[Akeyla]

sketches done from 2 am to 3 am. After I slept from 1 am to 2 am… concept pieces FC
sorry for the rough lines, our scanner here is weak

its always awesome to have a brain run in circles late night

[Akeyla]

dragons pain cats

stop motion shot of the… eh, nude dragon 🙂
fully poseable dragon, remake of the old one, only improved

update:

following Lisa Lichtenfelses idea. Definitly fun and not bad for a first try *touch wood* (far from perfection) but not something I can stick to with…. see–ewww–ing.
But the effect of wire, cotton and stockings is so awesome if you have a walking, talking dragon. not really, but you get the point of “moving” sculpture.

[Akeyla]

hmmm… I’ve had that breakage story too. I found 3 ways to partially solve it:
1: no shipping delicate stuff during high season (ex Christmas)
2: fasten/strap the sculpture to a board (right side down) and stick that board in your first box. That way the sculpture does not kill its frail parts by its own weight when.. oh you know, they play football with it
3: replace all frail parts with sculpey superflex bend clay, plan the details of the figures if I know I ship them far (ex finding a solid nonfrail, sculpture weight holding point where I could do nr 2, as a sample most of my creatures have that point between their shoulders, unless winged)
4: last but not least, make a blood offering to the heathen deities… preferably with a postman caught in the act of kicking a package

her works are really awesome 🙂
Spikes are awesome but mean for transport and shipping. Eventually I personally kept them down because… you cant trust spikes in a box in the hands of a lumbering stranger called postman… 🙁

When I made more important shippings Id clip an image of the piece on the package with a speechbubble saying: please make my trip to my new home across the atlantic a safe one, thank you.
Cant say if it helped or if those were just lucky ones.

[Akeyla]

ok he’s not small but I er… have my eyes on the gold male. But I dont want you to airplanecrash… cause of dragon overweighed suitcases 😉

[Akeyla]

could you er… imagine to perhaps bring a smaller dragon with you when you come here?

[Akeyla]

Lupin wrote:

You are far more patient than I Aky!! I’d have long graduated from the desk to the nearest concrete/brick wall!! And be doing something we here can do, report it to the TV Stations!! 😈 😈 They like good there screwing us over very badly stories!! And they get things fixed and on the ball fairly quickly, ’cause no one likes that bad of PR!!!
And then I’d work with a contingency of my fellow students and sue them for “Just” what I(we) am entitled too, the full refund of my Tuition, books, supplies and living expenses while I’d been enrolled, as well as what would be needed to cover the same at another facility for the entire duration of the program from start to completion at that location, as well as the costs associated with the transfer to such. And if they tried to say “Well that’s too much” just remind them that what they have done is to set you back that far and the mental and emotional grief of having your life far less the same for your creativity, which is supposed to be your livelihood from graduation on, and that if you would rather you will ask for the payment in full of potential wages lost as well, with the knowledge that these wages would have been earned well until your 70’s!! But then again I can be quite a Bitch!! Imagine having to fork out those costs for even just 20 students?

oh should the days of sueing my school come…

hehehe:) you just got me musing about how much I shoult charge them for:

going to bed early everynight
getting up early every morning
motivating myself to go to bed early
huuuge motivation to get up in the morning (winter fees!)
skipping breakfast because of nausea and buying coffe at the station (3$ per cup)
walking to and from school in the dark
carrying a laptop
using an overfilled train

if I should sue them ever. If they continue this rubbisdarn.
eh, any creative price inputs prettyplease?
*g*

[Akeyla]

Greater Basilisk wrote:

Ski’s planning to come down here one of these days. We should make use of that.

EHHHHHH!
tell me everydetailwhenandwhere!
we’ve gotta make a dragon festival 🙂 dragoncookies, dragondinner, dragonartsing, dragonmovies and then we can still each take an ultrapack of rotten eggs and go dragonishly to our school and redecorate em… hem… hehe!
no, seriously! when?! where?!

[Akeyla]

thankyou all…
just stopping by for some new news.
So, Director 1 is sick, remember? Ever since we had Mr Incompetent Director 2. He has continued messing with our system and whilest our futures remains in fog all he can say ” oh it didnt work” and not ” I am sorry it did not work”. AFter he told that in August a student sued school (you may recall) and now, according to the recent rumours we exceeded his expectations and he tucked his tail between his legs and wants to QUIT!
*headdesk*
*headdesk*
*headdesk*

[Akeyla]

thank you very much for your kind words 🙂 they made me smile, back then and also today re-reading them.
I have an update: stagnation, no news, nothing nadas nix. Except that apparently our application time for the (not yet approved) Master is in January. Nice.
In the meantime our school invested time and money on a silly book about artist “author rights” and one of the participating artists/teacher is stitching stuff on copyrighted photography but eh… who cares as long as its art.

