More Kiln Disasters

Talz Column:
This piece was fired at too high a temperature and cracked. It's not the correct color due to the high temperature, but it's close to the color I was going to glaze it anyway. I'm going to attempt to glue the pieces together and possibly use brown acrylic paint on the face.



No Face:
I don't know why this one cracked. I assert that it wasn't my fault. I'm planning on gluing it together and painting it with acrylics.




Yithian 2:
This survived mostly intact, except for some tendrils around the mouth. This is the most difficult to fix because I don't have the tendrils and it's not complete without them.

Handsome Pete

Handsome Pete is a character from the seventh season Simpsons episode "Bart the Fink." In this episode, Bart inadvertently reveals Krusty the Klown's tax fraud crimes to the IRS. Krusty fakes his own death. Bart and Lisa figure out that he is now living as a diver salvaging scrap metal from shipwrecks. They speak to the Sea Captain down by the pier and Bart asks him to identify Krusty from an image on an underinflated balloon. Captain McCallister identifies the distorted image as Handsome Pete, a grotesquely distorted version of Krusty who plays the accordion and dances for nickles.

The clay object was constructed lying flat with the left foot heavily weighted, which I hoped would allow it to stand on that foot. It worked.

Eduardo

Eduardo is a character from Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends. The title explains the concept well: a group home for entities dreamed into existence by children but later discarded when the child outgrows the need for imaginary friends, or for a variety of other reasons. Eduardo looks like a mutant biker minotaur, but the character is timid and childlike.



My aim was to copy the character model as closely as possible. I left off the tail and the little hairs on top of the head because I thought they wouldn't survive the kiln (and the perilous stage of being handled by various volunteer before being placed in the kiln). I thought the pinkish color of Eduardo's face could be described as lavender, but apparently lavender is more of a bluish color.

Another Beholder

This is Beholder 8. I've been collecting scraps of clay for a few months and I have about 20 pounds or $36 worth of clay I was able to recycle. I wedged (kneaded) it for a long time, but I still found an occasional air pocket which means that Beholder 8 could contain unseen air pockets and explode in the kiln. Beholder 8 has about 80 teeth.

Cockroach Dude

Maybe that's supposed to be a cricket.

Hollow Deva

This started out as another version of my Deva Shaman character, but I wasn't in the mood to add any more detail than this. Also, I wanted to test out the Floating Blue as a skin color. I like it.




Original version of End of Time.

Talz Figure

The Talz are a species from the Star Wars universe. In the films, the Talz are represented by a being known as Muftak in the cantina scene in Episode IV. Muftak is a tall, fuzzy creature with two sets of eyes which is briefly seen sucking some alien alcoholic beverage out of a coffee cup. In Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina, it is revealed that Muftak is a low-level street criminal, that he resides with and protects an impetuous bat-like creature called Kabe, that he hatched from a coccoon, and that was not even aware what species he was and had never seen another of his kind. Finally, the Mos Eisley equivalent of a playground sex-education misinformant had to teach Muftak about the Talzian birds and bees (mostly bees).



The appeal of Star Wars is to do George Lucas' thinking for him. I resisted the urge to give the Talz man boobs. They are clearly not a mammalian species. The fur is more like arthropod bristles than mammal hair. The eyes and mouthparts seem more like an arthropod's than those of a vertebrate. The Talz are supposed to have a pair of day eyes and a pair of night eyes. The day eyes on my Talz' face are too high up to be useful. I attempted to correct this in my second Talz piece, the Talz Column.



Two images of Muftak from A New Hope and one from the much reviled 1978 Star Wars Christmas Special, which I was lucky enough to see on TV at the time. I remember being vaguely disappointed with all the singing and dancing, but still happy to see the beloved characters and universe on television.

Unfinished Yithian

This is my first attempt at a Yithian since 2004.



My original, unsuccessful attempt:




Not a clay buttplug, but an interpretation of No Face from Spirited Away.

Elephantine Cthulhoids

Red Knobbed Cthulhoid

Waiting to be bisque fired: Handsome Pete, Talz Column, Devangari Script Coins, various small molds and objects.

Waiting to be glaze fired: Talz Figure, Cockroach Atavism, Alternate Version of Deva Shaman.

Waiting to be painted: Eduardo.

Constructing Handsome Pete

I made the parts for Handsome Pete, the spherically warped, accordion-playing version of Krusty the Klown that dances for nickels down by the pier, but I realized there was no way it would be able to stand up, at least before the clay was dry. I put it together on a flat surface and I'll wait until it's been bisque fired to see if it can balance on one leg as in the image. If it falls apart, I was thinking of attempting the same figure with both feet on the ground. Then life will be worth living and everything will be fine.

Elemental Grue (Chaggrin)

This is the Chaggrin, an elemental grue from the Plane of Earth from the AD&D Monster Manual II. It spent a long time without spines because I couldn't find the appropriate material. I found a rusty chimney brush in my parents' basement and I knew the grue had found its spines. It still has a vile smell from the epoxy glue, perfect for a hedgehog-like entity with a skeletal head.










The best part is that if you pick it up incorrectly, you might need a tetanus shot.




Illustration of the Chaggrin from the MMII.

Talz Facial Features

I like how the Talz figure came out balanced on its feet, but I'm not completely happy with the face. It's supposed to have two sets of eyes - one for seeing during the daylight hours and one for night, but the daytime eyes seemed too high up on its head. It also has a proboscis instead of a mouth and it didn't really make sense for it to have a jaw. If I thought I could pull off a bust, I would have, but I don't think that's possible, so I made a column instead. Muftak, the Talz in A New Hope looked very fuzzy and I don't think I recreated that effect in clay, but the facial features are a little more to my liking.

Unfinished Talz

The Talz are a species from the Star Wars universe. If it survives, I'll explain more later.

D&D Miniatures

These are miniatures for a Dungeons & Dragons character (and its spirit companion). I haven't decided whether to glaze or paint yet.

Desk of Clay Objects 2008

This is all of my clay output as of September 2008. Some of these were destroyed during my move. A few were sold or given away, but I probably have at least twice this output at this point and I'm living in a smaller space.

Unfinished Eduardo

This is the second in a series of interpretations of cartoon characters. This is Eduardo from Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends.

Stormtrooper Remains

Unfortunately, this is all that remains of the Stormtrooper Menorah. One of the stormtrooper molds came off when I was moving it, so I removed all of them and then noticed that the menorah itself was cracked and in two pieces, so I decided to dissolve it in water and start again. The Bossk image at the bottom is included as a bonus; I haven't found a use for it yet. I got the object used to make the mold at a store that sells comic books and action figures. They had a small box of detached parts of actions figures and the Bossk face was in there. It opens up to show very tiny images of Boba Fett and IG-88.




Another use of the stormtrooper image.

Aboleth 3

Orcs Acting in a Violent Fashion

These are some small figures of orcs acting in a violent fashion. I had been hoping to make D&D miniatures, but they came out too large and I don't think I can work on a smaller scale than this. I'm currently planning a new series of figures of orcs acting in a violent fashion, hopefully more violent and more graphically so than these two.



Right now, whenever I go to the studio and try to make something, I get as far as the feet and legs and then end up destroying it. From now on, I'm vowing not to destroy the feet and legs even if I don't end up making the rest of the figure.

Bunny Object

because the USA shape isn't the only cookie cutter out there.