PewPewPew. Random stuffs=Laser Gun

I should probably be entered into a "Worst Blogger in the World" contest; I'd win hands down. I intended on writing about my Day of the Dead mask and the laser gun for my brother-in-law's Dr Horrible costume last month, but time slipped away silently. Now, we rest on the cusp of Thanksgiving and I'm writing about Halloween garb in between the greeting card illustration I'll be sending out Thursday.

Below is the base toy gun I used for Dr Horrible's laser. I found it for dirt-cheap at Goodwill and the bottom bar of the handle was perfect to re-fab...
it needed to be moved to the back, of course, but that just took a little elbow grease, a hacksaw and a lot of plastic dust.

After digging through my storage closet for a box (ended up being a chocolate box) and the White Drawers of Randomness, which include quater machine bubbles, spools from wire, cigar containers, etc., then decoupaging with a leftover cell phone manual, I was left with this rough looking beauty:
I enjoyed the patterns that the text offered, but Dr Horrible's gun was black and silver, so I pulled out the spray paints and went to work (on the porch, otherwise the cat would've gotten high on fumes.)


Of course, like any nerd, my brother-in-law was SUPER PSYCHED to recieve such epic awesomeness.

And, like any artist would do for a family memeber, I accepted payment in Blue Moon beer.

I decoupaged my own mask using the same cellphone manual, first molding the paper around the the brow and nose from a cheapie little Zorro mask, letting it dry overnight to ensure the shape would hold as I built layers upon Layers upon LAYERS of paper using a model skull to keep the shapes and symetry correct. It took three days between employment, drying glue and making sure I liked the shape. Below are the process photos (featuring the super helpful studio cat, Mr Copper!)and the final product and costume, pictured with my awesome husband as Captain Hammer (Dr Horrible's nemisis.)

Hobby

One thing I really like doing is smashing random bits of metal, glass and bone into polymer clay shaped vaguely like hearts. Out of this mishmash comes little sculptures and jewelry bits.
My last show at Divergence showed a big lean towards the pendants, especially a new design which is paler, less grotesque and with broze or brass metals. So, today I'm mashing together a few of the most requested nail/heart combo along with the stone/bone look with brass pieces I was able to find on Etsy.

Luckily I've been able to trade secrets with more experienced sculptors and they've all said "Ignore the baking instructions on the back of the Super Sculpy. Set the oven to warm or lower, pop those suckers in and give it an hour or so."

Now, the hour or so is still a bit iffy and hard to determine, epecially since every oven is different (and mine is sooo wonky that you really have to know it's tricks.)
So far I've found that an hour is great for those pieces that are about 1/2" or smaller. Give 15 minute intervals for the thicker pieces. And if you think the piece will be more than an inch, just go ahead and pop the clay around a ball of aluminum foil, as the thick clay probably won't fully cook in the center.
I've gotten the "feel" of when a piece is almost done, though, and it seems like when the clay is firm but not hard (when your nail doesn't leave a mark but also doesn't look brittle) you're ready to take it out.
I'm about 20 minutes into baking the crossed nail pieces, and I really should get back to the bone/brass pieces.

Maybe I'll drag out Adam's digi-cam and share the makeshift workspace and steps of my process.
Some of these hearts are to fill pre-orders, but I'll be posting them, along with the unsold from Divergence, on my Etsy account......which is in a horrible need of STUFF....which means a lot of time to POST. heh.

Back to smashing. Images might come later ;)