Transi: A (Final?) Update

If you looked through my whole blog, or have been following me for quite some time, you might remember about the Transi, a small figure I sculpted in oil-based clay a while ago. Well, to put things plainly, I fucked up. My plan was to mold the sculpture in a latex skin, then create a plaster mother mold over it; bad idea. Latex will have a hard time curing when it's brushed on oil based clay. I should have made an alginate mold, then a resin or plaster cast, and THEN create the latex mold over the resin or plaster copy.

But what is done is done; I acted without thinking thoroughly and ended up with a sloppy mold, on which lots of detail was lost, and the original sculpture isn't in good enough condition to create another mold.

I wasn't going to let all this work go to waste, though. Thus about two days ago, I decided to try casting a plaster copy using the crappy mold I made. The casting process went absurdly well considering how bad I am at making molds & casting stuff. If it hadn't be for the poor quality of the latex impression, I would have had a perfect copy of the original sculpture.

Here's what I ended up with:

On makeup, wounds and bruises - A short walkthrough

Today I took part in a very fun boredom-busting rainy day project with my best buddy and his girlfriend. Basically, I did the makeup for a gory photo shoot. The goal: beat up a bit the girl and hang her with fish hooks going through her skin.

Now, being obsessed with body modifications & piercings, if I was the model, I would've filed the barbs off the fishhooks, pierced myself with a sterile piercing needle and run the fish hook through it. But the lovely Mirenda isn't as masochistic as me, so I had to find a way to do this without harming her. It was pretty easy.

First of all, take a before shot of your model. Having a kitten in the picture helps attracting your audience. Promising a kitten at the end of the post helps keeping your readers hooked. Thus, keep on reading, and you won't see one, but TWO pictures of cute kittehs.

Shameless self-advertising

I've got nothing to talk about right now (lotsa stuff in progress, but being the eternal procrastinator, nothing's getting done), so I'm gonna show off my stuff. You've seen the crafty side of me, but I also dabble in fine arts, now and then.

Thus, here is an embedded slideshow of my deviantart gallery. There's pretty mediocre stuff on there, but a couple of works are pretty decent if I may say so myself. Please feel free to take a look, and say hello if you've got an account there!

Book Reviews - a couple more

Time for five new book reviews!

This time, I only cover novels; mostly fiction, except for Dharma Bums, which is kind of a romanticized autobiography, if you will.

So hey, let's start with this one, just after the jump!

The sentinel - a video

The always incredible Tom Banwell has posted a video of one of his most popular creations, The Sentinel, in action on youtube. The video itself isn't particularly interesting, but what is interesting is to see the texture, feel, weight and fit of this creation; something harder to gauge in pictures.



Link to the post

Just so you know

I'm working on two different projects and contemplating two others, so you'll see more interesting posts pretty soon. Since then, links and reviews will have to do!

But I'm trying not to be lazy. I don't work in a very inspiring and creative surrounding, and I'm a lazy bastard. These two things take their toll on the quantities of stuff I might create and document. I'll try not to slack off too much, though!

Here's a couple of teases to keep you interested though:

Deviant Moon Tarot

I received earlier today an order from Amazon.ca. Inside this order was hidden what I was the most expecting; a copy of the Deviant Moon Tarot by Patrick Valenza.

To put it plainly, this tarot deck is fucking gorgeous. Slightly twisted and surreal, with warm, earthy colors, the characters basking in the glow of the moon.

It came in a larger box which contained a beautiful tarot spreadsheet.

Inside this box was nested the smaller one, containing the cards.

And the cards themselves are jaw-droppingly awesome.

Similarly to the Rider-Waite tarot (and unlike the tarot de Marseilles), each card from the minor arcana is filled with symbolisme, making this deck easier to use for beginners who don't yet know by heart the meaning of each and every card.

But most of all, this tarot deck has something my 2 other decks are severly lacking: an interesting back design.

All in all, this deck is probably the most haunting and beautiful I ever held. A true work of art.

Deviant Moon Tarot's official website