Commission: Slinky Dog from Toy Story

As I mentioned before, my friend Marcie bought me a 3 month premium membership to Deviant Art and I intended to pay her back. I asked what she would like me to make her, and she listed 3 characters from Toy Story: Slinky Dog, Three Peas in a Pod, and the Dinosaur. I chose the hardest of the three, in my opinion: Slinky Dog.

Why? Because I love challenges, which this commission certainly gave me, but in the end, it all worked out!

I started by making the various parts of Slinky Dog:

...And I started to piece him all together.

Now what Disney/Pixar doesn't tell a person is that the weight distribution of their characters might not be all that accurate (probably because nobody really cares, unless they're OCD or making a model replica like I was)... thus why the front of Slinky Dog looks so... blah. He kept falling over when I put him all together, so I had to fiddle around with the legs, which created lame stumpy legs in the front.

After that, I baked the little guy for about an hour. Unfortunately, I didn't take pictures of me baking him... I was too scared of what might happen in the oven. =(

After his sauna sans steam treatment, I painted on his eyes and eyebrows and gave Slinky Dog a little glaze. Here's the finished product:

 

 

The total time it took was about 4 hours. I don't think that's so bad considering all the rocky bits I had. =D

And now Slinky Dog is en route to my friend. I padded the hell out of his package... x.x

What would you like to see next? 
I do custom models for commission. Interested? Contact me: krista.lynn.macpherson@gmail.com

Freshwater Shell and Pearl Necklace/Earring set

I've been looking at these shells for a while now, wanting to make something out of them. I've been holding off until I got around to buying copper links. I finally got around to buying those and constructing the necklace, only to realize I then needed copper headpins. Oops!

So this baby has been a work in progress for a couple of days. I finally finished it the other day. =)

It fits loosely around a neck, allowing for a diversity of necks to wear the necklace. Because they are shells, the necklace is also very light.

 

I also included accent beads in both the necklace and earrings. There are turquoise-coloured oval beads lined with copper at the center of each earring and the necklace.

 

All in all, it's a very nautical styled piece. I was inspired bymy childhood (and adulthood) of finding shells on the river in Drumheller!

Enjoy!

Charming

You would think by the way I switch mediums around like the plague that I become obsessed too easily...

...Annnd maybe that's true.

Lately, I've been making charms of random video game characters. Sooo many charms. Let's start first with Marvel vs Capcom 3 characters:

Spiderman, of course. Marvel

Thor. Marvel.

Tron Bonne. Capcom.

HULK. <3 Marvel.

Megaman. Capcom.

Ryu from Street Fighter. Capcom.

I also made a full figure one of, in my opinion, the best coupling in Pokemon: Pikachu and a ketchup bottle:

I'm impressed at how cute it turned out! I also have a couple others waiting on a glaze for when I get home (I'm currently out of town).

These all have little eye hooks in them to hang them from various things, like the gym badges do. I also remade some of the gym badges after a critique I received on my DA page, saying that I should focus on line work.

I finally bought glaze to put over these charms. I'm using DecoArt's Triple Thick Brush-On Gloss Glaze, which works great! But I'm beginning to wonder if I need a special brush for it... I'm just using one of my watercolour painting brushes (Oh, and go figure, as soon as I find a link to the product information, I also find that I should be using an acrylic brush. Oops!). 

Speaking of which... I took a look in my art supplies box that I packed when we first moved into our condo in April of last year and scored large on supplies I forgot I had! Anyone who has had to buy acrylic paints knows that they are hella expensive, but I managed to find the main colours I would need: black, white, yellow, brown, and blue. I guess I could also use a red, but for now I'm not worrying about it.

I have a cheaper solution in mind for paint jobs, however I need to discuss it with a hobbyist at a hobby shop.

As for everything else, I have ideas as to what I want to do with my Perler's, though I have to wait for a shipment of specific colours to come in. I tell you, it's gunna be Christmas in August in a week. I'm getting that shipment, a shipment for beads, and a shipment for t-shirts I ordered from Threadless for cheap. 

Eheh... ^^;

PS: I made a Twitter account exclusively for my crafts! Check out @CharmNGeekery on Twitter! =D

Indigo League Gym Badge charms

So maybe my interests have been hovering around Pokemon lately. Yesterday, I made a set of gym badges from the first Pokemon series' of games:

While I'll be the first to admit that some of the badges need a little bit of improving upon, I think the work I did was awesome for a first attempt. Especially the Rainbow Badge, which instantly turned into my favourite. <3

I also made some Pokeballs the other day and used one as a little end piece to my bracelet:

I'm having so much fun with this clay. Once I get my perler bead shipment in, I'll be back on a perler kick!

Earlier today before work, I also organized all of my craft stuff. I want to buy a little Tupperware shelving unit to keep it all together nice and neatly. That will have to come eventually. 

Finally, my friend @marcieness was so kind to buy me a 3 month premium membership to Deviant Art after I pouted about being jealous of her membership and being too broke to buy my own. She's so sweet... so I'm gunna make her something. <3

Geekery

I've been making a lot of geek jewelry lately.

