Daruma Drill brainstorm drawing to Monster Clay prototype: I'm no pro, but hell if this guy wasn't fun to mash together.
I couldn't readily figure out a solid way of segueing the head smoothly into the rest of the body without some sort of accessory. And just like that, sir, you helped me come up with an even better idea for this toy. Why bother sculpting a clay scarf when I can get rid of it all together and add a fabric one once it's been produced in vinyl. 10 points for Gryffindor. Your critique has been invaluable.
@MisterYuck Haha, cool. Yeah, that could definitely work. I post on a Lego Starfighter group and no one ever gives constructive criticism there. I do sometimes (even though their are far more competent builders there than I). I mean, people should get praise for good stuff, but it seems like it would be a more productive community if people helped each other out with things that they feel could be improved. Kinda weird. Sorry, bit of a tangent there.
Continuing on from the last post... Our intergalactic friend, Daruma Drill is currently enjoying some silicone baths. In the mean time I drew out a character that creeped into my head the other night while I was tossing and turning for a good hour before falling asleep. The idea is "Swallowed By Negative Thoughts & Emotions"....one of the reasons I had such a hard time falling asleep, so I wanted to give that feeling I had a chance to visually represent itself. I imagined the ooze as being a translucent purple, with the "cap" portion covering the skull being removable...to reveal the human remains of that victim underneath. This is just a rough color mockup I decided to throw together so I could get a better sense of what I'd be looking for from the finished version. I don't know how the other parts of the skeleton would be created, maybe pipe cleaner?: And now this morning I am practicing ooze textures in Monster Clay. @Odibex please have at this one as you did with Daruma Drill. Your scarf critique proved extremely helpful.
You COULD actually make the skeleton in solid resin and somehow embed it into the clear resin. That would be pretty crazy and tough to do, but that Scott Wilkowski guy does it all the time... so it IS possible.
That's actually a pretty good concept @MisterYuck! I don't really have much of anything helpful to say except that I like the idea of the disembodied skull just suspended there about as much as the full skeleton one. I mean, either way (or both!) would be cool, though. Stick with it. Your description reminds me of an exercise a therapist made me do a awhile back (she never really made me do silly stuff, so I didn't mind it this once). She wanted me to visualize and describe what my depression looked like. I told her it was like a a grey/green old house that looked constructed of gauze that you could see moving slowly on the periphery. I mean, basically, I was just bullshitting, but whateves. She seemed really impressed with that. Like she "got" it. This therapist was always asking to see some of my art. No idea why I never shared with her. That was kind of sucky of me in retrospect. I mean, I only had a few folks who'd seen what I was doing back then. Not by choice, I just didn't know many people.
i kinda dig just the skull as well. Just being able to pop off the see-thru purple cap to reveal a human skull seems cool to me.
Shit, that makes me want to dig up the "art therapy" exercises the whack-job therapists made me do when I was hospitalized for a week as a teen. (Suicide watch, ended up making up a fake "life plan" for myself and getting out. It was TERRIFYING in there.) They would play meditation music and give us exercises like "here is a door. What is behind the door? Open the door and draw what is behind the door." I drew an anthropomorphic dog that I named Jeckunev holding a bloody axe with a huge blood trail on the floor behind him, just to freak the hell out of the art therapist. Was it mean? Maybe. Was it risky? Probably, but god did I hate those pathetic excuses for "therapists." Don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-therapy at all. I just prefer actual artistic self-realization and exploration than new-age weird shit.
