March 10, 2010

Are You My Mother?

I needed a couple of sketching projects for practice ... and someone's little ones were enjoying twittering with Mommy & Daddy ... so I volunteered to draw them each a little drawing from their favourite Dr. Seuss book. First up is actually a PD Eastman book called Are You My Mother?

This weekend I'm hoping to get 'round to the second piece - from The Sneetches and Other Stories.

Posted by Red Monkey at 4:08 AM | Comments (0) | Sketches | Stumble

March 9, 2010

My First Munny

So, there are these things called Munnys which are just vinyl "shapes" that you can buy and decorate yourself. Or, if you're more into collecting than doing it yourself, you can collect various artists' renditions of Munnys. (Or Dunnys or any of the other critters they make.)

There's a huge Flickr group of customized Munnys if you want to click through. But here is a regular white Munny ready for customizing:

So I decided it was time to try my first foray into the fine art of Munny-making. My first one is quite simple, but something that was quite meaningful to me. I still have a larger white one to decorate as well as a large glow-in-the-dark one. I'll get more creative with those, I'm sure. I'd like to do some sculpting on one of them, at the very least.

This one is based on a Sunface Kachina doll. We lived in Albuquerque for all of three months when I was three years old, but I was fascinated by the culture then and remain so. The face is a typical Sunface - eagle feathers bordering and the red and yellow quarters. The face is sometimes white, sometimes turquoise. On this Munny, the eagle feathers are white leather. A leather loincloth and belt have also been glued on. I've contemplated doing a kind of "sandpainting" design on the back of the head ... that seems to be a Munny tradition of sorts to do an elaborate paint job on the head ... but in the end, I think I prefer the simplicity of this design as it is. Maybe I'll do another Pueblo/Hopi/Navajo-area-inspired design later on.

Posted by Red Monkey at 4:15 AM | Comments (1) | Design | Sketches | hobbies | Stumble

December 24, 2009

A Very Sculpey Christmas

So I have this issue with giving presents. I want to give them on my time, not necessarily when the calendar says it's time. This does not work out really well as sometimes I forget to get presents ... I'm not always on time with them ... and I often don't give presents one year, but then go overboard the next year. This tends to confuse others.

This year, I decided on a whim after completing Timmy the Red-Nosed Reindeer Monkey, that I would do a Sculpey project for each of my co-workers. My boss was relatively easy - she collects snowmen. (Click for a bigger image - new window)

Then there is the co-worker who likes Hello Kitty. Of course, I had to tough-up Miss Kitty ...

And then there's our supervisor who is about as diverse as me. She told me about a nickname of her husband ... so I decided I'll make him a panda later on ... and her a bear for now. (The pattern for this sculpt comes out of one of my books on Sculpey - it's not an original design.)

Another one comes from the Sculpey website:

If you've never seen the Monkeehub animated video of Radiohead's acoustic version of "Creep," you have to go see it. Seriously. It's incredible. I decided to make that character for another co-worker.

And then another co-worker does some really nice vector illustrations ... I decided to do his sculpt as one of his own characters. Check out the wallpaper here.

They were surprised, I think. And it was fun. Now just watch ... next year I'll probably freaking forget to do anything.

Posted by Red Monkey at 9:20 PM | Comments (3) | Sketches | Stumble

December 7, 2009

Timmy Plays in the Snow

So of course, the day after I take some snaps of Timmy the Red-Nosed Reindeer Monkey, it snows here which is pretty much the perfect backdrop for a reindeer monkey. I snagged Timmy, set him up, told my dogs to shut it, I would be back inside momentarily and then had to dodge a neighborhood kid who wanted to talk to the doggies in the window. (And of course, the dogs wanted to talk back. Loudly. Not letting in a word edgewise.)

But I did manage a good snap of Timmy in his natural environs:

I think you can see the full effect of his glowing nose a little bit better here maybe. Certainly better than last night's too-dark and orange shot.

Posted by Red Monkey at 6:05 PM | Comments (0) | People Say I Have ADHD, But I Think - Hey Look, A Chicken | Sketches | Stumble

December 6, 2009

Voila! Timmy The Red-Nosed Reindeer Monkey

Sometimes I see something and it just clicks. As I've said, thinkgeek.com is one of my favourite places in the universe. They have a website with real humour, beautiful and innovative design work and products that appeal to me (and generally make me giggle). So, it was unsurprising when I went to their site the other day and saw their holiday header image and it made me giggle beyond the telling of it.

