Yesterday my housemate Tim helped destroy the big fella. We knocked off the remnants of clay, then cut him off at the ankles & then cut the big support off & he toppled over. Then i got the angle grinder with a nice big sharp cutting blade to slice off all the chicken wire. I found out that you can never be too careful when doing this task as i got a nasty on my arm from being whipped by a bit of chickenwire going at 10,000 rpm when it got tangled in the grinder. Keep it tight, peoples! Lucky there is a nice tee tree antiseptic spray in the first aid kit in the studio.
After that we just slogged away, cutting him up. Cutting the foam with breadknives, the steel & wire with the grinder. Sweeping up the huge amount of dried clay chunks & particles. We packed him into boxes & into buckets & into bags, and stashed the biggest part, the main torso, under the big table for later disposal. Some i chucked in the dumpster next door. Some went into my car for later losing a bit in various people's bins. Man was i exhausted by the end of that. I was aching all over. I got second thoughts on cutting a dead body up for disposal, thats for sure. If i ever kill someone, its gonna look like an accident. This kinda thing is just way too much work.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Big hot fella
They cast the big bloke today in bronze. We saw the first pour, which was a handful of legs & arms. They cast well & some bits chipped out of the moulds showed they were good. His torso & head were to be cast later in the day but i had to split. Went home & had for lunch leftovers, which were pastry versions of a star wars stormtrooper helmet & munch's "the scream" while watching Alien. Funny i don't remember those gross bits from when i saw it last i guess i had my eyes shut at the time.
Then took maquettes of the next one to a meeting so they could choose. With some mods one of em got thru. I got bugger all time for this next one, have managed to squeeze a couple of weeks outta the foundry & so i got 4 weeks rather than 2. But then if the last one took 6 weeks then this one being "only" life sized will be easy. LOL.
Have collected an Aldi volin off my mate who acqured it for me. Awesome I want to learn the fiddle. First problem... tune it?
Then took maquettes of the next one to a meeting so they could choose. With some mods one of em got thru. I got bugger all time for this next one, have managed to squeeze a couple of weeks outta the foundry & so i got 4 weeks rather than 2. But then if the last one took 6 weeks then this one being "only" life sized will be easy. LOL.
Have collected an Aldi volin off my mate who acqured it for me. Awesome I want to learn the fiddle. First problem... tune it?
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Tassie Knee
I can talk about knees now cos mine is getting better fast. No more crutch & the swelling's right down & my kneecap is back where its sposed to be. I can straighten it out too! Though i won't. Anyway if u want to read about knees...
Having always warned people going to Tassie that Queenstown was the only slippery bit, it come as no real surprise that that was where i fell in a ditch. I had meant slippery roads, but maybe just the entire area is actually slippery. Well why not? Maybe the dirt is slippery from the sulphur in the air & the dirt gets run across the roads to make them slippery when it rains.
We had stopped for a photo opp on a curve where there was a bit of run off to park the car. I got out &, as you would, i attempted to cross a tiny ditch to get a better view, and my foot slipped. I managed to catch myself on one hand & made sure the other hand was in the air holding the camera. Landing on my hand was no fun cos that hurt, and it basically just held my butt off the ground by 1cm. It is important to note however that i didn't actually fall on my arse.
Jo climbed the hill in the meantime, and did the dance of death down the hill, managing to avoid falling with some fancy footwork. Val took off up the hill & we both yelled out that it was slippery. She never heard us she said later. Anyway she went down like splat & i was most annoyed none of us was filming as we fully expected it & it would have made a good movie. She was fine tho & even her camera which bounced a few times was quite OK.
I didn't seem to hurt my leg at the time but i must have cos the next day my knee would randomly do this "collapsing" thing on me & that was kinda gross cos it felt like the bones were sliding off each other & going the wrong way & so it was pretty untrustworthy. Took 3 days or so get a bandage for it cos of it being Easter weekend in a strange country. I just tried to be careful with it. It didn't hurt much considering there was sure something funny going on there.