@hellointerloper Ha, that's a trip! I've never experienced any real "art therapy". Well, actually, I do remember once I was in the hospital we did have a group where we all drew stuff and then I think we shared it and possibly discussed it. But I don't really remember it being a weird, pushy guided art type of thing, and we definitely didn't get "meditation music". I remember I drew a guy with an open head like a bowl and he was reaching up to spoon something out. They seemed to like that. I think I was just drawing what I thought they wanted. One time I was in this awful "day program" that I think is just there to get hopeless cases out of the house. Get them out of there families hair for a while. Everybody was in pretty bad shape, like heavily medicated and stuff. Your day basically consisted of attending these sort of "life classes", and in one of them I'd drawn a guy's face on a napkin to stave off the intolerable boredom. One of they other attendees, I think he was probably retarded or something, in addition to being mentally ill (not an uncommon thing there), saw my work and got really animated and excited (you know how they do [hey, it happens]). He asked if he could show it to the teacher (teacher? whatever they were) and I was like "I guess". She was pretty impressed, too, and pointed out a section of wall and said I could paint a small mural if I wanted. It was just some doodley napkin art, so that was kinda weird for me. Oh, and she said she said she'd have to approve of what I planned to do beforehand. Like I was going to paint Satan raping a kitten in nun's habit or something. Sheesh. Fortunately, I wasn't there long enough for any of that to come to fruition. It is the only mural I've ever been offered, though. Oh, one last one. When I was in hospital, It may have been the time I was doing the group art thing, i asked one of the girls if I could use some art supplies to pass the time and she was like sure let me unlock the art cabinet, I've got the combination around here somewhere. Some time later I was doing some painting and another staffer came up and demanded to know where I'd gotten the supplies. She was kind of flipping out, demanding I give a description of the other staffer who's given them to me. It was kinda awkward. So, anyway, I'd done a painting on maybe a 2' by 3' piece of cardboard and it was basically shit. It was so bad I didn't even want to throw it away because I didn't want anyone to see it in the trash (I'm a very sensitive artist-type, doncha know?). I wound up slipping it under the mattress in my room. It may still be there. It's funny, I'm kinda into "outsider art" and there's quite a few artist's who worked primarily while institutionalized, and I guess for the most part weren't recognized til later. Guess they had an easier time acquiring supplies than I did. But those institutions were and are (but especially were) so awful it's kind of awesome that these folks were able to somehow have a life pursuit, to do something worthwhile and to even make significant contributions to society, albeit posthumously. That's definitely the exception rather than the rule, though. Whoops, that was a long one Say hi to Jeckunev for me Oh, I found a way I can put this a little more on-topic. I found a painting that I didn't share in my painting thread here. It's just as old as those ones are, but it's actually representational, which is unusual for me (so I don't think I'm as good at it as the other stuff). Anyway:
Welp, my silly hospital doodles can't even touch that painting. Not even with a tickle. That is damn incredible. Some of the most incredible artists are the most tortured of souls, I've found. I used to be a much better and motivated artist before I was pumped up with meds. I think that's the only thing I really miss about my severe depression... I could draw for hours upon hours. I can only doodle now. You also reminded me, when my mom picked me up and signed me out of the hospital, I did two things... Gave a schizophrenic girl I befriended my pack of markers, and stole my hospital clothes. I later splattered them with red paint and used them as a Halloween costume. I guess that's art in itself, haha! I'll try to photograph some of my old stuff and post it after I wake up again.
Thanks! I kind of decided it was finished in an unfinished state. I'd intended to do a little more with the background. I wish I had a better picture of it without the glare (the guy with the glared-out face is probably the most well painted, ironically). I gave it away to a girl I was talking a lot too a year or so ago, and shortly after she stopped talking to me. I'm an idiot. Particularly since I don't do art anymore and the stuff I have can't really be replaced with newer, better stuff. I've thought about asking for it back, but thinking about it doing that make me feel much better. I've never even considered that my absence of motivation could be due to meds! I'll have to do some thinking about time frames. It's not like I could choose to go off of them, though, 'cause I would go absolutely psycho at some point, if only temporarily. Those are both awesome acts. When I was in once, my roommate was released and he gave me a pair of black Levis before he went. Very odd bit of gifting, there. I actually ended up wearing them. After a thorough cleaning, of course. Also, one time I was in I developed a habit of flipping a quarter in the air while I stood outside my room (there really was not much to do there). one of the other guys that was in gave me his AA chip, so I could flip that. Kind of a sweet gesture, but also in the catagory of "odd gifting", I think. Please do! I'd love to see it. I actually have some other painting stashed randomly around here. None of them are as good as the ones I've posted, but I'll see if I can find anything worth sharing.
That painting above, @Odibex reminds me of the murals in Barnes & Nobles. Almost like you characterized some individuals while still maintaining a form of expressionism or almost cubist style. Very nice. I like it. I'll have to share some of my oil paintings some time.
