describing my work

A friend described my work thus:
"Crafted of Puck's breath, and Smaug-snot"
which I love.

Also I was recently described as a Womble artist as in my work "I make good use of the things that I find, things everyday folk leave behind."
So true.       

  
I guess I have to be Tobermory

Who will he be?

I'm taking a break form the Oz automata as the weather has been so nice I've not wanted to spend  much time in the studio. I just want a few hours here and there to fiddle with stuff, so I went back to an armature I started months ago.

I started this piece, as I often do when short on ideas, with stock ideas: big feet and goggles. All built onto a basic armature of galvanised wire covered in tape. The body is a card shape (he will be stocky) and the head is Das built over 2 bottle tops.

The plastic bottle tops are sprayed. The hands and arms are wire inside plastic tubing (actually unused medical tubes) which gives a nice clean and bendable shape. The base of the body is starting to become shaped from thick card.

 It was at this point I'd abandoned the figure.
When I came back to him this weekend I started to build up the body with strips of card. Im not sure about the Iron Man style chest piece, I may remove it.
I've also added a chin to the head. He will probably have a scalf  later so only his nose pokes out. Or maybe  a beard?

The eyes are brass beads on rods bedded into the head. I will slowly add fake modelling water to them to create a glass finish; you can just make out the glint of the first coat.

The flying cap is taking shape. It's card covered in tape with a brass circle for the clasp.

I always enjoy making boots: the basic toe cap is built up from Das then edged with a strip of card dotted with split pins.

As with the flying cap straps card is covered with masking tape (ideally one big piece so no joins) shaped and studded with split pins. Each piece is coated with glue before joining together. When doing this it's important to get the grain of the card right so it bends nicely. In this case it goes vertically.

You can see here a piece being covered in tape, carefully cut with a knife and folded over (you can see the back)

The competed boots. For me feet are a big part of creating character and often happen before the head.