More Vince!

A rather longer interval between the last post and this than was originally intended, essentially because we had a brief heatwave for nearly two weeks which, due to my flat being like an oven in warm weather, made the clay too soft and sticky to work with. Fortunately, the nice weather has ended and June is its customary pisspoor self thus enabling me to resume sculpting and finish the Vince Cable model, as follows:

Now that I've completed two sculptures, I shall make plaster moulds from them soon, using a harder plaster than I've used before called Modell Plaster, which I got from Alec Tiranti (see links on the right). I chose to use this much harder material because the sculptures are considerably smaller than I've made before, so any potential small breakages of the plaster as the clay is removed will show up far more than on a larger casting of a larger object, such as the nearly-lifesize Nick Griffin head. I hope this very hard plaster will not break at all, either during removal of the clay master or subsequent removal of rubber castings.

Vince Cable

Formerly seen as a prophet crying in the wilderness for his warnings about casino capitalism and now tainted by membership of one of the shittiest government administrations in British history, Vince Cable is still reasonably respected. But not enough to escape being lampooned in clay. The sculpture isn't yet finished, but is nearly there, enough to warrant an in-progress photoshoot...

At last, a new post!

Blimey, it's been a while, but hopefully this will mark the start of a new burst of activity...

I'm working on a new project which involves making stopmotion animation puppets of members of the Coalition Cabinet. First up, everyone's favourite Child Catcher Lookalike Secretary of State for Education, little Michael Gove!

The sculpture is made from plasticine, and from that a plaster mould will be made and a latex skin will be cast, have a simple armature fitted and then be filled with polyurethane foam - in essence, it's like a miniature version of the Nick Griffin head but with an armature.

Here's the sculpt:

When the actual animation puppet is made, I'll post progress over on the McTodd Animates! blog.

Next up: Vince Cable!

B3tatastic!

B3ta (pronounced 'beta') is a marvellous website for wastrels (like me!) to post silly stories, anecdotes and craft daft photoshopped (and other) images and animations. My first foray as an adult into sculpting caricatures was actually for a b3ta competition, when I made my Patrick Moore bust (detailed in an early bolg post after I'd upgraded the eyes).

Recently, they had an Amazing Projects thread, to which I contributed a picture of Puppet Nick Griffin, and thereby got a mention in their newsletter! Not by name but by project: b3ta Newsletter 506

Which was nice!

And as a special treat, here's a bigger version of the b3ta image, with Puppet Nick looking suitably patriotic, the twat...


I'm also on the verge of completing a caricature bust of a friend's dad, from which I'll be making a mould and then a resin-bronze casting, to give the effect of a quality cast bronze piece. More on that later...

Biddley biddley bong!

Well, it's been a long time since I last posted. Partly this is due to some demoralisation on my part because the final Hitchcock sculpture/puppet turned out shite, a massive disappointment.

To cheer myself up, I dressed up Nick Griffin:

Alfred Hitchcock: Part 4

Little progress - I've been incredibly busy at work recently, which has taken it out of me - so I've just been tweaking and improving it, and this, I think, is pretty much the final result:


This weekend I'll make the mould...

Alfred Hitchcock: Part 3

Good news - the McGuffins are happy with the sculpt! I plan to build a full body to go with the head, and exhibit it at a McGuffin's event in September, so watch this space...

On the other hand, this Hitchcock sculpt is proving harder than I'd originally thought. You would think, "Alfred Hitchcock - piece of piss." But no - it's very easy to end up with a sort of Generic Fat Bloke, which is what I felt I had in my previous post. So, a few days of faffing about, and this is where I am - I feel it now really captures the essence of Hitchcock, as it were...




Tomorrow I shall refine it, add some minor, but important, detailing, and get on with mouldmaking. Later, I'll show what those holes in the eyeball blanks are for.