Randomness....

[merimask]

Been busy!  Very busy, in spite of the Siren Song of my Wii.

First off; Kiba loves you all.  A gratuitous picture of my dog...it's been a few weeks since he's made an appearance in my journal.

He loves my Mom's yard.  I've been house-sitting for her and her yard is HUGE, and full of bunnies.  So, Kiba patrols happily.  Also, everyone has chain-link that you can see through and everyone has dogs, so Kiba gets a kick out of scoping out the neighbors' puppies (he's checking out the cute beagle two yards over...she's such a tease!).

Speaking of dogs; I did a barrette for smillaraaq.  Hopefully it looks like her Elkhound.

The foreshortening makes it look sort of like an Akita...hmm.  In reality though, I was pretty happy with it.  I should do more dog barrettes!  I could probably make a killing at dog shows.

Another fun project I've been working on is a Kirin mask.  A Kirin is a Chinese unicorn, sort of, and I've always wanted to make a mask of one.  At I-Con I got a request for one, but I just could NOT talk the guy into the forked stag-like horn.  Traditionally it's always depicted with one (or two) of these forked horns...but the guy was dead-set against it.  *shrug*  Oh well...so I'm doing one with a regular horn for him, but I still really wanted to do one with a forked horn.

The horn is a problem though.  To get the smaller tine of the horn facing forward would require more sculpting than I can do on a half mask.  The answer?  Build the horn separately.  I came up with this idea:

Below is my paper pattern.  The two shaped horns are above.  I did two because I tried two different thicknesses of leather (both worked fine), and besides I want to make two Kirin masks anyway...just to practice & get it right.

Here you can see how the horn looks from the front:

I folded the pattern forward and used cement to hold it together.   Then I bevelled and smoothed the edge...once it's painted you'll hardly be able to see where it comes together.  The tab in back will help me glue it to the mask; it'll slot behind and the base of the horn will be glued in front, so it should be really sturdy.

I'm working on the mask tonight.  It looks pretty good; I'm giving it dragon-like "whiskers" so it looks more Asian.  Probably brow-ridges too...I haven't decided yet.  It'll probably look a bit like my Kohaku mask.

Anyway, it's a fun project!

In other news; it's been simply beautiful here all week.  The temperature keeps going up and I've been hitting the trails on my bike every day.  This evening I did the river trail for the first time.  It's a trail that runs from Tonawanda into Buffalo along the Niagara River (exactly across the river from the trail I love on the Canadian side, in fact).  It was so lovely and warm (almost 75!!) that I did it in nothing but capris and a tee-shirt.

Some pics from tonight...the Niagara River at 7pm:

The trees are starting to bud!  Oh, frabjous day.  :-)

The trail, heading south...

I always stop at this spot to look across at Canada.  Lovely warm golden sunset, tonight.

And, heading home 'cause the sun's going down and I'm seven miles from my car.  The trail goes alongside a thruway for a bit.  You'd think it'd be noisy and smelly, but you hardly notice the cars because the river is so lovely.  It's actually pretty safe for a city path.

So there!  I DO have a life beyond my Wii.  *muttermutter*

*smooch*  Love you all.  I'll post pics of that Kirin in a few days.



 

Comments

[aoi-tsuki1.livejournal.com]

Yeeeey kirin! *writing paranormal romance starring one, as opposed to vampire sex-werewolf ninjas*

[moko-moko.livejournal.com]

A how-to on Kirin horns, I love it! Can't wait to see the finished product too, as they're just a fabulous animal. *shakes fist* Forked horn, dammit!

Kiba has the best and most adorable perky face that makes one wibble and coo -_-;

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

KEEBSTER! *ear scritches*

Love that smirk...I can just see the wheels turning in that fuzzy head.

And you totally should try making up some masks and barrettes and plaques for dog shows, I bet they'd go over great because NOBODY is doing doggy stuff like yours. And if you make sure to do some of the more obscure breeds like elkies, that's pretty much bound to be money in the bank from all the obsessive breed fans who are always hunting for anything new with their guys on it! Just take a look at eBay to see how bad it is -- right now there are a measly TWO PAGES' worth of elkie items, compared to over thirty pages for a popular breed like goldens. And that's not even mentioning how often what little stuff you can find is semi-generic and used for multiple breeds -- you might have seen that yourself if you've ever looked for sibe stuff, I've seen an awful lot of merch with silhouettes or figurines where they're using the same damn thing with just a different paint job, or a tweak in the ad copy, for sibes, mals, elkies, keeshonden, akitas, pretty much anything with prick ears and a curly or sickle tail!

Foreshortening or no, a bit of an akita resemblance isn't that far off the mark, really -- these guys do have some of that same blocky, bearish quality to their faces. I remember there was a discussion on the Moosedog list a year or two back of how folks try to explain these dogs to folks who don't know the breed, and one of the funniest and truest quips was "a cross between an akita and a pot-bellied pig".

The only suggestion I'd make if you were going to make the elkie a production item, aside from doing a few subtly different paint jobs to offer a range of darker-to-lighter dogs, is to maybe shorten the back just a wee bit. It's not that it's too long currently, since with the position of the hind legs and tail it really does seem to capture the dog in mid-stretch; but this is in general a very squarely built cobby sort of breed, so if you're going to have them on display with a bunch of other dogs then playing up the shortness of the back will help to set apart the elkies from the GSDs or Sibes, and make it clear that you're more aware of breed differences than all those one-size-fits-all folks. ;)

[rumdiculous.livejournal.com]

Unf. That golden sunset makes me want to fall in it. *dreamy smile*

OMG I want a dog barette in the shape of my dog Iris. That would be so cool! Remind me to ask you later! lol