And I am making this projekt, right? the one I had that stopmotion figure in process. My teachers told me to save time I should go and buy a Byonicle figure and file and cut it off until I have a suiting dragon. yeahbabe. *headdesk*

[Akeyla]

Greater Basilisk wrote:

That’s decided it, Aky. Thanks for your review. 😆 I guess I won’t be watching it.

if the movie comes out and my boy rents and and *coughcough* mer euis e versio brönne*coughcough* I’d looooove to invite you to our appt for fastforward creature watch of Beowulf and tea and cooking and artsing yeeesss pleeeaassee?

[Akeyla]

I have a question concerning making casts of my figures, I may have finally found a suiting firm.
Its still very futuristic but I am nevertheless very curious to hear your replies/ideas etcetera yadda.
http://akeyla.livejournal.com/

thankies 🙂

[Akeyla]

Greater Basilisk wrote:

😯 My thoughts exactly, Kujacker. I’ve read Beowulf, and it looks like they Hollywoodized it good for the movie. I was thinking about watching it, but if that woman in the red dress is Grendel’s mother, I think I’ll just pass.
It’s a pity, because I love the Beowulf story.

I loved Grendels Mother… though, not Angelina. If you pay close attention to the reflection you see the true self of Grendels Mom, awesumness. She seemed like a huge dragongoldfish. But of course they didnt show it *rolls eyes* left the tasty bits aside… yes, I would have taken a full view of Grendels Mum OVER naked Beowulf and Angelina boobs.
Aside of the dragon thats the only thing I can praise on the movie. Half of the time the eyes were not focused or the comp could not mend the scans of the original actors and it looked like striking realism one second and then the next second simple computer game animation … hfrmmm… stuff. The horses gave me rabbies, totally, fully… never wanted to scream out so much in a cinema.

Grendel had a nice skin texture… *counts fingers* was that it? yes, that was it. Watching it on big screen makes it dragonworthy, but if you know the original and treasure it, get the friggin DVD 😉
or better, when the DVDs out give me the remote so i can fastforward between hollywood nonsense and tasty fantasy stuff.

[Akeyla]

purplecat wrote:

numbers 5 and 6 I believe…sigh…I think after a few tries I’ll get the hang of it. The snaildragon where the rubber tore is because I missed a small spot underneath her chin and the rubber stuck there, really, really stuck. 🙄

oh darn.

anyhow, to point 5:

you can use such things as time lenghteners (or something, dunno english term for it), I believe even a simple squirt of lemmon juice can help. Do check up details on this aswell as amount of the acid needed.
Use COLD water and put the plaster into the water and not the water into the plaster. Stirring sets the plaster faster, so if you stirr your mold MUST be totally fully completly ready for the plaster. At school this used to be a half a minute from using the first thin plaster to sprinkle on the details and 3 minutes later the whole thing was on.
If you are not sure about the mass to use and the dripping issue I highly recommend you make yourself a third mold to hold your mother mold in place, kind of like a basin out of clay. That way you would get a natural seam.
looks like this (please note this is not a plaster tut, but pretty similar):
http://www.thedarkpower.com/Stop%20Motion%20Alien%20moldmaking/images/100_9456.jpg
(full awesome must see thread on conceptart here: http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=90581 beware of pun on the nekkid alien parts!)

Let your plaster rest. As long as it is still warm do not touch it. I know you wanna go and crack the egg, who wouldnt, but you have to wait. I believe that even half a year later you can still open the mold, just soak the plaster clutz in water and then tap it gently and lovingly (as our teacher would say) at the seams.
as long as the surface is rough you can add another layer of plaster, just incase if its not thick enough.

PS: my first plaster mold try, a trilobite, was plastered solidly mummylike into a clutz of plaster because I forgot the divider. May he rest in peace

[Akeyla]

hmm… 6 reasons (many may apply) for breakage could be:
1. your mother mold was to thin in thickness or plaster
parts versus water. Or to much plaster powder
2. you did not have a clear parting line, not enough parting lines or you did not apply enough of the divider
3. Your first mold had to many undercuts, meaning the mother mold snagged on it and then broke where its least resistance was.
4. (not to likely but possible) you had to much divider that soaked into the mother mold and weakend it
5. You applied the plaster to late when it was half setted
6. You touched the mother mold before the plaster had cured right and it got haircracks (I usually wait overnight)

if it cheers you, my first molding was nearly… uhm… dangerous for me. I did not mix the latex properly and inhaled a lot of whatever fumes in it (up to today I have a wheezing part in my lung) and ruined the original because stuff soaked into it and the whole mold was like… gum.
*g*

[Akeyla]

hmmm… how did the mother mold break?
I am asking because I do have some casting experience, though only with no undercut forms in plaster (Aka making a mold with plaster)
and dont give up 🙂

[Author]

Posts