Gotta say, I think that's the first time I've heard that one. I did used to spend a lot of time in B&N, sitting in their disinfected comfy chairs, catching up on the latest issues of Juxtapox, etc, but I don't recall any murals. The story on that was I used a B&W still from a book called Crime by the BFI (purchase from B&N on one of my rare, non-mooching visits, coincidentally). I don't actually remember movie it was from, but I'm pretty sure it was a French film. I've done some representational stuff with a 'looser', abstracty style and some more cartoony stuff. I found that purely abstract-expressionist, non-representational stuff came much easier to me, though, and yielded more interesting results. Still, a well-rendered face can command attention in a way a purely abstract work can't. Thanks for the feedback! I'd love to see your oils. I've found out they now have water-based oil paint, which kind of blows my mind. I did a search and actually found two paintings I'd posted on another forum years ago. Going to re-photographic one of them, because it's a crappy shot, though. This isn't a large-scale painting or anything, but I'm pretty happy with it: You can see some distracting white spots in the background, I must've fixed that at some point (you can actually spy a guy from another work peaking out from behind in the upper-right hand corner I'll probablly post that one later):
Wow that looks great! Also....water based oils? Inconceivable. I can't find any 'good' photos of my oils and I don't want to do them any injustice by posting garbage shots. Here's a glimpse of one, though. My grandmother taught me how to paint with a pallet knife, so i'll typically use that as my tool. And here's more progress with the ooze boy. **** Also this is the mural I was talking about:
I don't really have a big problem doing that with mine That's pretty cool. My granny did some oil-painting as well (as did her daughter, my aunt), we never really talked about it for some reason, though. It was something she did when she was younger. I was encouraged and tutored (and initially supplied with supplies) by a a very close friend and long-time roomie who took art as a serious thing, which I really didn't at the time. He went to art school, did canvases that took up entire walls and was a far, far more proficient artist than I ever became. He really pushed me into it, and he was absolutely right to do that. I'd always sketched and stuff, but I would have never considered art as a more serious pursuit of my own accord. Grateful he was able to see potential in my casual drawings. I know they're very versatile, but I've never been able to get much using a palette knife outside of paint mixing. Looking good. Looks like you've taken a decision to make the hands kind of outsized. I like that! Kind of crazy you were able to find that. It gives me kind of a 20s or 30s vibe. Is that Janice Joplin in the upper-right? She seems a little out of place there. EDIT: Whoops, forgot to comment on your painting. I like the juxtaposition of the precise lines against the much looser broad background work. looks kinda neat.
I'm also just realizing that's not actually the right mural, but it's by the same artist it seems. That appears to be general historic icons...the B&N's mural is obviously of authors.
Ah, I see. I actually meant Janice looked out of place within that painting, though, if that is, in fact, her. She was a kind of a wild child. I guess her closest relation there would be Ginsberg, but he was a bit of an academic.
Anyone here know how to design a "floating skull"? I'm wracking my brain trying to figure out how to build the skull into the sculpt while still having the ooze head cap portion still be removable.
Tie balloons to it? I found and took pics of a couple more of my paintings. This is from that time I grossly misjudged my dedication to finishing representational art. it's a bit silly. And not finished. Obviously. I'd intended for all these characters to be in some kind of dungeon, but I lost interest about halfway through. I was complaining to my artist friend I mentioned early that I'd never finished it and he said he "thought it was finished". He said stuff like that sometimes. You can see that almost every character is painted in a different style, so it never would've been a good painting anyway. This pic is pretty crappy, too, so you're totally missing out on some of the awesome brushwork. Use your imagination! Or your illusion! I just don't care anymore!
Ha! That's supposed to be Peter Lorre, right? That guy's my fav after the Chinese looking guy in the red suit.
^^ Yes, Looney Tunes always had a knack for doing great caricatures of Lorre. But yes in the mean time I'm still working on Ooze boy over here...Like i mentioned above, I'm having a tough time trying to figure out how to sculpt the recesses for the joints and so that it can also hold the skull....I'm no professional toy designer! Need....coffee.....
I was thinking maybe a thin yet sturdy wire to hold the skull up? Perhaps embedded into the resin "goo body" rather than drilled + inserted in? Or you could sculpt a spinal cord for the skull and have it sitting atop that rather than floating.
