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.

Some Mini Pine Needle Baskets, a Salmon and more of the Horse

Here are my latest creations and some pics of my work on the horse. Hopefully, I should have the sculpt finished tomorrow and ready for painting and flocking.

A Couple of New Things and a Work in Progress

I just finished this little chipmunk, yesterday. I hope you like him. His stump can be used as a candle holder, too.  I fashioned some shelf fungus and a butterfly from polymer clay and attatched them with glue and I wove a cover for the candle hole from pine needles and artificial sinew. This little chipmunk will go up for auction this Sunday.

Randsburg General Store

The White House Saloon

The folks at Old Dog Haven commissioned me to do a sleeping dog for their auction. Sleeping is a favorite passtime for the senior set.  So I did one after Rufus, a very sweet old fellow from the neighboring town of Randsburg. He was quite the town dog. He kind of had his route. He first would start at the General Store with the hopes that some kind soul would give him some bacon. Next it would be off to the White house Saloon for some french fries. He would then walk into our now defunct store for a nice long nap. His owner, Richard would stop in to coax him home. Rufus crossed the rainbow bridge at well over 20 years of age. He was quite a town character and will be sorely missed.
 

I'm also working on a 1:12 scale horse.  I first made a wire frame. Then, it was covered with Fix-It to  to help it maintain its shape.  Next, I added balls of aluminum foil flattened and shaped with a hammer. They were attached with masking tape and a coat of glue was painted on.  Next I'll be adding a layer of Apoxie Sculpt. After it is dried and hardened, polymer clay will be added for the fine detailing. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it will turn out. We'll see.

Richard's mother, Jenny, in front of his store.

Richard creates the most beautiful wire and glass sculptures.

Jenny passed on this year to meet good old Rufus.

3 New Ones & a Makeover

Sorry for posting so late. I had a real weird day yesterday.  First off, I lost my wallet the night berfore. So consequently, I didn't sleep very well.  I got up the next morning and found it under the bed. Then I discovered that the beads I used for the chihuahua's eyes were just the right size for the little chimp (my other learning experience). So I started to redo him and some of his fur. That took a couple of hours. Next, I had to take pics and post them to auctiva. That took over 5 hours. My batteries kept dying and I kept getting kicked off the internet. I did manage to get them listed around the usual times.

But I forgot the really cool thing about yesterday. My neighbor lent me this fantastic magnifying glass on a stand. It's the best! I have to get one of these things. I think they have them at fly fishing shops. So like most days, it was a pretty good mix of good and bad.  But even the bad stuff wasn't so horrible. It just required me to be more patient.

So about my new critters. They all start at $9.95 with no reserve price. 3 of them are 1:12 scale. The little teacup chihuahua is only 1/2 tall at the shoulders.  The little mouse is needle felted and is kind of  on the theme of the last little mousie. I hope you all like them! Now off to clean up yesterday's mess and create a whole new one for today :-)!