First, ThinkGeek's mascot is Timmy the Monkey. Being a Red Monkey myself, of course I like any site with a good monkey mascot. Being a pixel monkey myself, I appreciate the site's look and aesthetic. (What's not to like about that gorgeous robots to zombies background fade?)

Second, any site that uses nice renditions of my favourite puppet or claymation characters also has my full attention.

So to see Timmy the Monkey done up as Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer from the 1964 Rankin-Bass movie just delighted me and I knew I had to have a Timmy the Red-Nosed Reindeer Monkey of my very own. Preferably one with a light-up nose.

Also, after being sick as all get-out for a week with this damn sinus infection from hell, I needed a project I could immerse myself in and yet remain quiet and still and restful. So, I grabbed some bricks of Sculpey and Fimo and cleared off the glass drawing table and began kneading the polymer clay. The light colours on Timmy are just plain tan Sculpey. The darker area is tan mixed with chocolate and the antler nubs are chocolate Sculpey mixed with black Fimo. The black eyes and red nose are also Fimo.

The problem with working in Sculpey is the stuff is ridiculously soft. That makes it exceedingly difficult to get it completely smooth and exceedingly easy to get small flecks of other colours embedded into each other. The head construction was fairly easy, but smoothing out the seam of the ears was difficult without leaving further marks in the soft clay. It went pretty well, though, including the inlay of the tan into the ears.

Then I started the body. I toyed with the thought of using aluminum foil to take up some of the bulk, but to be honest, I've never had success using that method - I just never seem to get the clay smooth again over the crumpled foil. So, his body is a massive chunk of Sculpey. Then I cut a diagonal line to create the joint for one leg - just to see if this method would make a better joint for the legs. It did. I was pretty happy with that ... and then it was time for the damn arms. Really, the arms weren't so bad, but trying to do the hands in the incredibly soft Sculpey was an exercise in masochism. Eventually I got it. Unfortunately, during the baking, both arms sagged downward more than I'd anticipated.

So he turned out pretty well, but that wasn't quite enough for me. I wanted a light-up nose, too. So, I carved into the back of Timmy's little head. I needed a slot big enough to slide a 3V 2032 button battery (often found in watches or super-slim remotes). I also needed a hole to insert the LED. Wiring him up was far easier than I thought at first - the area was small enough that all I really needed to do was slide the battery in between the wires in the LED - no additional wiring really needed. I could just take the battery out to turn it off. Far simpler than trying to embed both wiring and a switch inside the Sculpey head - particularly since I didn't want to bake the wiring along with the Sculpey.

There ya have it! Timmy the Red-Nosed Reindeer Monkey.

Posted by Red Monkey at 3:39 PM | Comments (4) | People Say I Have ADHD, But I Think - Hey Look, A Chicken | Sketches | Stumble

December 5, 2009

Timmy the Red-Nosed Reindeer Monkey

It's no secret that I enjoy being a massive geek, so it's no real surprise that I adore thinkgeek.com. I logged in over there the other day, only to discover their holiday theme is up ... and it's based on the old clay-mation Christmas specials like Rudolph. In fact, one of their designers has mocked up a Timmy (their mascot monkey - hello, I am the Red Monkey, you KNOW I love thinkgeek!) as Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. The header with that image is not on every page, it's in a random rotation at the moment, but play around a bit on their site and you'll see it.

I LOVE it! Of course. So, since I've finished the last of my major projects (other than cleaning the house), I decided that the perfect sick-time activity this weekend is making a Timmy the Red-Nosed Reindeer Monkey. I am going to try to hit Radio Shack tonight and pick up a red LED to put inside him as well.

So, this is the head, pre-baking. It's primarily Sculpey with a bit of Fimo in the nose and mixed into the antler nubs.

Building the body's going to be very interesting ....

Posted by Red Monkey at 4:07 PM | Comments (1) | People Say I Have ADHD, But I Think - Hey Look, A Chicken | Sketches | Stumble