Overdue for an Update

Howdy all,

I apologize for not updating the blog while I was on the West Coast. I'll just say I was overtaken by events and leave it at that. I'm in Korea now and having a hard time formatting my latest entry using a computer that only speaks Korean. Since I can't read the little snowman drawings they call an alphabet here, you'll just have to go on waiting.

In the meantime, you can check out my flickr account to at least get a glance at all of the pictures I've been uploading. It can be found by clicking HERE. Some of the pics are interesting, some are pretty, and some of them are downright odd:


Thank you for reading. I'll be catching it all up in a couple of weeks.

-Shawn

Goofy Projects in a Combat Zone Part II

So a while back I made my little blue plastic Navy men to go with some little green plastic Army men:





They were fun and all, but I decided that there needed to be more than just three unique poses (there were 12 unique poses among the Army men in the package) . So I went ahead and sculpted, molded, and cast three more:


The sculpts are pretty easy, so I'm sure I'll end up making a few more while I'm out here. I've already started on the next two and I've been making up sketches for a third. My mother-in-law suggested I should make little plastic Coast Guardsmen too. I'm thinking they'll be orange. More on that whenever I get to it.

In the meantime, I've started sculpting this little critter at Ana's suggestion/request/reccuring implied demand:



The sculpt still needs a few evenings worth of work, but if you don't recognize it, this will be the face of Katie from the film Horton Hears a Who as shown below:


Here's another angle:


She still needs a nose and eyelids and I'll probably end up pulling the ears off and casting them as separate pieces. I'll be sculpting out the little feet as well. They'll all come from the same mold, so when I cast a set all I'll have to do is come up with a little hamster-shaped pouch of yellow faux fur, stuff it, and attach it to the cast parts. So far nobody manufactures toy versions of this little critter (which boggles the mind, since she made that movie) so I'll be able to offer up some pretty unique gifts.


On the subject of ridiculous, I printed out the paper model for another helmet variant for the HALO armor project. After a long evening of cutting, folding, and gluing I came up with a helmet that was entirely too large. I still went ahead and layered the inside with casting resin (from the plastic sailor project) to make it stiffer and tried it on:


Then I re-scaled the 3D computer model, unfolded it again using Pepakura, and cranked out a smaller one:


The smaller one fits better:


If that wasn't goofy enough, I coated the inside with casting resin and ordered a faceshield from Amazon.com and now it looks about like so:


I'm thinking I'll stop here before I get a wild idea and decide I need to send away for Bondo and a body rasp and and electric sander and some primer and paint and more silicone mold rubber and casting resin and microballoons and milled glassfiber and...

I really can't wait to have useful workshop space again.

My First Goofy Project in a War Zone

So the other day I got a pack of these guys in the mail:


There's nothing really special about them. They're the same cheap, green, plastic, injection-molded army men you can find in almost every drugstore or supermarket in the entire United States since 1952.

The problem though, was that they were horribly out of date. I'm not talking about the fact that they're wearing fatigues and helmets from World War II or the fact that they're clearly armed with weapons that can only be seen today in museums or third-world militias. I'm talking about the fact that they're all quite clearly Army guys. Nowhere in the entire package, all 40 pieces, were there any Individual Augmentee sailors like me helping them out.

That's why I went ahead and sculpted out these guys:


I started with a plasticene sculpture, made a silicone mold, and then cranked out a few copies in urethane casting resin with a bit of blue pigment added in.

I'm pretty happy with them and they seem to look the part:


Mostly I just got a kick out of making a cheap little plastic toy to represent myself in my current situation here:


I plan to sculpt out at least three more unique poses. The bag originally had 12 unique army guys in it, so they won't be grossly outnumbered. For now, I've got the updated version of the package hanging over my desk:


Now I just need to think up at least four or five other random things to tinker with over the next few months.