I have no idea where the urge came from, but it surfaced with such excitement that nothing would quell my desire to make some form of creation from the medium that is salt dough. Salt dough is a medium usually linked to poorly formed 'tot sculptures' which beg the question 'mate, seriously, what the hell is that?' a question which is instead twisted and reformed by professionals into 'sooooo....tell me about your sculpture'. The child involved will then offer an exclamation so lucid that even an LSD seems dull in comparison, after which the child's mother involved would demand that it sits pride of place on the mantelpiece to advertise to any visitors that the child of the household has the artistic ability of a lemon. Bless
Basically i just wanted a play, and i broke Anna's room plaque that her niece made because it was shit I was drunk, so i totally owed her one. so as usual I over stocked on salt (i bought 5 times more than i actually needed)
and used this recipe
SALT DOUGH
1 cup of table salt
1 cup of water
2 cups of flour
Throw the salt and flour in a bowl, then gradually add the water untill it makes dough, of it's to sticky add flour and if its too dry add more water...
And I don't mean American cups either, I just mean A cup (obviously the bigger the cup the more you will make)
And this is what I made...
with the dinosaur being my favourite...OBVIOUSLY!
You can leave it to air dry (takes a day or two or cook it on low heat, what i didnt realise is that it still takes a billion hours on low temp (50-100 Degrees C) so i did it for an hour and then left it to air dry for the remainder of the time :D
So this week i went to Annas, and revelled in the joy that is a partnership, i'm not one for public affection, but we had a snazztastic time :D
on our travels around the ever so popular tourist destination that is Maidstone, a place renound for for its classy inhabitants, beautiful architecture and pristine river water... well maybe not, but I digress. SO in TKmax we hunted for some suitable winter attire, however after feeling swamped with unsuitable clothing for nearly an hour, i tugged on the rope tied to my waist 3 times and was returned to the the surface.
And then i saw it, its surface distorting the surrounding space, glinting, as if flaunting its brilliance, dancing its seductive dance...
Yes its crude as hell, but it's DINOSAURS FOR GOD'S SAKE!!!!!1!!!!!oneone!!!1eleven, admittedly it drawn in a style similar to medieval bibles and for 30 quid I'm sure i could get a decent scientific etching for that, but still it filled the world, for a second with glee of that found only within 5 year old's.
Obviously I am easily entertained and a randomly, well placed dinosaur related object is all needed to make my day, so here i am cheerfully beaming in the fact i have seen this monstrosity of an art piece (i love the grumpy triceratops in the centre of the painting XD ) and i go nect door to hobby craft where i manage to pick up this little fella for a few (3) quid...
A VELOCERAPTOR!?!?!! probably the most badass of all dinosaurs portrayed by film? yes please!
so i pick up this cheeky little gift to myself to entertain me for an hour or so whilst the bird is doing boring degree related follies...
After 15 minuites of quizzical brow scratching, eye strain and a spattering of dinosaur noises i begin to realise that this 'little model' isn't going to be so little after all...its FUCKING EPIC! its man sized!
Wait....what? how do you cruelly obtain wool? Armed Robbery?, pulling it out? , skinning the sheep/llama alive? Claiming to have slept with the ovine's mother whilst harvesting warm fluffy treats?
Also why just cruelly obtained wool from Australia , not every where? Surely if your going to make a group like this you may as well hit as many birds with the same stone (bad metaphor, I know)
I would look into it further but i have an instant hatred of groups like this, regardless of the causes that they endorse...
Also Why is wool never as fluffy as you imagine it?
Friday, 5 November 2010
There is nothing more fantastically awesome to an invertebrate keeper when their insects shed ESPECIALLY when they shed to adult and ESPECIALLY when they are female (more often than not) because females are on the whole bigger, more epic (especially in the case of mantid's and phasmid's (stick insects) ) and are more productive (they make babies) and it is usually much better to have a high female to male ratio for this reason :D
So when my sub adult female shed to adult and finally earned her wings i was more than ecstatic :D
she looks so much like a leaf!:D males on the other hand look a bit weedy in comparison having functional wings that spoil the leaf illusion somewhat...
also i love the females facial features...
they just look a bit clueless, like a confused Tusken Raider
Strange things have been appearing of late within my humble abode, Firstly my kitchen was visited by a wandering mollusc, that i have christened 'Norman'
What i love about the appearance of Norman the most is my Brothers reaction to 'Chris there's a snail bombing round the kitchen' in which he replied 'Yeah he was here the other day i just left him to it' I love how my a combination of my brothers laziness and his interest in 'what will happen next' had culminated in letting a snail loose in a culinary setting...how daring.
