What is it with me and monkey?

Another brass monkey handle.

Here's a cute little guy. He's 10" long in total so his body is only about 3 or so inches, quite tiny in fact. My client insists on the rough textures. The truth is that so much detail is lost in casting and plating that I have to figure out how to do my sculpts more crudely in a way, in order to arive at a more evenly finished product, one of arts many paradoxes.

When finished, he will be cast in brass with green semi-precious jewels in his eyes and mounted to a black granite tea tray with an inlayed lotus design in it's center.

This was a job for a friend on Saint Mark's, so it's fun to stroll down to the park and see it on the way. Sadie wanted it completely hand painted, reluctantly I agreed.

This would have been so easy with vinyl graphics aplied to the cut out but, instead, it's all me and my hand. Much fussie seriffed type in the lower panel....UGGG!!! but, it all looks rather sweet, no?

It's amazing what you can do with a jig saw, a bit of plywood and house paint.

pretty thing, just about 4.5 inches across the wings. It's off to india to be cast in resin. The resin prototype will be given back to me for chasing and refining before it goes into production.

Hi Mom, this is a video that I've been working on for a dear friend. It employs the use of many programs including Photoshop, Sketchup, Garageband and Imovie. It's not a paid thing but rather a learning thing, a visibility thing and part of my quest for a dustless studio like a paperless office.

It started as a lesson in building 3d logos so that they may be uploaded to digital carving machines, a way of building specialized signage in the coputer and having it fabricated elswhere. Images that I had either photographed or designed in Photoshop were brought into Sketchup and arrange like flats on a stage. All of the objects on the digital set are fixed. Only the camera moves.

The animation was then brought into Imovie. There, I added titles, lens flares and fairy dust. It is allso where I mounted the sound track.

I'm still working out the sound. it feeds back a bit in the middle but, now I know why and will fix in the near future. Funny thing: the female vocals that float through are sung by me though a helium filter. Stand by for a revised sound track in a few days.

I saw some of the prototypes produced from my clay work yesterday. This is a whole new thing for me. I love the textures of the dove in plated resin. All of it's rough knife work translated very nicely in chrome. the actual will be plated in nickle most likely and be a bit warmer. The rabbit is fabulous in porcalin but less so pressure plated. much lost detail somehow. The turtle cast very nicely but they're still exploring finishes.

This was an interesting job from the recent past. to have a better look at the history of this project, click here

Latest frame job, for high pressure metal casting, probably zink with nickle plate.
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