He has Teeth, Eyes, a Nose & Paws & Claws plus Some Recent Works

I thought I'd share with you some completed comissioned works from a couple of weeks ago.

Plus, here are some more pics of the bear in progress. He now has his teeth, nose and eyes. They were both glued and sewn in. Sorry for the fuzzy pics of him. I'll try to do better with the next set.

Here are some pics of the next step. He now has claws and paw pads. I used a mixture of  Premo & Sculpey Moldmaker for his pads.  It resulted in kind of a neat rubbery clay. I think it could be really useful for noses as well. I used straight up Premo for it and his  eyes are German glass with polymer eyelids.  He now ready for his fur after I felthim a bit firmer. They tend to lose their shape while furring them if I don't. my first poor furry ones ended up being a bit flatheaded.

Help I need Dentures!

Here's my first set of in-progress pics for the bear. They're kind of fuzzy. I'm now getting ready to sculpt his nose, eyes and teeth. it should be interesting to see if I can do this. I'm fairly happy with him overall. Although I'm not too sure about his jaw line. He even stands on his own and will probably stand a bit straighter once he has the weight of his nose and jawset. I'll write more as he progresses. I don't think I'll have him done in time for my usual auction start time of Sunday. I'd like to have the doll auctioned along side him. So hopefully, I'll have them finished by next Sunday.

Here he is getting fitted for his dentures.

Bears and Dog Sitting

Here's some pics of my next project and one of Char, a lovely greyhound mix that I'm doggy sitting for the next couple of weeks. She's not supposed to get up on the furniture at her house. But at mine anything goes. It's nice to have a dog in the house again.

My wire frame with steel shot bags sewn on,

plus a reference photo of Bart, the Bear. He was 9 feet 6inches tall!

My intial sketches

Char relaxing on the furniture.

I love the way she crosses her paws.

My 2 Year or so Cycle

2008 - 2010

2006 - 2008

 

2003- 2006

It's kind of funny.  I've recently noticed that my attention span for different artistic endeavors last approximately 2 years.  So here's the progression since I started selling my art in eBay in 2003.  I first started with painted stones and after 2 1/2 years I got a little tired of contorting animals on to rocks.  I next started painting on canvas. I had painted before. But I mostly painted marine mammals. This was kind of exciting and taught me a lot.  I tried for the longest time to do a painting a day. I think it really honed my skills. Although, I rarely painted more than 5 miniature paintings a week.   I have a lot still to learn. In February of 2008 I was doing some research for a painting when I ran across needle felted animals. I had to give it a try. Now two years later, I'm in kind of a creative slump.  I hope that it's not yet another 2 year thing. The one constant throughout my art career has been that I donate a portion of my sales and that my focus is mainly on animals. 

My Horse is nearly Finished

I'm finally near the completion of my horse. There are a couple of areas I'd like to retouch. It was really difficult keeping the brown away from the white and vice versa.  She stands at 4 3/4 inches at the shoulder which makes her equivalent in scale to a horse or large pony of 14.1 hands high. She fits right in the size of an "Indian pony or horse" ( 13.2 hh to 15 hh) or Nokota horse and a bit too small for a Paint(starting at 14.2 hh).

I'm fairly happy with this one overall. But there are a few things I learned that worked and few I'd do differently. One thing I found is that once I added the flocking a lot of the fine detailing became lost. Next time I think I'll carve the detail a bit more severely than I normally would. Secondly, I'd only do the legs in one layer of clay as they bulked out quite a bit after flocking.  Next, I'd  mask off areas with masking tape. Hopefully that'll keep them from mixing. I used a bit of scotch tape to remove some of the fibers that were in the wrong places. I hope you like her. I'll post the final pics soon.