Have my suspicions that driving the tiny car & its clutch didn't help tho, cos that day i'd done most of the driving, and it never actually swelled up till after we got home a week later, & i'd driven half way from Melb to Sydney in the one day & that was a pretty painful thing to do, tho i wasn't gonna admit it & make Val drive all the way, cos like being a highway you would think even a bad clutch leg would be able to get you there, eh.
Anyway its put me off thinking i should get a small car with a clutch in it.
Having always warned people going to Tassie that Queenstown was the only slippery bit, it come as no real surprise that that was where i fell in a ditch. I had meant slippery roads, but maybe just the entire area is actually slippery. Well why not? Maybe the dirt is slippery from the sulphur in the air & the dirt gets run across the roads to make them slippery when it rains.
We had stopped for a photo opp on a curve where there was a bit of run off to park the car. I got out &, as you would, i attempted to cross a tiny ditch to get a better view, and my foot slipped. I managed to catch myself on one hand & made sure the other hand was in the air holding the camera. Landing on my hand was no fun cos that hurt, and it basically just held my butt off the ground by 1cm. It is important to note however that i didn't actually fall on my arse.
Jo climbed the hill in the meantime, and did the dance of death down the hill, managing to avoid falling with some fancy footwork. Val took off up the hill & we both yelled out that it was slippery. She never heard us she said later. Anyway she went down like splat & i was most annoyed none of us was filming as we fully expected it & it would have made a good movie. She was fine tho & even her camera which bounced a few times was quite OK.
I didn't seem to hurt my leg at the time but i must have cos the next day my knee would randomly do this "collapsing" thing on me & that was kinda gross cos it felt like the bones were sliding off each other & going the wrong way & so it was pretty untrustworthy. Took 3 days or so get a bandage for it cos of it being Easter weekend in a strange country. I just tried to be careful with it. It didn't hurt much considering there was sure something funny going on there.
Have my suspicions that driving the tiny car & its clutch didn't help tho, cos that day i'd done most of the driving, and it never actually swelled up till after we got home a week later, & i'd driven half way from Melb to Sydney in the one day & that was a pretty painful thing to do, tho i wasn't gonna admit it & make Val drive all the way, cos like being a highway you would think even a bad clutch leg would be able to get you there, eh.
Anyway its put me off thinking i should get a small car with a clutch in it.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Tassie: the Sea Shepherd
While we were in Hobart we stumbled upon the Sea Shepherd ship Steve Irwin. Jo was real pleased as checking out this exact thing was on her Bucket List, something she referred to sometimes & i never knew WTF she was on about til i got home & saw a trailer for the flick of the same name. Its something to do with a list of crap u want to do before u die, a course.
Anyway they were doing tours of the ship! Hey whatever ship it is, going on a ship is always fun. So we went & hung out there in the dusk with the wind coming up & it getting colder. The ship's painted black with skull & crossbones on the side, & flies a jolly roger. It comes with a grand set of huge scrape & gouge marks near the bow which it got from ramming a japanese whaling ship. It was very homey inside. People take on 12 month rides on it as volunteers. They get paid nothing & the food is entirely donated & its all vegan stuff. They go out & try to save sharks, seals & whales & whatever else they reckon is worth a try. The tour guide chap was a little pessimistic in that he fully expected sea life to be all dead in the southern oceans in a few years anyway. So doing a tour of duty on the ship was maybe a futile gesture. So on that cheery note i was kinda left alarmed but not the slightest bit alert cos when i asked Val later on what did he actually mean, she hadn't heard it & made something up that didn't help me at all.
They had parked the ship in Quarantine & he said in case we were wondering why, its cos they had been filming whales being killed & normally the whalers stop killing to avoid being filmed but they hadn't this time, they just kept killing & let them film. When the ship got in to Hobart they were directed to Quarantine & the Feds run on board & confiscated the film. But like they had made 80 copies or something (like you'd fully expect) so it was kinda just a show of force. It was filmed by some cable tv show in america, for a 2nd series of some show that rated wildly for the 1st series so this footage is going to get out there regardless.
