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Three photos that Melody posted on the “Windstone Editions” Facebook page – two photos of the factory and a clay dinosaur.
First, the factory …
Melody says, “Windstone shop pics taken from above, since you guys seem to appreciate clutter!”Left side: Three of the painting booths. The blue things are exhaust ducts, the smaller reddish tubes are compressed air lines for the airbrushes. Even though our paints are nontoxic, each booth is very well ventilated. On the right is all the paint samples we use to match colors.
Black wires are electric. Everything hangs from the ceiling so the carts can roll around.
From left to right: painting area, paint samples, airbrush repair area, finishing area and storage for the eyes, jewels, pewter, and pads, finished pieces waiting to be boxed, and finally boxed inventory, and Susie shipping them out! [And a big rubber fish.]
And the dinosaur …
Melody says, “Clay dino. This is a rough clay of a slightly cartoony strycanosaurus dino that we never produced. This is modeled after a vintage, drag-tail idea of what these were thought to look like. The base is cast gypsum, and this sculpt has plastic webbing and red wax between the legs to serve as a parting line for the mold. I did make a finished gypsum carving of this, but we never painted one.
She has a baby too.”
She’s darling!
Read my books! Volume 1 and 2 of A Dragon Medley are available now.
http://www.sarahjestin.com/mybooks.htm
I host the feedback lists, which are maintained by drag0nfeathers.
http://www.sarahjestin.com/feedbacklists.htmMaybe the strycanosaurus mama isn’t dragging her tail; she’s just got it curled down protectively over her baby.
Some Windstone history posted on the “Windstone Editions” Facebook page.
Melody says, “I was going to post these guys on ‘Throwback Thursday’ but I forgot. So here they are on ‘I forgot, Friday’. These are some of the VERY FIRST pieces that we cast, in 1984 when we were trying to figure this out. I painted them with water colors. The cats have glass eyes that were that were painted with regular enamel paint (not fired-on glass paint) so the paint has fallen off of the backs of their eyes.”
Looks like you got a handle on the process very quickly. These are delightful! I particularly like the cats, of course, but the little piglets are charming.
Magentas-Cat
More Windstone history – Melody posted this on her Facebook page. It’s a video of her talk at the Cartoonists Northwest’s October meeting. … presumably this YouTube link will work.
Melody says, “Here’s a …cringe…video of a zoom presentation I did with the Cartoonists Northwest group. I talk about how Windstone started, about sculptures and my comic. … Isn’t it wonderful how a video still will invariably capture you looking really stupid?”
I love how you hand over the sculpts!
Read my books! Volume 1 and 2 of A Dragon Medley are available now.
http://www.sarahjestin.com/mybooks.htm
I host the feedback lists, which are maintained by drag0nfeathers.
http://www.sarahjestin.com/feedbacklists.htmMelody posted this on the “Windstone Editions” Facebook page yesterday (February 23):
Melody says, “Clay day! The first step of creating the Ponycorn mare. The rough clay one has been replicated in gypsum for me to detail.”
The WIP hatching Poad is lurking in the background. 🙂
From the comments – “cute! is the standing one behind her the stallion?”
Melody’s reply – “Not sure of the gender but maybe!”Posted on the “Windstone Editions” Facebook page on February 24:
Melody says, “Throwback Thursday. ( Is it Thursday already?) I’ve posted pics of this guy before. but many haven’t seen him. This is probably the rarest Windstone we’ve ever sold. We sold exactly ONE of these from a store in the very early days of Windstone and then decided not to make more, because it didn’t fit our ‘look’. I was very concerned about having a distinctive style for our line of pieces in the stores so they stood out among all the figurines being made by other companies at the time. He is a Netsuki style baboon.”
Posted this afternoon (March 2) on the Windstone Editions Facebook page:
Melody says, “Clay day! Here is the old Good cat gargoyle in clay and finished. You can’t really tell, but I put a huge amount of work into the finished piece to make it look rough and gargoyle-y. The whole thing was carved and refined. Each little rough spot was tapped into it separately to give it a distressed, weathered look. The gargoyle pieces look easy but they were anything but!
Finished cat on the left, clay cat on the right. The clay cat was made with WED clay.”
Posted on the “Windstone Editions” Facebook page on February 24:
Melody says, “Throwback Thursday. ( Is it Thursday already?) I’ve posted pics of this guy before. but many haven’t seen him. This is probably the rarest Windstone we’ve ever sold. We sold exactly ONE of these from a store in the very early days of Windstone and then decided not to make more, because it didn’t fit our ‘look’. I was very concerned about having a distinctive style for our line of pieces in the stores so they stood out among all the figurines being made by other companies at the time. He is a Netsuki style baboon.”
Wanting to have a distinct look makes sense from a business perspective, but as a netsuke lover I would have really enjoyed getting items like this.
Magentas-Cat
Posted on the Windstone Editions” Facebook page on March 9:
Melody says, “Clay day! This is the Pegasus mare in clay, shown with the first version we produced without the chain, and the final version, with a gold-painted chain and jewels. I added the chain because these looked too plain without them. A little bling is important for things in a gift store. The chainless pegasus mares and foals are rare but do show up on eBay once in a while. The Pegasus stallion never got a chain. I figured he was hot enough as is. … The red stuff on the clay mare is wax that was used to fill cracks that formed in the clay before the first mold was made.”
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