Prop making

Am sure every artist has taken on some odd jobs that pay the bills, I was lucky to be approached by Mother Shipton's Cave, one of England's oldest attractions, which features the famous magical well that turns everyday items to stone. 

They wanted me to Sculpt some 6 foot tall bunnies out of some large polystyrene blocks, as having seen my rearing horse sculpture they had faith in my abilities to do it. What an strange but fun job I thought, however my concerns where I've never worked with polystyrene before how will this go. This coming from the guy who hates that screech that polystyrene can make, argh. 

My first problem was how am I going to cut out the large pieces,  doing some research I found that most sculptors use a hot wire tool, so I made one with nichrome wire and connecting it to my old RC car charger. It work after hours of fettling, clearly a electrician career is in doubt, but it worked Woop Woop well, all be it slowly. My other weapons of choice was a saw, a wire brush and some rasp files. 

Check out the messy bunny creation below.

Bunny one went well turns out its a fun material to work with however it does make you a snowman, the rasps files were great allowed me to detail the bunny features well. The bunnies will be covered in mod rock then painted and varnished. 

Check out bunny two below.

I wanted to this bunny be different to the last one, so I have made him look to his right, which I like it has made him look more real and alive. I painted this one in Pink however now they have changed their mind and he is now a light blue.

 It was good fun creating these and it has led me to more work from them in polystyrene as I have been creating some large vegetables and for you Peter Rabbit fans out there I've made Jeimina Puddleduck.

Hope you enjoyed hearing about my polystyrene Creations, stay tuned folks.

Woop Woop