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Ok folks, I have a prize for the August raffle here, but he is a secret.
He is a dragon, his name is "Wampus Cat", and he is flamboyantly marked. People who look at him go "wow", then they stand there a minute before they say " I kinda like him" .

You have been warned.

I painted Wampus Cat to be an Ebay "Artist's edition" but after I had started painting him I noticed that he had some casting defects, so he is now a raffle prize.

This blog has nothing to do with Windstone, but I think mysteries are always welcome.
I finally found the old polaroid photos I took of this "Mysterious Object" that we have been trying to identify for years.

...So what is this thing?!? Anybody have a clue?

The closest thing I can think of is a brass wind instrument mute, but it seems too large for most brass instruments, and it isn't padded or very smooth where it would touch the bell of an instrument. It is flat on the bottom.

This is "Dance", the raffle prize for July!
He is a pinto of some kind, is this kind is called Overo -? I think Tobiano is the other kind, with the rounded spots. I can't keep them straight.
I noticed that he had some almost invisible pin holes in his mane after I had painted him, so instead of being sold, he gets to go home with the lucky winner of this months raffle!

If you would like a chance to win Dance, email me with your forum name and real name and address, with the words "July 2010 raffle " in the subject line.

So, I was thinking about capital "A" Art again.

I previously had come to the conclusion that the theme and purpose of "Modern Art" is to feel around for the borders that define "Art" in our culture, move them into new territory and by doing so, stretching our brains out a-ways too.
Modern art started when somebody, I think it was Cezanne, decided to treat a painting as a flat image that was made with paint on a board, when he outlined a shadow with a line.
WHAT?? IS HE NUTS??

This is "Flat Paws" the raffle prize for June. Like most of our raffle prizes, he is a little bit odd. His name refers to his front feet, which, because his mold was under poured when he was cast, are a bit flatter than other flap cat's feet. Other than having flat flapcat feet instead of fat flapcat feet, he is a perfectly good, odd eyed, soccer ball colored flapcat. He has little blue and gold metallic spots on his wing feathers, and matching blue and gold jewels set in his collar.

These are two examples of the several attempts I have tried, to sculpt a Tatzel cat, or Dragon cat. I have never been that happy with any of the designs I have done -I wanted them to be ... I dunno ... prettier, less creepy, more catlike or something. I think it is the long neck that bothers me.

The sketch is a photoshop drawing I did of a real sculpture. It is a tiny sculpture intended to be cast in pewter, and I couldn't get the stupid camera to focus properly, so I drew over the out-of-focus image and added some details that had broken off of the sculpture over the years.

Notice how I put the year after the month -we've been doing this raffle for quite awhile now, so I need to designate a year!

This is "Azalea" she is the prize for this month's raffle. She is a dark dapple grey unicorn mare. She is one of the test paints I have done of the dapple grey pattern. I think this is the most difficult horse color to reproduce!

She came out darker than I wanted, but this is what a young dapple grey horse will look like when they are just beginning to change from their first dark coat color to "grey".

Was a great success!
Pegasi1978 won the special raffle for robotics team 997.
She chose "Stormy" the unicorn as her prize.

We raised over two thousand dollars for the Corvallis High School robotics team!!

I test painted a phoenix today! I painted him grey because there aren't many grey phoenixes around.
This is one of the very first castings we got out of the master mold, after a new master was cast. I sculpted the topknot on this phoenix out of epoxy clay because this version still had a hole to glue on a pewter crest. I am going to just sculpt a crest onto the master instead so that we don't have to fool around with a separate pewter piece. We have enough problems!

There is a Special raffle this month!
Explanation:
Griffin, our son, is in a robotics club at Corvallis High School. Each year the team designs and builds a robot to compete against other High School level robotics clubs in the region. This year there were 60 teams that competed in the regional competition.
The Corvallis High School club WON!!!

Now the team qualifies to go to the National competition in Atlanta Georgia!!!
... but the team needs to raise the money for this trip. They have almost made it, but are still a bit short of their goal.