sculpt which I had to get my hands around the sculpt in order to do so.  I dunno, I'll get better at it.

The first half of the molding.  I'm getting really excited about this.  I have to wait a few hours for it to set, and then around midnight (LA Time) I will hop into the studio and add the 2nd half.  

 Now I just have to sculpt the mouth, mold that, cast both pieces, add them together, and paint them.  and of course repeat.  Because while one giant leech is cool, two giant leeches are amazing!

I can't wait to get this guy put together and see how it is all together! In a related note, I don't know how to explain how excited I am about Halloween this year either.  If all goes to plan I will have two drastically different costumes, one of which I think most people (at least in my age demographic) will find recognizable and funny that will have a personally sculpted nose piece, and the other a costume of my own design with the giant leeches. If no one gets it or likes it, I don't care, cause this one's for me, and possibly a horror movie/series of shorts I may write in the near future.  Worst case scenario I have one badass costume, and another almost costume ready for the next costume party...
-eD

Saturday Pics...

Here are some pictures from what I worked on yesterday (Saturday)...

Removed the lower ball bearing part from a lazy susan I bought at Ikea to attach to the smaller round wooden piece so I could make a smaller lazy susan.  not entirely in the middle, but it'll work...

My sculpey sculpt in a box.  testing sizes and options for a mold box.

My paintings sitting in the Den waiting on Frames so they can be put onto the walls like a normal piece of art...  ("Nostalgia" is behind "Hollywood")  Tony had some friends visiting that said they were going to try to smuggle them onto the plane to take them home.  Not sure if she was trying to be nice or not, but it still made me smile.

Decided to resculpt the entire piece.  The sculpey wasn't working out too great, a little too firm  to get what I needed.  Luckily Les bought some clay for our projects and I used that.  So not only my first real sculpture, but also my first time working with clay.  Added some detail, but then dulled it down with some water.  Had to cover it with wet paper towels so it didn't dry out once I was finished for the day which I was worried about, but it turned out fine.

More pics from today (Sunday) to follow...
-eD

GO Ninja GO!

"The only things that seem to be stopping my path to being a ninja are my noisy clinking wallet chains, heavy boots, and of course my lack of nun-chuck techniques..." - eD

Lotus Bros

I found wrestling mask replicas of the Dark Lotus masks that they wore in their concerts at a few of the Gatherings at my Mexican wrestling mask website where I have purchased many masks in the past.  They had they versions, a traditional black and white, a black on red, and a black on green.  Considering my favorite color is green, and Del's is red I felt it was a sign.  I've had these masks in my room for a few months now waiting for Halloween.  I didn't even open mine until a week ago, because I couldn't control myself any longer.  I sent the guys theirs even though I knew it was too early for a Halloween gift, but I knew they would understand.  I could tell this considering soon after each of them had received their packages I had received text messages with these pictures...

Hobbs got his today (monday) so I can finally talk about it.  

Del got his on Friday, and just so happened to be wearing his red Faygo shirt no less.

And of course i had to take a picture of me the first time that I put on my mask. It's been sitting on my desktop staring at me cause I could not post it until I knew for sure the surprise would not be ruined.

I must take out my lip ring when I wear this mask, a little annoying but worth it...  (Maybe trim the goatee runoff a bit too)

I have worn this mask twice to play rock band.  Each time it was spectacular, though my back is still a little sore from rocking too hard on Saturday.  Or sleeping funny, getting older, could be anything...
-eD