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The Brown Sleeve

9/6/2023

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Feral canine handpaw in progress

Can I be honest here? This brown sleeve drives me nuts. It soooo triggers my OCD. I wanted it to be the same color as the rest of the hand!! I had used up all my tan felt so I used  this brown, the least offensive color I had in a large enough quantity in my stash. Normally I'd address this issue by running out to Joann Fabrics and buying some more tan felt, but... 

On July 10 much of Vermont was hit with catastrophic flooding and the local Joann Fabrics, along with all of the other stores in that particular shopping plaza, were wiped out. Four feet of water in the store. Sob!! As of this writing just about two months later, Joann's is still closed.  


Here is a video of the commercial area next to my hometown. Joann Fabric can be seen towards the very end, at 1:21 minutes.  We ourselves at Sans Souci Studios are grateful we only suffered a damp basement, but our hearts ache for all the people who lost homes and businesses. 
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GILLY GOES FORTH!!!

7/19/2022

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As you may recall, in December, we took on Gilligan, a third Feline Studio Assistant. Unfortunately due to coworker Trixie's constant workplace harassment, he has been very reluctant to even report to the studio, contributing instead by sleeping on unmade beds and freeing up valuable studio time that way.  But finally he has checked in! And what a spectacular studio assistant he's turned out to be! 

I can say that he has blazed paths in the studio that have never been explored before. Literally.
cat in a fursuit making studio
Gilligan surveys the studio scene. He's not sure what he thinks about Arnold.
cat on a spraybooth in a fursuit costuming studio
​First, painting! Taking airbrushing to new heights. Perching on top of the spray booth. 
cat on a spraybooth in a fursuit costuming studio
 Daring self expression I must say, especially since the top of the spray booth is not at all firmly attached to the sides. I was holding the spray booth together and waiting for one of the kids to come home to lure Gilly off, braving taking my hands away only for a few seconds to take this picture. I must have stood there for a half an hour.
cat in a fursuit costuming studio with head bases
Next, sculpting! A work table, tools, mixing buckets, decent lighting, clay and an armature... A launch pad into artistic exploration. Or into something anyway.
cat in the ductwork of a fursuit costuming studio
Gilligan achieves heights never before reached at Sans Souci Studios.
cat in ductwork
cat in ductwork
Gilligan is very pleased with his accomplishments.
cat in a photo setup in a fursuit costuming studio
And now, photography. Gilligan is ready for his closeup.
cat in a photography setup in a fursuit costuming studio
Paint me like one of your French girls.
cat with a very dusty face



​Plus, Gilligan takes initiative and does tasks around the studio for which we don't usually get volunteers. Such as cleaning the ductwork. Blep.

​Way to go Gilly! 
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Sadie Rae Shortpants

11/2/2021

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dog tangling people up with a leash


​Meet Sadie Rae Shortpants, a German Shorthair Pointer owned by my brother Nathan. She recently crossed the Rainbow Bridge at the grand old age of fifteen. 

One of her favorite pastimes was coralling as many of her human packmates as she could with her leash.




​She was not a lap dog, though sometimes she thought she was.
big dog sitting on kid's lap
dog paw


​
​Sadie was also my model for my potential canine handpaw pattern. She would very much prefer that I Leave Her Feet Alone, but she did cooperate enough for me to learn a lot and make a few clay sketches. What a good puppy!! 

Fun things I’ve learned from Sadie about dog feet (other than that they smell like Fritos): the claws do not come out of the center of the toes, they come out of the side closest to the center of the foot. The first and fourth toe are not the same size, but the first toe (the one closest to the dew claw) is bigger and longer, like a pointer finger, and the forth toe is smaller, like a pinky finger. 



​  

 
dog paw underside
dog paw underside
dog paw underside
And, the palmar pad moves in ways that hurt my brain.  

I'm weirdly into dog feet. I love their sculpted knuckles and long elegant toes. I’ve used the free Freakhound canine paw pattern found here  for my past three partials and really do like the pattern, but I think a bigger paw would look better with the size heads I’d been making. So now I have a lot of clay sketches and an excuse to try to make a canine handpaw pattern of my own! Stay tuned!

(Don't fart Sadie....)
dog butt don't fart
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Halloween 2013

10/31/2013

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This Halloween Isabelle wanted to be.... a great horned owl. Not any old owl, a great horned owl. I figured it would be a great family project. I could also use a lot of random materials I had lying around the house, and could try out some new maskmaking methods I read about on the Internet.