The inside of the ship was self decorated by what seems like people with a litle time on their hands (like on a long sea voyage) and it was real cosy & nice. A massive DVD collection in the lounge room with comfy chairs & a bar & a Skullery to make food.
We left there all inspired to do a fund raising art show for them. Cos really if any of us were fit & young we'd be on there like a shot doing a 12 month stint or what! Awesome.
Anyway they were doing tours of the ship! Hey whatever ship it is, going on a ship is always fun. So we went & hung out there in the dusk with the wind coming up & it getting colder. The ship's painted black with skull & crossbones on the side, & flies a jolly roger. It comes with a grand set of huge scrape & gouge marks near the bow which it got from ramming a japanese whaling ship. It was very homey inside. People take on 12 month rides on it as volunteers. They get paid nothing & the food is entirely donated & its all vegan stuff. They go out & try to save sharks, seals & whales & whatever else they reckon is worth a try. The tour guide chap was a little pessimistic in that he fully expected sea life to be all dead in the southern oceans in a few years anyway. So doing a tour of duty on the ship was maybe a futile gesture. So on that cheery note i was kinda left alarmed but not the slightest bit alert cos when i asked Val later on what did he actually mean, she hadn't heard it & made something up that didn't help me at all.
They had parked the ship in Quarantine & he said in case we were wondering why, its cos they had been filming whales being killed & normally the whalers stop killing to avoid being filmed but they hadn't this time, they just kept killing & let them film. When the ship got in to Hobart they were directed to Quarantine & the Feds run on board & confiscated the film. But like they had made 80 copies or something (like you'd fully expect) so it was kinda just a show of force. It was filmed by some cable tv show in america, for a 2nd series of some show that rated wildly for the 1st series so this footage is going to get out there regardless.
The inside of the ship was self decorated by what seems like people with a litle time on their hands (like on a long sea voyage) and it was real cosy & nice. A massive DVD collection in the lounge room with comfy chairs & a bar & a Skullery to make food.
We left there all inspired to do a fund raising art show for them. Cos really if any of us were fit & young we'd be on there like a shot doing a 12 month stint or what! Awesome.
Waxing
Spent the day waxing in the studio til 3pm, when overcome by tired i went home & fell asleep. Quite like this make up yer own hrs business. Though i can see some avenues for things to get outta hand. Luckily paying rent for a studio is a bit of incentive to get off my ass.
So anyway now i'm bright as a button this evening & i guess i should just sit down & work out stuff on paper. I need to construct a new armature for the next life sized man & work out some curtain setup for security against prying eyes cos this ones secret. Not really secret i guess just incidentally no-one should know WTF i'm making. At pain of death etc. Personally i reckon the less secret it is the less people going to care. But that only works if nobody cares in the first place, and sadly a surprising percentage of people do care, far more than you'd expect. Anyway the secrecy thing is gonna be a bit of a drain on the enjoyment of the project which is a shame, for me. But then its just another requirement i guess for a customer, and thats what ya do.
A studio in Arncliffe is coming up, where i'd get more space and broadband in the rent. Could be good. I'm really over the people next door, they have about 50 cars in various states of wreck & for sale etc on the street & while my leg's been bad the lack of parking is even more a pain. Also they're so damn noisy. With them & the airplanes a day at work is headache.
So anyway now i'm bright as a button this evening & i guess i should just sit down & work out stuff on paper. I need to construct a new armature for the next life sized man & work out some curtain setup for security against prying eyes cos this ones secret. Not really secret i guess just incidentally no-one should know WTF i'm making. At pain of death etc. Personally i reckon the less secret it is the less people going to care. But that only works if nobody cares in the first place, and sadly a surprising percentage of people do care, far more than you'd expect. Anyway the secrecy thing is gonna be a bit of a drain on the enjoyment of the project which is a shame, for me. But then its just another requirement i guess for a customer, and thats what ya do.
