WIP: Wilhelmina

I'm a little further than this but this is my most updated photo. I need to clean her up in some and add her name still, but I am definitely happy with the progress. 

WIP: Jeanette

When I first started getting into drawing these creature things, Jeanette was the first one. I never finished her sketch, but I did turn her into a final piece on wood. Anyway though, I love her. So I have recycled her (as I have with other creatures) for another deck piece. 

Once again, I started painting before I took a picture of the sketch on the deck. You can barely see it and its really rough, but its there. When I did Ralf (the blue elephant with human feet) I put too much detail in the sketch and the pen was kind of a struggle to cover up. So I made an effort to only get the basic shape of what I'm going for. 

Originally, I thought it'd be cool to have something that looked like blown bubblegum. Julia Randall's series Blown (its beautiful) is where the inspiration sorta came from. Anyway, once I started painting I used more reds than pinks and the images began to look more like odd organs or something. Rather than scrapping it or changing it, I just kind of went with it. And frankly, I pretty happy with it thus far.

Beginning of Jeanette and more progression on the organ things:

Close up of lips:

WIP: Ralf

Well he is pretty much finished. All I have left to do with him is to put a layer of some kind of varnish over it to keep the paint from chipping. But this is what the rest of Ralf's body looks like and then the bottom of the deck. I'll upload final images of the entire board with close ups soon. 

Ralf 

Bottom of Deck

WIP: Ralf

My boards finally came! Pretty stoked about it! I was hoping that when I ordered blank boards that, that would mean they were just the wood boards, however there is a clear coat of something to give it that shine. Which I guess (or I think anyway) I can work around it. I'll probably have to buy some kind of varnish and go over again once I'm finished. 

Anyway, I went out and bought some paint. I just got this Craft Smart Acrylic Gloss Paint. It was around $1.29 or something. Then I drew up my image and then started painting. Pretty simple.  

After I started painting, I was pretty bummed that the paint wasn't working as I had hoped. I thought it would have been thicker. Its kind of like nail polish, where you have to use a few layers in order to get full coverage. It isn't bad, but it isn't great either. 

You can clearly see that in the purple bubbles, but in Ralf, I was decently patient and gave him time to dry up some before adding more color. So he's fairly solid in color. 

Top half

Middle

More Sketches

So those new skate decks are suppose to come today, however, it is now 7pm (Ohio time) and they still have no arrived... I am more than disappointed about it. However, I have done both of these sketches recently. 

This top image is Ralf. His sketch is pretty much done and I think I know completely what I want to do with the board. I'm thinking some kind of bubble background and then his name on the side of it... This is what I'm thinking anyway. 

And this one does not currently have a name. The face area is weird still. I want it to kind of look like skin over a skull with no eyes or nose. I plan to try and just shade it so it looks that way. So we'll see how that turns out. However, I have yet to figure out how the rest of the board is going to turn out. It may just be a simple one like the Timothy Deck. Have a solid colored background and then throw this guy in. 

Large Figure WIP 3

This is just an update on what I have added since last time. It stands probably close to 4 feet tall right now. Not sure if you can tell but there is a piece of white foam on the very top. My plane is to build the next layer around that piece of foam. I maybe need to take it a little higher, just so that when I build the top layer around the bottom, there is more support. 

Anyway, this is where I am now. I plan to gesso this entire layer once it all dries and then begin on the next level. I still need to get my fabric for once this is completed. I'm thinking the fabric should be in a white or off-white tone that I can paint with brown, red, and yellow tones. The tones will look pretty washed out I think. 

Large Figure WIP 1

I am now attempting to build a much larger figure. The original idea was create the entire form out of foam, however, getting the material was becoming rather difficult. So I have decided to build it out of discarded materials. This is only the bottom piece. 

My original idea was to build the form up on a smaller base form and then create two layers over top. The problem is, now that I am building this out of mixed materials, I not sure how smoothly I can get the layers to lay on top of one another. I'm thinking I may just need to build one solid form, however, getting it out the door is my next issue. I have some old closet doors that are of no more use, and was thinking I could use one of those. The width of the door is smaller than the width of the doorframe I have to get piece through. I could then build the entire form on the door and slide it right out the door. Also, rather than being 8' tall, it would have to be about 6'7" I'm not sure how I feel about that yet. So maybe I'll just need to figure out how to create layers. Or at least two layers.