I had a hood I had made as part of an earlier experiment, made from mixed brown "beaver" fur and the faithful old McCall's MP328 pattern (see previous blog post "Random Things on Hubby's Head"). We used this hood as the  base of the mask.

For the eyes, Isabelle formed round shapes with brightly colored Fimo over styrofoam balls, covered with Saran Wrap so the Fimo wouldn't stick and could  be removed from the styrofoam afterwards. She left the centers of the eyes open so she could see out of them.
Similarly she made the beak out of Fimo, sketching a beak shape out of cardboard and then shaping the Fimo over that.

For the round areas around the eyes and the "V" shape of the forehead, I cut shapes out of sheets of foam that had been used to pack ceramics and glued them to the hood. In order to get the direction of the fur to look natural and pleasing,
I made patterns for the pieces using these instructions. I outlined the round areas of the eyes with black faux fur. Isabelle trimmed the "V" shape of the forehead with a feather boa we bought at Joann Fabrics, and she made the "ears" with feathers we bought there as well. 

We also had a huge roll of craft paper we bought at a garage sale one summer for $1. We cut out a big piece of this, spread it out on the kitchen floor, and had Isabelle lie down on it in order to sketch out a pattern for a "wing" type cloak. We made the cloak out of a large piece of brown felt, sewing on the "beaver" fur on the top and  back for the wings' shoulders and some cream colored "rose" faux fur for the downy undersides. Isabelle outlined the edges of the big feathers with a black Sharpie and colored in the tips black as well. Brian made thin sleeves of fabric at the edges of the cloak and fed thin wooden dowels through them to stiffen the edges of the wings, and sewed elastic loops into the cloak for handholds.

Finally, for the speckled chest of the owl, we just happened to have a faux fur vest lying around that was just perfect for the part.
Black leggings completed the ensemble.

Then on Halloween, it rained, and the owl just happened to have to carry an umbrella and wear purple rain boots!






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OMG! It's the KILLER FROG!!!

11/17/2010

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Killer Frog is a local legend. He was a Christmas gift to Isabelle from her great aunt Margie, a beautiful enameled rhinestone-studded frog-shaped jewelry box that developed an insatiable appetite for Playmobil people. He was also the inspiration for my husband Brian's Halloween costume this year.

It was interesting to turn a noob loose in my studio and see what they would do with my methods. As can be seen below, Brian first sculpted a frog mask sketch on the miniature armature, and then the actual mask sculpture on the life-sized armature.
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Being the devoted spouse that I am, I positive-cast and assembled the mask for Brian, and he painted and finished it. Here he is modelling it wearing his very appropriate "Get Green" painting shirt. You can tell from the fangs that he's Killer Frog and not, say, Toad from The Wind in the Willows or LeFrog from Flushed Away.
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And in other news, we've had some personnel changes here at Sans Souci Studios. Here is our new kitten and administrative assistant, Ezzy, whom we adopted for Isabelle's birthday at the local animal shelter. As you can see he's already getting into the swing of things.
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And on a more solemn note, our own black Halloween kitty, Skimble, shown sitting with Isabelle below, passed away suddenly but peacefully in a favorite sunny spot a week ago. She had been a stray with many old injuries, and I guess her body was just too worn and tired out to go on anymore. She is badly missed.
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What I (Didn't) Do Over Winter Vacation

3/26/2009

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I've been so busy with this that and the other thing that I realize March is almost over, and I haven't yet posted my annual "it's winter and I'm not getting a thing done" post yet. So, here it is.

Isabelle's winter vacation is always tough. I'm not able to work in my studio much at all during the day when she's home, so I try to work at night, after she goes to bed. Only problem is, THIS.
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THIS being one of our cats, Rumpleteazer, aka The Teaze to her friends. Nighttime is HER time. After Isabelle goes to bed, she's used to sitting on our laps and getting lots of cuddles while we read or watch TV. In her mind, it is SO not cool for us to do anything else at night!
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This is one of Teaze's usual bids for attention. Here she is, standing up on her hind legs and clawing my stomach while I try to work. Usually she claws my butt, but I haven't figured out a way to take a picture of that yet.
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And here her bids for attention are escalating.
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Oh well. I managed to work for a grand total of ONE HOUR while Isabelle was on vacation, and most of it was spent taking cat pictures. I suppose if I can think up some snappy captions, I could at least post them on icanhazcheezburger.com!
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    I make masks. Because art is more fun when you put it on your head.

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