Bits and pieces and a load of junk

Firstly the finished girocopter, which has been done for some time with photos on facebook but not on the blog.

This summer has found me in the creative doldrums. I've made stuff but nothing has really sparked for me and pieces have been slow to come to fruition. Normally when I lack inspiration I make a head or fiddle with something and ideas quickly flow. Here are two of these:

Firstly a weird mechanical device for the back of an old man. I've no idea what it does or will become but you can see how it started.
I've been trying to make my mechanical stuff have a more interesting surface texture and look more authentically mechanical. I do this by using lots of found junk and joining the bits with various thickness of brass rod, which doubles as pipes. I often just gather bits together and try mixing them up.

The only made bit here is the barrel which is card wrapped around two plastic circles. Drilled wooden balls are great for fixing things to. The brass rod here was bent to give an interesting pipe effect and brass beads added. As always vials of fairy liquid give colour.

I have no idea what this is supposed to be, the tube here into the mans hand is just a  trial, he may have other bits added.

I want him to look loaded down like some kind of tinker or hudy gurdy man.

I've also been working on a dwarf like figure, a bit of a rehash of earlier ideas, again not sure of the end product, possibly a kind of mechanic or prospector.

I like the idea of a big bushy beard under a helmet or cap and  a short squat body. I'm using two newish techniques here, firstly filling the goggles with modellers water which sets clear and making the hands from plastic tube over a wire armature with split pins slotted in the ends. They look smoother, chunkier and cleaner than just wrapping the wire in tape, which I do for smaller hands.

The head needs a lot of work yet as I've just set the bottles in a polystyrene ball onto which I will sculpt in clay, but you get an idea of body proportion.