The Mystery Currently however is that of 'The Dolphin'
He's been her for nearly a week now, and we have only just realised no one has a flamin' clue as to where he has come from...he's just appeared and has become a resident in the Alsop household, but he does look ever so happy with a bottle of Radox protruding from his rectum.
Bonjourno! ect
Of late I have been reveling of my long lost delights of anime, something i havn't really seen in a non hung over state for a very long time, so long ago infact that the last time i ever really watched a decent bit of anime was on cartoon networks channel 'CNX' which i don't even think exists any more, a channel, with a little nurturing from my malaysian rooted friend Gideon that formed the basis of my 'japanorama' section within my soul.
I re-watched some old school anime in the form of Trigun and a Dash of Outlaw Star, which although are very old now (10 years at least) are still a decent watch. I then started on the epic saga that is 'Bleach' Bleach is in short pokemon for teenage boys where 'pocket monsters' are replaced by entities that inhabit 'soul slayers'(i.e Fuck off weapons) which are owned by members of soul society (in effect Ninja Grim Reapers) and for about 60 episodes I feasted on a banquet of awesome characters, epic fight scenes and Animation which would have Tony Hart smiling from the heavens.
Also Bleach is the origin for the 'leek spin' meme that went round a few years ago, it blew and subsequently made my mind go Aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! in a satisfied moment of realisation
I have also deduced that animé is roughly 20 BILLION times better in Japanese with English subtitles, there's something whimsically beautiful about watching anime in japanese, it feeds the soul and strains your eyes, but in a good way, ,in the same way that aching arms are an acceptable consequence of holding puppies within ones arms. I just feel cheated when I watch them dubbed in English, however that could be because of the terrrible voice actors which inhabit the arena of translated media.
Also sometimes Translations are...Well Brilliant...
heh heh...willy :D
The Only thing that angers me regarding animé is the stigma attached to it, there are two main types of of people that wrongly dismiss animé :
People That Believe That if its a Cartoon it Can't Possibly Be of Any Value to Them
This includes my mum who refers to any form of animated media as 'The Muppets' which actually doesn't make much sense anyway, as the muppets aren't actually animated. The thing which angers me the most about this mentality is the absolute close mindedness of these people, surely the content of media should be rated by it's content, not in the method chosen to portray it, as long as the method used to display the 'story' is effective in doing so (i.e does it justice). Animation allows all kinds of things to occur within a series/film that would otherwise be costly/difficult to do in live performance. And for that reason its foolish to assume that 'cartoons are for children' and 'Theatre is for Toff's'. Judge the content BEFORE you judge the method chosen to portray it
The 'Isn't That Porn' People
This generally includes Men that drive white vans, or teenagers that soon will, Basically...No that's Hientai, and yes although the same animation style is used, animé isn't any more erotic than the average BBC Drama, well maybe ITV... That's like saying 'Theatre is porn because it uses real people'...again method of portraying a story doesn't necessarally indicate content...
Obviously its not for everyone, but i think the main issues are based on the anime series that people have watched have not engaged them, or that pre-existing expectations hinder the enjoyment and acceptance of animé as a form of 'proper media' put i forgive them....
In preparation for my (and my gf's) Halloween costumes, i cracked out the acrylics and had a bit of a play, I haven't got the goggles yet so i had a bit of an experiment with an old Tommy gun that was laying around (from a gangsta costume years ago)- I love how I have all these props and paints hanging about :D so for about 15 mins or so i had a play with silver, black and 'burnt seanna' brown and just mucked about for a bit. And these are the results...
To be fair for my first ever try at anything like this (things like painting war-hammer figurines I despise with a passion ) I'm pretty chuffed, admittedly i went a bit mental towards the back of the gun, but it seems that dry-brushing is totally the way forward... smudging and rubbing thinned layers seems to work for crevices (wipe the remaining paint of surrounding areas), but I'm not a fan for using it in other areas. I was contemplating using gold paint and giving a bit of a steampunk style to my goggles although i really like the gun metal colours :D
So:
1.rough up plastic with some sandpaper
2.Paint with a black undercoat
3.Dapple with a dark grey/silver with a dry brush
4.Repeat with lighter metallic colour
5.use dry brush and highlight colour to crate scratches
Unlike today i would totally let layers dry completely and probably use much less paint (thin them up with water or something) and give my goggles some dents and scratches with some form of heavy duty tool...but for 15 mins I'm pretty chuffed
