Finished small projects - Steampunk Skull and Memento Mori

Hey there you jolly ghastly bunch o' fun!

Just finished two smallish projects I started earlier.

You might remember the steampunk skull

(part 1 - part 2 )

Well, it's done! Finally, it's not very steampunk... for the sake of practicality (I use the skull as a model when drawing or sculpting), I decided to forget about over steampunkish accessories, and went with the plain & simply. I was satisfied with simply aging the skull, changing the teeth, and replacing the shiny steel hardware with something less new-ish.

Unfortunately, I dropped the skull's lower jaw once. Over stone tiles. A lot of teeth were knocked off, and I was too lazy to glue em back in. Instead, I used my trusty rotary tool, and drilled holes where the teeth used to be. Afterwards, I slopped the same wood stain I used on the rest of the skull on the jaw, and gave it a dip in dust & ash to make it look old & grimy.

In this picture, you can also see the new screws I stuck into the jaw. They are of a blackish, old oxydized steel, with brown and blue "highlights".

Of course, just sticking in screws is boring, so I glued on the exterior of the jaw a few tiny bits of metal, to make it seem like it was old rusty bolts held on with brass nuts.

I then added thick red rubber bands to hold the jaw to the skull. It'll break more easily than springs, but it is easier to replace, and I didn't like the look of stainless steel springs.

Now, other then that, I finished a small "memento mori" shadow box. Memento Mori simply means remember death, or more precisely, remember that you will die. That was a perfect sentence to go with a human metatarsal I had laying around in my appartment (don't ask.)

I used a cheap balsa shadow box I bought at the dollar store. Not satisfied with the natural wood finish of the shadow box, I went to work.

I wanted a black frame, but I didn't have any black paint left (gasp!). Looking for a solution, I recalled a few pieces of furniture I saw somewhere once, which were made with scorched wood, coated with resin for protection. I decided to try it out on my frame.

This is what I started out with:



I simply took out a propane torch, and scorched the wood of the frame, being carefull not to burn too deeply so that the frame still had a certain substance. You don't want ash, you want a fine layer of cracked charcoal.

This is what I ended up with:

In this close-up shot, you can see more easily the texture of the wood. Keep in mind that I covered it with epoxy resin so it wouldn't crumble or stain everything it touched.

Afterwards, it was simply a matter of adding a black felt background, cutting a banner from aged paper, writing the wanted sentence on it, and gluing everything down (including the metatarsal) with more epoxy. I used 5 minute epoxy from the dollar store, but you can use whatever you want.

That's all for now, peeps! I ordered a few insects from my favorite seller on ebay, so be ready for more insect mounting pictures soon!

see ya later.

Taxidermy: In which we finish the job.

Hello again.

This time we'll deal with the finishing touches; coloration, antiquing and wall mounting.

First of all, it is important to support the dry mermaid for the painting process.
I used a wire coat hanger which I bent out of shape and slid under its arms.

For painting the body, I mixed a small quantity of paint matching the fish's color; I used burnt umber, burnt sienna, sap green, black, and gold paint to give a slight shimmer to the color.

I then mixed 1 part paint to 3 parts latex, and watered down the mix a bit so it goes on more easily.

Don't worry if the resulting paint is pale, it'll dry much darker. The great thing with this paint is that it won't be uniform; since it's translucent, there will be some natural variation in the color. This is a good thing if you want a realistic paint job. Also, cover the whole fish, not just the body.

More pictures & info after the jump.

Steampunk skull - Deuxième partie

Hey there, lovely little bilge rats!

I thought I'd show you the progress on my skull.

Nothing very complicated, I just played a bit with its finish, and removed the crappy ol' single piece teeth and installed brand new, shiny, strong, acrylic choppers.

Here's the teeth before I started:





As you can see, they are the same color and same texture as the skull, they're short, they're cheap, they're made in one piece and our friend mr. skull has a nasty underbite.

