Fluke

So Paige and I made it to Scad last Thursday...only to find that the photo room was closed, despite the claims that it would be open. So not so much progress on the photos of Doll. Will take some this weekend though.

Fluke was not bad. I only got mercilessly hit on by a couple of nerds and no one tried to talk Transformers with me. Martyn and I had the most confusing table by far with such a strange variety of content on such a small surface. It worked though--my creepy glittery sculptures lured people in and then they realized that Martyn's minicomics are really cool despite being so...well, mini. They especially went for his three-dimensional pop-up comic of Andy the Retard in Donkey Kong and his 'Infinity Comix' which he has cleverly folded in a way that the story loops and goes on for infinity. I don't even understand how they work, but each panel opens in a different way until it brings you back to the beginning and then the story starts over. They are insane just like my B.F. He sold a lot of comics and I sold a Chinese Golden dragon, a phoenix hatchling, a unicorn horn, and a ton of wisher whatsits. After Fluke was finished we roamed over to the park next door as the sun was setting and just laid in the grass. Then we went to a few shops and met up with Martyn's good friend John for Thai food. Martyn bought John dinner because he was nice enough to let us stay with him. It was a good day.

Anyway, until I have pictures of Doll or any actual artwork to show for myself here are the pictures I took of our table at Fluke:




See? Definitely a strange variety...


A happy Martyn with comics and Stongbow. My favorite part about Fluke was that it was in a bar that had Strongbow on tap.


The fabled pop-up Donkey Kong themed Andy the Retard comic:


A close up of Andy reaching the last level. That's Mel, his G.F. She is not meant to be me, contrary to popular belief--Martyn designed Mel before he met me. I guess I'm just his type. The fat guy is James, a hateful human being that wants Mel for himself. I would say he is Andy's enemy, but Andy actually thinks he's cool.


If you want to actually read some of Martyn's comics you can see most of them on his blogs. His most recent is his journal comic which is nonfiction for the most part and about his everyday life (bottom row middle on his display below.) I'm a character in it, of course.

Also there's Andy the Retard, which would be a blatant Mary Sue character if not for the fact that a Mary Sue is usually a better version of yourself. Martyn still draws Andy from time to time but you can see the archive, along with some other stuff, here.

Martyn built a pretty cool display for all his minis:


An overexposed close up of my stuff:


Martyn had a lot of fun. It was like a dream come true for him. Yeah...he's a nerd, but his British accent he's more of a nuhd.


My friend Charles also had a table with some of his friends. He was selling cookies, so I bought some. They were great.


I thanked him with a unicorn horn. I had to, he played my feral pantsless love interest in our 80's Legend/American Werewolf in London/Pretty in Pink spoof movie so well. That was a long time ago now. Ah, the sparkly memories...


The bar where Fluke was held was called Tasty World, by the way.

Doll In Progress: Baking, Painting, Wigging

I worked on Doll some more over the weekend. I am trying to finish him by the end of the week so that Paige can photograph him for me and I can take him with me to this minicomic festival in Athens called Fluke. Martyn wants to go to this thing so he can try and sell his own minicomics, and he told me if we get there early enough we should be able to snag and share a table. Comics about retards and inept redheads, sculptures of mythical creatures and transvestite fairies. What more could one want from a vendor? Even if we don't get a table I look forward to the nerd watching. Also I haven't been to Athens in a while. It's a neat little town.

So anyway, here are some more in-progress photos of Doll:


That's him fresh out of the oven. He now has a head and hands. He's holding the handle of what will be a whip in his right hand and he will have a feather fan in his left hand when he's all finished. A close up shot:


He looked entirely creepy in that stage with no color, no makeup, and no hair. The next thing I did was set up my workspace to blush him with Genesis paints. Genesis paints handle sort of like an oil based medium but only dry when activated by heat. They're commonly used by dollmakers because once they set it's almost as if they stain the clay itself. They don't chip off like acrylic and they are great for subtle drybrushing techniques like adding a bit of color and shading to a sculpture. I just bought a sample set of a few colors because a little goes a long way. Here is everything on my desk.


(Note Strongbow.)



And as always, my faithful Loon by my side:


I always pull up a chair for her because she's my business partner and likes to oversee all of my projects. That's my chair on the right.


And here is Doll, blushed and ready for his last trip to the oven:


After he cooled down a bit I painted him again, this time with acrylic. I use acrylic for more detailed work like makeup and tattoos. For glossy lips and eyes, I use my well kept secret ingredient: nail polish!


As you can see below, he's got hairy legs and a Rocky Horror style prison tattoo on his right thigh. In the photo he is trying on his new shoes, which were originally white Barbie platform heels with pink flowers over the toe. After a failed attempt at sculpting the shoes myself, I drove all over the world looking for what one might think would be easy to find: classic black Barbie pumps. Apparently the only doll that even wears those anymore is the original 1960's swimsuit Barbie that has been re-released for Barbie's 50th anniversary. I have never been a fan of dolls but unfortunately I have a heart, so there is no way I could ever buy a Barbie just to mug her of her shoes--especially one as classic as swimsuit Barbie. So I just had to modify those white shoes that came separately in a pack of Barbie clothes. It was a major pain--they had gay little ankle straps that I had to cut off with an exacto knife, the black spraypaint wouldn't dry or adhere to the plastic for some reason, so I pretty much ended up just using nail polish again. Apparently nail polish has many uses. I think they turned out great, really trantastic.


Doll also has a heart on his left shoulder that reads, "Ma." It was a fresh tattoo in this picture so still pretty shiny.


Then yesterday I made his fishnets:


Complete with seams, tears and runs:


And last night Paige came over to watch Neverending Story, and I wigged him:


He's got that sort of Marilyn Monroe/Deborah Harry/pinup thing going on:



He's also got copious amounts of chest, arm, and leg hair. He's not a natural blonde.


The whip:


The shoe:


The butt:


Note the kiss of Quarley. Tonight I am going to see how far I can get on his outfit. Also I have to remember to tattoo his knuckles--they're supposed to read "Doll Face" but I guess I forgot to get around to it. Anyway, more soon to come.