Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Well, the tank pinata is coming together. As it will tend to do, reality is slapping me in the face with a cheap rubber sandal and I'm getting a grip on how much detail I will (or won't) be able to emulate with my little tank. At this point, I'll just be happy if it doesn't end up looking like Thomas the Friendly Locomotive or whatever-the-heck that thing is called. I've bought about 20 pounds of gew-gaws and candy, so it better be sturdy, if nothing else. I'll try to post some images tomorrow night. My one great disappointment is that I haven't been able to find a bag of small snakes to go in the thing. Dinosaurs, yes, but no snakes.

What's really taken me by surprise is that I am too weak to papier-mâché for hours at a time. I literally had to take breaks and lay down and breathe deeply. I'm feeling better every day, but this pneumonia has really taken it out of me. Can you imagine being exhausted from picking up strips of paper and sticking them onto something? Meh!

Anyway, I've got the framework mostly completed, and I'll do the final cobbling together tomorrow and probably start on the external form tomorrow night, and do another layer for each of the next 3 nights, finishing the painting on Friday.

By the way, a guy named Rob Cockerham in California has the coolest site, one I've been admiring for nearly 10 years. He does these amazing pranks and fun things. One of the most amazing things he does is his paper-mache stuff. Anyway, you need to go to his site and waste a few hours. YOu'll thank me. The most important thing for you to see there is his paparazzi halloween costume. Rob was working in the film industry on special effects and wrangled an invite to CGI (George Lucas' effects company)'s party. He knew he needed something spectacular, so he rigged the coolest costume. Go check it out.

Anyway. I'm going to work today, but if it's at all like last week, I'll be coming home and crawling into bed after only a couple hours. And that's just fine.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

you know the party isn't til a week from sunday right? take your time! if it doesn't work out we'll buy one, k. A

Anonymous said...

I love papier mache. There's this one thing I learned how to do in kindergarten, making an easter egg, and the armature is a balloon, so you layer onto the balloon, and when it's thoroughly dry you pop it and pull it out and decorate. I'm 39 and I now make these things for my niece and fill them up. She's five now, I think it's time to teach her how to make them.

Get well soon, phlegmie!

phlegmfatale said...

Sis - Really??? I have an extra week from what I thought? Oh, it'll definitely be finished. There'll be no need to buy one. Unless this one is simply too heavy to get off the ground. Then we can just lay it in the yard and let them club it like a baby seal.


maven - Yeah, We did balloons like that too when I was a kid, only we always made a pig out of them. They were really cute. I love doing that.
Thanks for the well-wishes. I'm on the mend.

The Atavist said...

Get well!!! And..., there will be photos, won't there? I'm having some difficulty imagining how you will build that thing out of papier mache.

FHB said...

The way it keeps kickin' your ass, it sounds almost like you had malaria, rather than pneumonia. But I trust your doctors to know the diff.

Can't wait to see the pinata. Been taking pictures on base of tanks for Bruno. Lots of cool stuff on static display.

And that costume was genious. Loved it.

Anonymous said...

hey, baby seals!! next one has to be baby seals!!! A