This shall be fixed!

To start, I simply dremeled out the original teeth. I used a sanding disk attachement, but some kind of router bit would probably do a great job too.


As you can see, it now looks quite geriatric. I honestly like this; I'll probably by a plastic skull some day and make it look edentate like that.

Once clean and sanded, I was ready to attach the new teeth.

Acrylic teeth, the kind used to make dentures, come in little plastic trays, separating the top, bottom, front and back teeth. Very pratical; you don't have to guess which tooth goes where (although mouth anatomy is fairly simple).

I bought mine on ebay; it cost about 20$ including shipping from china, and I have 6 complete sets of teeth.



I started out with the lower incisors, and gradually covered the whole lower and top mandible by gluing the teeth one by one from behind with drops of hot glue. It's not the strongest bond, but it's quick and easy to use. We'll strenghten the teeth later.



As you can see, it doesn,t look good from behind; In my case, though, it's not a problem, since the skull won't be manipulated much.


Upper teeth done

All glued!

As you can see, I corrected my buddy's underbite. I even gave him a slight overbite, for more realism!


Once this was done, I added 5 minute epoxy between and behind the teeth to hold them strongly in place. Although not necessary, this will add some durability to the skull.

Of course, I couldn't let these teeth all clean and shiny and white looking freshly flossed, when the rest of the skull looked freshly dug up! So I brought out the walnut stain again, mixed it with a bit of yellow ochre paint to tone down the red tones, and got this mix in every nook and cranny of the teeth. I wiped the front clean so they still had a bit of shine, and did a little trick that also gave a smooth, old and dusty look to the skull.

I rolled the whole thing in ashes while still tacky. I then dusted the excess off, and fixed it with matte spray varnish. This step really brings the whole thing together, and can save a poorly done stain job.

Voilà, mes amis! beau comme un sou neuf.


Link to part 1

Painted Hog's Skull

This winter, I stuffed a pig's head for a friend's short movie. This experience in taxidermy didn't turn out very well; I didn't degrease the skin correctly so it didn't cure fully. However, it worked great for my friend's movie;

As a result, I had a pig's skull laying in my basement. I finally used it in a sculpture made for a class in college:
Giorgio by *ars-anima on deviantART

At the end of college, I couldn't bring that tall thing home, so I just ripped off the skull and threw the rest away.

I was once again stuck with that skull, without knowing what to do with it.

Inspirationg struck two days ago while I was bored out of my skull (HAHA A PUN! YES! I ROCK!). This skull SHALL BE PAINTED, proclaimed-I!

Thus I began ripping all the lights, silicone, wire and urethane out of it.

This done, I started painting the skull without any sketch or whatever. I used Delta craft paints; the opacity and fluidity of a quality craft paint makes it perfect for such a job. I didn't try to follow any ritual or traditional pattern; I just painted following as much as I could the natural shape of the skull. (sorry if you have to turn your head 90°, I'm too lazy to rotate the pictures)

I tried to use mainly bright colours to give it a gipsy or voodoo appearance; of course, just a few icons painted on leaving lots of the natural color, or a darker theme would look just as good if not better.

Once the main painting job was done, I sanded the hell out of the skull using a coarse grain sandpaper, and also a very fine one to give it a polished with us texture. Afterwards, I applied a nice coat of stain made of coffee, acrylic paints, white glue and varnish. Wood stain followed with a coat of varnish would have worked just as good if not better, but I didn't have any at hand.

There ya go!

old, dirty, and ready to hang!

If you wish to try your hand at skull painting, you can find already clean skulls on Ebay, or go take a look at The Bone Room or Skulls Unlimited. Be warned though that professionally cleaned bones tended to be expensive; If you're not squeamish, cleaning the skulls of roadkill or of heads bought at a slaughterhouse is a damn cheap option. The whole hog's head I used, who's meat was turned into great headcheese by my wonderful mom, cost just 10$ at the slaughterhouse.