To make my life easier, I added the two words together and chalked it up as "geekery." Pretty sure someone coined it before me, but I would be tickled if I thought that one up all by myself. =P

Anyway.

So I made some geekery in the past few days. Some with perlers, some with clay. Yeah, clay is also my new obsession. Fricken... shoot me now. But first, the perlers:

Pokeball (from the Pokemon series)

Triforce (from the Zelda series)

They're super cute. I was wearing the Pokemon one around yesterday and our waitress at the restaurant we went to complimented me on it. She probably had no idea what it was, but she was sweet. =)

Yesterday, I bought some clay and decided to have fun. I had no idea what I would make, but I got home early from work last night and played around. This is what came about:

Pikachu charms (Pokemon)

Dratini earrings (Pokemon)

When I made the first pair (Pikachu), I fricken nearly died of a cuteness overload. They are soo tiny...! I'm pretty sure I could spend my life doing geeky jewelry.

Some other stuff I made that I plan to turn into magnets:

1up mushroom (from Mario)

Fire flower (also from Mario)

Invincibility star (again, from Mario)

Terra Branford (Final Fantasy 6) in Esper form

And I made these cute earrings too:

That's all for now! I guess you can tell I've been busy, hey?

Perler Bead Pokemon

I think I have a new obsession... 

Lately I've been seeing a lot of pictures of various cartoons done with Perler beads. To be honest, I forgot all about these things until I saw the pictures! As I kept looking around, the gears in my head started to turn... I realized I wanted to make beautiful creations using these beads. So... one day on my day off, after I ran all of my errands, I went price shopping for these beads.

Turns out that in Canada, Toys-R-Us is one of the cheapest places to buy these beads. Sadly, they don't sell the square boards. So I paid an arm and a leg for the boards at Michaels. I had to go there anyway for some jewelry stuff anyway, as I'm getting impatient with my latest online order... oops. =P

 Because the beads are all assorted in buckets, John and I started the tedious task of sorting them out... by shade... in baggies. I'm really quick about it now, but damn, was it a pain in the butt at first!

I was thinking about sorting them into individual colours later, but realized upon making my first creation that sorting them by shades is actually quite useful. :3

John asked me, amid our romantic night sorting beads, "What shall you make first?" I had no clue. I had a lot of ideas, sure. He suggested that maybe I start by making one of my favourite Pokemon. So I searched the internet for my favourite Pokemon teams over the many, many years...

>.>;

...and decided on Articuno!

The problem with some of the Pokemon sprites (like Articuno) is that they are huge. Like... 80 some-odd pixel huge. My pegboards are only about 29x29 (I think that's what John counted), and I have 4 of them. After some little adjustments (shrinking and putting the image onto a grid), I got to work.

In the first night, I accomplished this:

It only took about 2 hours! That's okay, right...? But after that initial 2 hours, I was hooked. I worked on it in bits and pieces before having to leave before work and working out.

Finally, last night, I finished him! (...Or "it," because Articuno is sexless, technically...)

Ironing this badboy was the tricky part. We only had the tiny pieces of parchment provided, so next time, I think we're definitely going to buy bigger pieces. It was certainly a learning experience, but I'm happy with what I created! I think this was an ambitious first creation.

...and needless to say, I'm going to have to get more blue beads. ^^;

Any requests for other Perler bead creations? Please let me know... I could do this all day! ...if I had all day.

The Phoenix

It's been a long time since the last time I drew something. To be honest, I can't even remember when that time was...

A few months back, I received an e-mail from a woman on a very old art account I used to have when I was much younger. Humouring myself, I clicked on the link. Much to my surprise, this woman had gotten a tattoo of one of my drawings on her arm. It was this one, something I had drawn for my mum back on August 4th, 2003:

I drew it on a whim and showed mum. She loved it so much, so I dedicated it to her. Since then, I've always associated the phoenix with my mother. Little did I know how much of a coincidence this piece of art would hold for my future.

My mother got very sick around this time: August, 2009. I remember visiting her one day in the hospital and seeing a card from one of her sisters, my aunty, there. It was a card with a phoenix on it. My mum struggled a lot throughout her life and in the hospital for 3 months before finally passing away in November of the same year.

My sisters and my step father all talked about getting tattoos to commemorate mum and remember her by. I knew I wanted to get a phoenix over my heart. I just needed the idea.

Finally, today, the idea came. Like most of my ideas, it came out of left field, out of nowhere. The moment it came into my head, I needed to get it out. So I did. An hour after the seed was planted, this is what transpired (one day shy of the 8 year anniversary of my first phoenix drawing to my mother):

My boyfriend and I watched Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets the other day. In the movie, Dumbledore explains to Harry that phoenix tears have healing capabilities. It all made so much sense. The pool of phoenix tears will sit right over my heart, which is in a constant state of healing. And mum will be perched upon my heart, the phoenix trying to heal my perpetually aching heart.

I don't remember much of how the drawing came to be. To be honest, it felt like I had blanked out... almost as though I was in a trance. I do remember crying, and hurting. After it was all said and done, I felt better. I think there was so much more healing than what the drawing was meaning to give me.


I needed that release.