Reiterated Insanity :: Vilsy’s Sketchblog

October 29, 2008

Well Michael’s craft store should be stoked– I went nuts and boughts all manner of supplies to fuel my Aero the Acro-munny venture. I’ve got Super Sculpey, a pasta maker (apparently good for “making” polymer clay as well), acrylic paints, brushes, sand paper, various sculpting tools, cheesecloth. Cheesecloth. That word never sat well with me.

And of course I have my Munny. I haven’t worked with clay in years, but I am pleasantly surprised to find that Super Sculpey is rather easy to work with despite being a sculpting novice to say the very least. So far I have managed to get ears, a muzzle, a little nose, and eye ridges, boots, and crazy hair on my little friend here.

November 4, 2008

Aero for president, plz.

Well no, not really. But I’ve made some improvements to my initial work. The inside of his ears were looking a little elfish, so I cut away at that part to produce a more accurate portrayal of how his red mask lays over top of his actual ear. It will surely make more visual sense when I paint it. I hope. His boots sustained many hours of me smoothing and scraping and re-shaping. I’ve gotten them to a point where I can bear to look at them, and, more importantly, I feel they will support his body when I put that hulking head on.

The wings, however, may foil this hope of hopes. I’ve made the wings, but they are a bit large. It was very difficult for me to create them: I started out with tin foil but mushed the clay over it and forced it into new shapes so many times that I fear the inside of the structure is just… mushed foil with mushy clay all over it. I suppose that’s the point of using foil to bulk out a piece of a sculpture, but I’m not certain my technique was anything to nod approvingly at. I painstakingly carved at the wings to etch out detail. Despite the cartooniness of the character, I wanted the wings to have some bat-like detail to them instead of being merely in the shape of bat wings. Hopefully the paint I chose (and my skill or lack thereof) won’t lose this detail. Time, I suppose, will tell.

The wings bring up more potential nightmares. Since I’ve made them rather large, they absolutely will not bond to the vinyl on their own accord, and I doubt baking them and gluing them on later will be and simple or wise task. I’d rather them attach somewhat seamlessly to the back. So I’ve cooked up an idea that I HOPE will work using armature wire and a prayer. Unfortunately I’ll have to stab poor Aero in the back for this idea to work, and if it doesn’t work out right or I botch it up somehow, the wings are going to be a tough thing to tackle indeed. We’ll see!