#sculptish

[apathetic-revenant]

So I finally finished sculpey Ford and Stan today; glued the broken bits back on, touched up to the paint, and painted them with white glue as a finisher. (You can still see it drying in a couple places. I'm really impatient.) They've got their problems but what the heck, I'm proud of them. Might try for something a bit smaller next though.

[apathetic-revenant]

So here’s sculpey Stan and Ford as they look at the moment. They’re not quite done yet, still need a bit more glue and paint and a final coat of finisher. (Stan’s cane isn’t actually attached to the base or to his hand at the moment, and part of his bowtie snapped off, and of course Ford’s over there with his problems.) 

I like Stan, though I wish I’d gotten the expression on his face better. I’m a bit discouraged with Ford, he didn’t really come out how I wanted. And I was aiming to make them both the same size but I failed; Ford’s considerably taller. It doesn’t symbolize anything, I assure you. 

[apathetic-revenant]

I’ve spent all day today working on a sculpey Stan and now he’s in the toaster oven. this is always the trickiest part, so wish me luck guys. 

[apathetic-revenant]

So sculpey Stan came out pretty well yesterday, except for his head falling off (a minor detail). Today I’m working on sculpey Ford; he and Stan are both going to need some paint jobs and I want to just go ahead and do them both at once. Hopefully this will turn out better than the last time I tried to make Ford. 

[apathetic-revenant]

the saga of sculpey robbie

so, after the adventure that was sculpey Ford (who, incidentally, has already fallen over and broken off his stand dammit Ford), I was looking for another project. (the natural next step would be Stan, of course, but I didn’t have enough black.)

given some recent news and all, it didn’t take long for me to decide on a character. 

I didn’t remotely intend for this to become so much more...involved...than the first project, but somehow it did. 

really, I should have realized this from the start, when Robbie turned out to be almost twice the size of Ford, but I just soldiered on regardless. I did, at least, learn from the first incident enough to include some basic armature. it certainly helped, but it still ultimately wouldn’t be enough.

word of advice: don’t make Sculpey figures that are this big. just don’t. it’s not worth it. he wouldn’t even fit in the oven until I moved the racks around.

I was pretty dang paranoid about the baking process at this point, so I propped Robbie up with a truly ridiculous amount of tinfoil. and...he still fell over. but at least he didn’t fall over until he was already somewhat baked, so with less concern about dropping at that point I just left him on his side for the rest of it.

that was a weird sentence.

as you can see, he didn’t come out perfectly; aside from losing a foot, his arm kind of moved over to the side at some point, his legs kind of...I dunno, drifted, so he didn’t quite stand up properly, and despite my efforts to make his arm stay in position underneath his other arm, it still came apart.

but this was still going better than Ford, and it all seemed fixable enough.

I knew there was no way I was going to be able to do the stripes and other details with Sculpey alone, so it was time for some paint. 

and what did I do when I was painting him? dropped him. frikkin dropped him. 

naturally he broke, though not nearly as badly as he could have. 

still, as you can imagine, morale was pretty low at this point.

fortunately, my dad came to the rescue with some epoxy. (he also suggested I go to bed and pick it up again in the morning, which definitely helped.)

here we see Robbie all bandaged up with painter’s tape to keep him in position while the epoxy set. results were mixed: the epoxy definitely created a strong bond, but it was also clear that I hadn’t been liberal enough with it, and also that he had somehow managed to develop more cracks. it was time for round two. 

while I was at it I also used the epoxy to attach him to a little stand, since he had somehow developed into an awkward and quite possibly anatomically impossible position (typical enough for Robbie) and couldn’t stand up on his own. even if he could, I wouldn’t have trusted him to. by this point I was getting pretty twitchy about the whole thing. here we see him drying while resting on the head of Frankenstein’s monster just in case he wanted to try falling over. 

round two worked out quite well, and he now seemed to be pretty stable. of course, he now also had huge unsightly gray splotches of epoxy all over him. so, back to the paint. 

the results. here he is on the porch waiting to be sprayed with some finisher. I wasn’t exactly able to completely hide the epoxy but I did the best I could and, as you can see, also touched up some details. please appreciate the eyeliner because that was tricky to do without painting his entire eye purple. 

I also didn’t have the right color of blue in my regular paint to match his shirt, so I had to break into an older stash. as you can see, this was something of a mistake, as it turned out to be water-based and consequently smeared like nuts even after the finisher. it also severely annoyed me that I spent a long time trying to mix the right color of clay and in the end you can barely see any of it. 

I also noticed a bit too late that he managed to get a smear of gold on his hair, because of course he did. at that point I was pretty ready to say “screw it, Robbie’s just gonna have to have some bling” but as it turned out I had to touch up his hair anyway because the finisher left some unsightly gray splotches on it. 

finally, I painted him all over with a layer of plain old clear glue, to give him some extra strength and protection. 

here he is, at long last! and boy was that a trip. he’s far from perfect (probably wouldn’t pass muster with Magnús, heh) but, y’know...uh...well, he’s here. and I learned things, which I guess is appropriate given the subject matter.

I’m honestly kind of surprised I managed to stick it out all the way instead of giving up in abject despair halfway through. credit that to the inspirational powers of Stefán Karl, I guess. 

now I just have to find a place to put him that my cat can’t knock him over. 

[apathetic-revenant]

Paper-mache Luxray.

[apathetic-revenant]

I used to be really into making things with modeling clay and little Sculpey figures and stuff as a kid, but at some point it kind of fell to the wayside. like so many things. but I saw this cheap 12-pack of Sculpey at Wal-Mart the other day and for some reason entertained the notion of trying to make something again. the colors available in the pack lent themselves pretty well to Ford (tan and beige) so I started there.

(his hair is very hard to translate into 3D, btw.)

however, since this was the first time I was doing this in ages, let’s just say some mistakes were made. 

principally, I had forgotten the dire importance of including some basic armature when working with Sculpey, which will absolutely collapse into a mercurial puddle the moment you give it the chance. I also didn’t give Ford adequate support while he was in the oven, and so when I checked on him I found that his legs had bowed completely over. then his head fell off. along with his legs, and an arm. 

but Stan didn’t give up on Ford and neither did I. the clay hadn’t completely hardened yet, so I was able to reattach some of his extremities with the aid of some bits of wire. the legs were a lost cause, though. around this point I also noticed that he was missing an eyebrow and a couple of fingers.

so, I took him back and made new legs out of fresh clay-along with fingers and an eyebrow-and put him back in the oven with a protective barricade of wadded up tinfoil to prevent more drooping. 

results were...mixed, although overall better. 

in addition to his hand falling off, and coming detached from his stand, he still drooped some, and consequently wound up with a rather awkward posture. 

I guess he looks kind of like he’s charging into action or something.

and then his leg came off anyway. and, while his head remains attached by the wire, it’s only attached by the wire and wobbles around freely. 

I’ll see what I can do with some glue in the morning, but in the meantime, I have to say it does kind of amuse me that of course I had all these problems with Ford. 

[apathetic-revenant]

Update on clay Ford: I took a glue gun to him and, while he’s still looking pretty rough, all his parts are now firmly attached in the right places. Given that this is my first project in a long time I’m prepared to call that a win.

Plus, y'know, Ford. Usually looks pretty rough anyway. Maybe the glue is actually slime from some alien thing he got in a fight with. Yeah.