A studio in Arncliffe is coming up, where i'd get more space and broadband in the rent. Could be good. I'm really over the people next door, they have about 50 cars in various states of wreck & for sale etc on the street & while my leg's been bad the lack of parking is even more a pain. Also they're so damn noisy. With them & the airplanes a day at work is headache.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Rotten sorta day
Had a rotten day with my knee. It went "over" in the morning & then hurt like hell all day regardless the repeated anti inflammitries & codeine. I did nothing much except learn to walk with a cane on the odd hop about.
Found out this evening that i had agreed a long time ago to be executor of the will of a fruit loop. I must have agreed yrs ago before i had any conception of what it entailed. I have no memory of agreeing & it horrifies me now.
She wants it all to go to one child & none to the other, and that one child cannot be trusted with money as they are also a fruit loop & so there'd need to be a trust fund set up or something.
So I wish her a long & healthy life eh.
And to top off an indifferent day the ext HDD i had all the tassie pics on has shit itself. I froze it & now its kinda working... desperately trying to retrieve the pix off of it. I had copied off the jpegs but left the RAW files only on there. So its kinda depressing if i lose em but not entirely despairingly tragic i guess.
Found out this evening that i had agreed a long time ago to be executor of the will of a fruit loop. I must have agreed yrs ago before i had any conception of what it entailed. I have no memory of agreeing & it horrifies me now.
She wants it all to go to one child & none to the other, and that one child cannot be trusted with money as they are also a fruit loop & so there'd need to be a trust fund set up or something.
So I wish her a long & healthy life eh.
And to top off an indifferent day the ext HDD i had all the tassie pics on has shit itself. I froze it & now its kinda working... desperately trying to retrieve the pix off of it. I had copied off the jpegs but left the RAW files only on there. So its kinda depressing if i lose em but not entirely despairingly tragic i guess.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Riding vs Driving in Tas
Lets get this question out of the way straight off the bat: ride a motorbike or drive a car? Which is better in Tas. Having been there twice on bike & now once in car, i reckon i can comment on this one.
The advantages of a car are kind of compelling cos you can go any season and you can carry any amount of luggage & collect crap all the way like a new pair of shoes cos yours got wet & not have a problem storing it all. You can even have an esky so you can have available food! And in the rain you can just sit there as you drive thinking, gosh i'm glad i'm not out there freezin my ass off & then having to dry all my clothes by a fire at night & getting there with my luggage full of water. So there's a bunch of areas where cars trump bikes from a great height.
However I have to say i have decided that motobike is the way to go.There's 2 reasons for this.
1) No roof. Roofs, & the associated pillars that hold em up, they keep you dry, but they stop you seeing a whole @40%-50% of the landscape at all times. Yes i mean the sky. Cos the sky there is massive. Like the mountains are massive and the trees are massive. You need the tops of the trees and the sky in your landscape. Sorry, u can't have them if u in a car, esp a small car.
2) On a bike you're Alone. Even if you travel with 100 other bikes, or a pillion, while you're riding inside your helmet you are alone & what u see goes in your brain straight thru yr eyes & you smell it thru yr nose without it needing to be translated into/from what someone else thinks by someone talking about it. A place like Tas needs you to be able to take it in. You don't get to appreciate it when someone sits next to ya exclaiming all day. Even if they're saying "oooh thats beautiful", well hell i know its beautiful, thats why i'm here, and i'd rather just absorb it without putting it in a box all the time. I'm sure this can vary depending on your co-driver/passengers but out of 4 people in yr car u gonna get one who thinks there is need for constant commentary. Which is also ok sometimes but like i said, in a place like Tas u need alone time.
The advantages of a car are kind of compelling cos you can go any season and you can carry any amount of luggage & collect crap all the way like a new pair of shoes cos yours got wet & not have a problem storing it all. You can even have an esky so you can have available food! And in the rain you can just sit there as you drive thinking, gosh i'm glad i'm not out there freezin my ass off & then having to dry all my clothes by a fire at night & getting there with my luggage full of water. So there's a bunch of areas where cars trump bikes from a great height.
However I have to say i have decided that motobike is the way to go.There's 2 reasons for this.
