just a tidbit

i just wanted to share with y'all the lovely little write up geekysweetheart of geekcrafts.com did on my weeping angel barbie (and while you're at it, please check out the rest of the site. so many geeky crafts, so little time!):

http://geekcrafts.com/weeping-angel-statue-with-tutorial/

i'm wondering if, as i type this, there are hordes of angels being created....... **shudders** ...WHAT HAVE I DONE??? :D

Don't Blink!

 

*****UPDATE 3/27/2014: after much soul searching, repeated requests, and another glimpse into copyright law I'VE DECIDED TO MAKE THESE TO ORDER!  while i still highly recommend that you make them yourself using my tutorial, this is a way to support the work, and for the crafting (and time) challenged to have their own weeping angel inspired piece!

the link to my etsy listing is HERE!


greetings readers,
i admit it. i'm a geek. and a proud one at that. i'm also a longtime doctor who fan. i grew up watching the 4th doctor (tom baker) and was never very satisfied with the ones that came after, until the series was revamped in 2005. i've successfully indoctrinated my husband into the whoniverse (we are also huge torchwood fans) and decided to decorate our bathroom with the scariest themes of the whoniverse. the bathroom is a work in progress, but i'll get to posting more about it later, i promise. it occurred to me that one of the most obvious monsters for me to make in particular was a weeping angel barbie. for those not in the know, weeping angels are creatures that appear to be statues of angels with their hands over their eyes (hence the name), but whenever someone (or something) is not looking at them they can move-fast. even blinking can allow them to get you. so here's the "why," now i'll show you the "how."

i cut a wing shape out of craft foam and added details with hot glue.



i discovered that even jointed armed barbies' arms are not in a proper position to cover their eyes so i had to cut and reattach the arms at the elbow. more hot glue.... a high temp gun makes all the difference here. her arms aren't going anywhere.







i also took the time to glue all of her joints so they are solid and attach her to a base- yes, with wooden skewers.


i realize that i'm missing a picture here, but i attached the wings next using high temp hot glue again.

a simple gauze dress was added. the gauze allows for the proper folding and drape (once paint and glue are added) to be indicative of the romanesque statues the weeping angels disguise themselves as. also in the picture below you can see peeking out from behind one of her wings my rendition of the bottle of tears from the torchwood episode "from out of the rain"


then came the problem of her hair. despite barbie's fashion sense, styling her hair any more than ponytail or down is next to impossible. in order to create the carved waves seen in statuary i needed to rely on my trusty glue gun again.



i next used craft glue to settle her dress more, and prepare the piece for priming.



and somehow i didn't get a pic of the piece primed, but just imagine the entire piece white ;)  the primer i used is a regular brush on house paint primer (like Kills) you could use a spray one i suppose, but i liked how i could really saturate the dress and make it a solid piece this way.

instead of trying to fake the stone texture myself i decided to use a textured spraypaint. i am quite pleased with the results!  i used a "sand" texture instead of the "stone" texture as the flake was much more to scale for the size of the doll.






and here she is in her proper place. i am quite pleased with how well she fits with the small shelf i had lying around. ....and do not worry for me who fans, i am placing a mirror directly opposite her so she will be trapped ;)



thanks for looking!
-sarah

asking for feedback

greetings readers,
i will post later either today or tomorrow with the current critters i've been working on, but i wanted to send out some feelers. i'm having a somewhat difficult time grasping a market for my barbie goddess figures. i know there's a niche for them somewhere, but i feel it's being elusive.... people seem to love the images, but perhaps prints of the sculptures isn't the best medium for this. maybe i'm too caught between the reverent and the irreverent here? yes, theses are goddess images, but they are also barbie dolls, and i don't want to have people forget that.... do you think i should play up the kitch factor a bit? la santa muerte coffee mugs? set of goddess fridge magnets? kali pot holders? i'm open to suggestions...
thank you so much!
-sarah

Arachne

Arachne

*gasp!* two posts in 2 days!?
so let's start with the last, first.... i am aware that this is definitely not your traditional portrayal of arachne... she came bourne of some frustrations i was dealing with and the urge to dismember barbies and just make a spider! part of the frustration was the tedium in dealing with the lilith/inanna barbie (which i will get to... no worries there :) -there were just so many things going wrong with that one!
this piece is more about all the spider goddesses out there in general and i wasn't even going to call her arachne, although that's what was in my mind the whole time.... i know the word just means "spider" in greek so perhaps that's why it persisted. so i did research on arachne and other spider figures.... and that's how i stumbled upon dore's beautiful illustration shown at the top of the page here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arachne (along with a concise version of her myth)...and i realized that we'd created her in a similar manner so i simply had to keep the name (despite the theological liberties i took ;)
talking of liberties, i kept asking myself "would arachne crochet?" but i began obsessing over yarn balls that could be worlds that could also be the bulbous spider abdomen... about weaving the world or the universe... these are actually common themes in my older work, it was wonderful to get back to them again after many years.... :)
about the process: creating the figure herself was a series of hits and misses. i'm not sure it's clear from this photograph, but her body is *very* complicated. i started with *just* a modern style barbie body facing breasts up(they are the ones that have bellybuttons and don't twist at the waist) fully dismembered (yes, even her head) i then glued (lots and lots of hotglue!!!!) 3 pairs of legs (including the originals, they are in the back as they have larger feet... it's amazing to me just how much i've learned about the differences in barbie bodies... that's a whole post right there, though) i then reattached the original arms but "backwards" so the hands would be facing the right way. she now needed a face.... for a while i just had a face literally cut out of a barbie head glued directly onto the neck. now, that was incredibly creepy, and i liked that part but it just didn't go with the series. ...and i kept thinking about that dore piece, and the streaming hair.... so i swapped the face for a smaller than barbie doll head (because spiders have small heads) and, for added weirdness and barbie authenticity, glued the actual barbie face onto the smaller head. because it wasn't creepy enough, i then added tiny doll arms for mandibles. (the small heads and arms were also used in constructing kali, the first piece). then she was painted to resemble a weaving spider, as i thought that was appropriate. ..and once again she sat... while i worked on other projects, avoiding trying to figure out her environment....
then i finally decided to give in to my desires and have her crocheting.... so she crochets the universe out of the world on her back...

the long past due updates....

above is a test image.... it's a stepping stone i created years ago in loving memory of dearly departed frodo-cat... rest in peace in your olive tree my dear...

so, the first series of barbies is complete.... the show is up, and i've even put stuff on my etsy (see the link i've added :) ...and i've been remiss with my updating here... i've decided to do a series of posts about each of the barbie goddess figures i created... each with some background and a photo or two and links to the lore of each goddess as well as my techniques etc..... and i'll be updating more often about what new pieces i'm working on....

barbie madness.....

this is a piece that i completed in march of last year, titled "barbie the destroyer." it was initially just a lark for a work party, but the idea has grown into something more akin to obsession. i'm currently working on a series of barbie goddess figures for a show in april. i hope to post pics of these as they are completed. sadly, mother kali is still my only completed piece although i've been working on several at once. procrastination and i have a long history together and i'm hoping that since the madness of the holidays is drawing to a close that we can end our dysfunctional friendship, at least for a while.
hope this is adequate for a first post :)