Sawdust Bear Makes Things

monsters in progress

shing — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 18:44:41 +0000

Look at my desk! It’s full of monsters!

They’re all in different stages of completion – the two larger green ones are pretty much done, the big pink one is baked and unpainted and the one on the turntable is still squishy and unbaked. There are two small unpainted specimens in the back too. You can also see pretty much the only three tools I use, a mechanical pencil, an x-acto knife and this thing with a small spatula thing on one end and a ball-tip on the other. There’s another one sitting there too, but I haven’t touched it. The white box is what I take all of my pictures in. Eventually, I’ll get or make a lightbox.

I’m using taxidermy eyes for the first time and I think they look REALLY cool. They’re sorta muddied in the picture because I have clayey hands, but I think they’ll look awesome when I’m done.

I feel pretty productive. I’ve already tinkered with the monster sculpt that’s sitting on the turntable, done most of my taxes and I think I’m going to go and make Jason breakfast in bed now. Not bad for 10:39am on Sunday, considering that I usually don’t even get out of bed before noon on a weekend.

earthworm wedding

shing — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 22:07:48 +0000

The past two weeks from me have been filled with somewhat grueling travel, and I think I’ve seen more snow in the past 14 days than I have in the past 14 years of my life.

I’m pretty much dying to get back to sculpting – I read an article on carnivorous plants in Nat Geo on the plane and now my mind is filled with pitcher plants and sundews and flytraps…

In the meantime, here’s a quick sketch of an earthworm wedding I drew while sitting on the tarmac at LAX for what felt like forever…

his name is buggy…

shing — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 05:47:15 +0000

…and he is a bug. Sort of. This is a work in progress(the unpainted clay version).

I’m really liking sculpting bigger. I need to find someplace to build a giant squid and break out the fiberglass resin.

working on large specimens

shing — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 04:41:19 +0000

I really should post more work in progress, so here’s a slug-thing, pre painting. I’m working on some larger specimens – and they are so much fun! I didn’t know why I didn’t start just making them bigger sooner.

I also made an order for some taxidermy eyes…I think I’m going to be switching to using glass eyes soon because they look so cool.

i am the walrus

shing — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 00:59:27 +0000

on Etsy

art in my house – seattle show posters

shing — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 21:28:51 +0000

I used to write a window shoppy sort of blog, but I’ve cut that out since I have generally less time now. I still love writing about other people though, so I thought I’d start writing a segment about the artists that I like enough to own.

First up is Seattle Show Posters, who I’ve run into at several craft fairs here in LA – I bought this “I love you because:” poster at Unique LA. It sat around for a while because it’s an odd frame size, and I finally put it up while reorganizing my living room. The pushpins were meant to be temporary…but it’s been like that for a few months now. I love it though, and it makes me smile every morning before leaving the house.

You can buy that print from their website here. It also comes in a framed version with a dry erase marker so you can write on it everyday!

(the other awesome seattle show posters I own are this super rad heart in a jar and the only pink piece of art I own that is not Gloomy Bear

tentacle food progress

shing — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 05:17:55 +0000

Here’s a screenshot of my progress with my tentacle-loves-food cards. I drew them all during a D&D session and I’m currently colouring “breakfast” and “sushi.” There is also “banana,” “pizza,” and “cat.”

eyestalks

shing — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 00:02:01 +0000

Carrying on with this organic shape kick that I’ve been on. Eyestalks are an organic shape, right?

Oooogly boogly.

barnacles and pebbles

shing — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 20:05:51 +0000

I’ve been playing with organic shapes lately. I’ll be moving on to weird things in petri dishes once I figure out the best thing for fake agar. Meanwhile, there’s gonna be weird things in test tubes…once I get stoppers. No, I’m not sure why I can’t just order all my supplies at the same time. Also, I bought a whole bunch of 3×3x2 boxes instead of 3×3x3 boxes in my last supply order, which is annoying. Fortunately, it seems like the majority of my specimens actually fit just fine in the smaller boxes. But you don’t want to hear about my shipping woes.

penny farthing+love

shing — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 23:07:37 +0000

I drove a linoblock carving tool into two rather essential fingers, and all I got was this stupid print.

I like linoblock prints. It’s like grown up stamping.