1) No roof. Roofs, & the associated pillars that hold em up, they keep you dry, but they stop you seeing a whole @40%-50% of the landscape at all times. Yes i mean the sky. Cos the sky there is massive. Like the mountains are massive and the trees are massive. You need the tops of the trees and the sky in your landscape. Sorry, u can't have them if u in a car, esp a small car.
2) On a bike you're Alone. Even if you travel with 100 other bikes, or a pillion, while you're riding inside your helmet you are alone & what u see goes in your brain straight thru yr eyes & you smell it thru yr nose without it needing to be translated into/from what someone else thinks by someone talking about it. A place like Tas needs you to be able to take it in. You don't get to appreciate it when someone sits next to ya exclaiming all day. Even if they're saying "oooh thats beautiful", well hell i know its beautiful, thats why i'm here, and i'd rather just absorb it without putting it in a box all the time. I'm sure this can vary depending on your co-driver/passengers but out of 4 people in yr car u gonna get one who thinks there is need for constant commentary. Which is also ok sometimes but like i said, in a place like Tas u need alone time.
Back from Tasmania
Well i been back for a day now, been for x-rays for the knee from when i fell in a hole near Queenstown, been hacking up a lung (left) from my tasmanian respiritry infection, and generally doing what is pretty normal after a holiday.
Yes i could have guessed that just sitting on my ass at home for 2 weeks would have been cheaper & easier & have less negative effect on my life & general progress, but there you are, don't ya just have to take the chance?
I'm gonna present the last couple weeks in a series of subject headings, cos looking back thats the way it fits together. So read on... when i get writing...
In the meantime i went to see the big feller in wax today at the foundry. I had to OK the wax before they started putting the shell on there for casting. i'd been worried about his face cos it'd been the last bit i did & it'd been still a bit soft when they moulded it. But i was real pleased. He was lookin good the mould had been a good un. He is gonna be one big mother or what. I stayed there & made a wee thylacene & left it there to be cast. They let me chuck in a few freebies with each big fella, as well they should. They're happy to have the work now as business is a bit slow, what with the economy & all. I better stop typin & get on & make some waxes actually. I need to make a model for the next life sizer & it'd be great if i got some small things thru the foundry cos i been gettin nibbles thru the website. Though they usually spit it out once they find out a price. Bronze casts are exxy things.
Yes i could have guessed that just sitting on my ass at home for 2 weeks would have been cheaper & easier & have less negative effect on my life & general progress, but there you are, don't ya just have to take the chance?
I'm gonna present the last couple weeks in a series of subject headings, cos looking back thats the way it fits together. So read on... when i get writing...
In the meantime i went to see the big feller in wax today at the foundry. I had to OK the wax before they started putting the shell on there for casting. i'd been worried about his face cos it'd been the last bit i did & it'd been still a bit soft when they moulded it. But i was real pleased. He was lookin good the mould had been a good un. He is gonna be one big mother or what. I stayed there & made a wee thylacene & left it there to be cast. They let me chuck in a few freebies with each big fella, as well they should. They're happy to have the work now as business is a bit slow, what with the economy & all. I better stop typin & get on & make some waxes actually. I need to make a model for the next life sizer & it'd be great if i got some small things thru the foundry cos i been gettin nibbles thru the website. Though they usually spit it out once they find out a price. Bronze casts are exxy things.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Bloggable
This weather is the flamin pits. Get totally soaked every time you venture out. And i'll have to venture out again in a moment. About to go to Tassie for a bit. Not taking a pc, so will be out of bloggable range i imagine, but will take loads of photos with the new canon g10. Did a shakedown last nite to see if it works & the outcome is i learned a lot suddenly about file formats & RAW & how to see those pics once you have taken them... cos it ain't as easy as your common garden .jpg file thats for sure. Its funny how fast you can absorb technical info when its your new camera, LOL.
Bewdy. Better get packing, i got some things to find.
See yez all on the other end- to the one person who's reading this (thats you!)
Bewdy. Better get packing, i got some things to find.
See yez all on the other end- to the one person who's reading this (thats you!)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)