T-Rawll Toy nearing completion

I'm almost ready to send my little T-rawll model over to 3DCreation lab to get a 3D print. I'm getting happier with the model and I've made a few changes this weekend. The arms have been remade and after looking at the Yowie I have made it so I only need one arm that can be used on both sides of the model. I'm not too sure if the joint socket will work properly after it's been printed but I suppose I can either sand the peg down or build the hole up.

Here's a few shots of the model as it stands now:



I also mocked up a couple more sculpey T-rawlls






I also managed to knock up a couple of box designs.


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A very eventful day or how I lost my eyebrows!

It isn't often that I sit and write about my day. Today has been a very eventful day. As you will find out as you continue into the narrative, I can't do much else tonight other than sit and type this blog with one finger on my right hand.

The plan for the day should have looked like this: school for Josh, post office for missed deliveries, gym, car wash, meet Anthony Filice for a discussion about CGTweet up, back to school, do some sculpting, a little drawing and finish building a robot with Josh. I didn't turn out that way.

I dropped the little fella off at school and got the parcels from the post office. My new arrivals were a custom Dunny destined for stripping and a cool custom resin blank called `Yowie` from Jon does doodles.

All good so far. I decided to shoot back home and pick up my wallet before heading to the car wash and onto the gym. For some reason that I'll never know I decided to skip the gym and spend an hour or so working on a custom break-dancing mummy figure I have on the go. I settled down in the studio and began mixing some epoxy resin to start piecing together the mummies legs. I finished that and set up my spray booth box outside ready to spray the Yowie blank and the base for the mummy. The wind was a little too high and paint started to go everywhere so I decided to use a galvanised bin to spay into. I put the mummy base into the bin and began spraying down into the bin. I fully coated the base and was going over for a second coat when the paint ignited and blew upwards out of the can. Luckily I wasn't fully over the can and jumped backwards. The flame hit my hand, the crease of my left arm, my neck and the side of my head. The worst area being the crease of the arm. I have no idea what caused the paint to ignite but checking the base later it seems there was some epoxy resin which may have caused some sort of reaction. I can't see any other explanation for the combustion but I know have a new outlook on the dangers of spraying models!

I called Pams Mum and got her to take me to the minor injuries clinic at the local hospital. They hurried me in and very quickly had my arm submerged in water cooling the blisters down. Within an hour I was spattered with cream and bandaged like the mummy I was creating before all this happened.

Speaking of which, here is the little bugger that has lost me half a day of work and is the reason I am now sitting here pecking away with this finger on my righthand.






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Ivor lost some of his cuteness in translation

I'm quite happy with the first set of 3D tests for Ivor but the feedback from a few guys was that the model is a little different than the concept and that it had lost some of its cuteness. I went back into Silo and bulked up the belly area, increased the size of his hands and repostitioned his arms. Added his ears back as I thought he lacked something without them and lowered his eyes giving him a bigger forehead (ie. younger).

I am happy enough with the progress so far, so much so that I am looking at having him 3D printed if costs aren't too high. I would like to get about 4 main characters done in concept and 3D before commiting to print I think.

I wanted to hold off with doing any real sculpting until I was happy with the 3D concept but I ended up making a start this morning. Out came the pasta maker and off I went with my black sculpey Premo.













A few more concepts for the next toy.

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Some studio shots and a look at some of my books

I really love snooping through other artists studios and work rooms. It is the first thing I look for in a new art book and it's often the best thing on a new training DVD. With that in mind and on the request of a couple of twitterers I'm reposting shots of my shit-pit studio. I have always had a work room of one type or another. Sometimes a bedroom, sometimes a shed. This one is a custom built studio made by converting a double garage and I will have to be carried out of here in a large wooden box before I relinquish the helm! If you have a special art place in your life you will know what I mean.

Note: These are quite big images compared to my normal posting size so they may take a second or two to load.




No one cleans it but me (not often as you may know from my blogs) and the kids have to ask for a pass to even look in here (thats a lie but it would be great wouldn't it!). I keep it in such a way that I can move desks and stands around to suit whatever project I have on the go. The PC/Mac table stays pretty much the same and is a great setup when I bring 3D artists here to train. The other areas of the studio are alwasy in flux. Sometimes covered over if I'm spraying. Sometimes just a table in the middle if I'm scultping clay or messing with wax. A 20ft wall is dedicated to DVD's and books and I love my little library. I keep lots more books in the house but the studio is filled with inspirational stuff in the main.

If you've got any snaps of your work space please share them in the comments. `I've shown you mine...` as they say on Carry On films!

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Ivor the Diver concept and color tests

A little more on Ivor today.







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Sculpey order and some more concepts

I ordered my Sculpey PREMO from the amazing Dougarts on Ebay (Ordered Friday, it arrived Saturday am. Cool!). If you are in the UK and need modeling supplies fast and fairly cheap he seems to be the man! So I am now just waiting for some 1lb blocks of super sculpey and I'm ready to start some serious toy modeling. I'll be sketching all weekend and see if I can lock down an idea or two so I can have a go with the new modeling supplies.

I carried on playing with the underwater theme and I've started to refine one or two characters. I really like my little `Ivor-the-Diver` and `Ocho` so far. I think I will ink one or two images of these characters and then convert them to vector line art to see how they turn out. That way I can have a go at several color variations in photoshop. Ivor seems to be shaping up as my lead creation so I think I'll start with him. I'm trying not to look at too many other peoples toys as I don't want to be influenced too much, however, I need to research some eyes. I can't decided how I want Ivors eye to look like through his mask.

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Diving into toys for a while

Although I've been sculpting for years I've never designed and made any toys myself. I've done plenty of toy concepts and I've modelled a fair few in 3D for a variety of clients. I've been talking to a few amazing toy-dude (you know who you are!!) and I have ordered a shed load of sculpey, premo sculpey and miliput and I'm going to get sketching for a few days. I want to design a range of little diving characters that I've had in the back of my mind for ages.

I was thinking of a couple of divers (boy and girl perhaps), a couple of hero sea creatures, maybe a Sperm Whale and a Shark and then a plethora of smaller characters like clown fish, a turtle, a baracuda etc.

I made a start tonight to get my juices flowing and I'm more than open to suggestions and critisism. It's nothing more than a fun project and one where I can learn a little about getting into toy design. It seems i've picked up lots of new followers this week and I'm hoping theres some toy-designer-gurus in there to help me out.



Comments, hints, tips, crits and color help more than welcome.

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Fuse Wax by Willow products

I've been talking to a few artists this week about using `Fuse` Wax for sculpting and I thought I'd re-post the video that Willow products made to demonstate the basic properties of the wax. I'm a long time sculpey user but last year I fell in love with this wax. I tried about 5 or 6 different type of wax from very soft almost playdoh like Wax to the other end of the scale with carving waxes. Fuse was the best imho.

Heres the demo video to give you an idea of why I like it so much.





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Rhino Head Tutorial.

So I finally got some time to get my Rhino sculpt underway. I have managed to put together a little tutorial about how I did the 3D modeling prior to the clay modeling and that can be viewed here

Here a a few of the screen shots that can be seen in the tutorial:


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