Tree-Ent Project

Well It’s been a minute…

There have been so many projects since this blog was last updated I’m not sure I even know where to start with an update so here we go with the latest.

I’m making a giant puppet, Hopefully I’ll be wearing him at a significant festival in my area later this year. Its a stilt based Ent costume. Process has been documented on the clock app and videos are then mirrored to the tubes and insta.

The Latest vid here:

@liatach_makes

Ent Costume Project Pt 17. Foam time. Making the first outer shell. Sealing, texturing and painting will come later when consistency can be maintained across the parts. #puppet #costume #Ent

♬ original sound – Liatach

Here’s the one that shows him complete:

And here’s the first in this series:

@liatach_makes Beginning my first new costume and video project in quite some time. #Ent#stilts#costume#project#cardboard#foamsmith And yes that is a TrueFacts @ze frank ♬ Intro – The xx

NOOMS

I’ve had a couple of solid weeks of work so despite making good progress on a number of things in progress I’ve not managed to publish a video of a completed project. I’m considering altering my approach to ensure more regular updates.

Anyway it was a dad and F day today. “The Nooms” as they are called are the representations of the numbers in his F’s favourite tablet game ‘Dragonbox Numbers’, which is incidentally the only educational games series that I have ever yet found able to wholeheartedly endorse both as parent and educator.

Obviously it is not my IP but I had a look and couldn’t find any colouring sheets or activities suitable for his abilities. So I whipped up these and we had fun painting them to match their game counterparts and the big brother mucked in to help finish painting the last of them when he got home from school.

35 Page A4 Printable PDF here: DragonboxNumbersNOOMS_A4_1-10

It’s rough as guts as I had an impatient 3 year old as a client the whole way.

The Game and its sibling apps can be found here: dragonbox.com/products/numbers

 

 

Link’s Bow

I now have two build videos of the build process of my ‘Zelda Wind Waker’ ‘Hero’s Bow’ live on my YouTube channel.

Part one here takes the project through from idea to a finished form.

and part two here takes the project through to painted completion and ultimately collapse and catistrophic failure.

I will persevere and rebuild or recreate this project on a sturdier and more flexible frame in short order. For now however I have chosen to pursue some other projects including tool making and tool restoration as well as finishing the arrows and quiver prior to reattempting the bow.

Zelda

Zelda Wind Waker grabbed my imagination the very first time I saw it many, many years ago now on a Gamecube in somebody else’s lounge room. Now, by the power of modern computing, I have been sharing the joy and frustration of this adorable game with my sons. Intermittent play has gotten us almost to the end after a few months now.  I also now have two of three Zelda inspired projects complete and ready to share. The first is the newest one, Link’s boomerang (the protagonist is Link, Zelda is the eponymous princess). This was given to F for Christmas and was designed specifically to be light enough for indoor play as outdoors it is very likely to end up in a tree or on the roof.

The second is this papercraft model of the Link’s boat the ‘King of Red Lions’ This took way longer than anticipated and is far from the perfection I envisioned. But it is at least done. I have shared a gallery of images here on imgur and in r/papercraft here.

 

 

A Box of Art

An extremely hot and quite busy couple of days here on the surface of the sun western New South Wales. I have accomplished a spot of wood chip shovelling and garden maintenance, A little video editing, the results of which are embedded below as well as some digital painting and I’ve finally gotten a long running paper-craft project near to completion.

The second episode of my going story reading project. 

Today a box arrived from my mother. A box of art, mostly my art, mostly from ’82-’84. So 35 year old pictures by me the child. The boys and I had a lot of fun going through the box admiring and laughing at the pictures, comparing hand and foot prints to the boy’s and mine now and of course we were then inspired to make some fresh art of our own, which I’ll photograph and share sometime soon. For today here are a couple of the prize pieces:

Bravo indeed.

This particular Sith lord made many appearances.

 

One of the many bulldozer paintings had a treat on the back.


A Brandon Cavallari sketch!

Dust and Cobwebs

A new year starts with a clean, sweeping away cobwebs both physical, mental and metaphorical. Our house was a sty, my workshop looks like a whirlwind has hit it and I have at least seven projects on the go all untouched for over three weeks.

Today marked the first day back in Cobar of 2018. We arrived back home from our adventure in Queensland yesterday afternoon. Big changes are afoot for everyone this year. I have not accepted a class this and I’m limiting my availability for relief teaching at the local schools to three days a week. I will also be taking up tutoring again to keep the income flowing in. Five year old L will be starting school here and I will be taking at least one day a week as primary carer for F and L and devoting at least a day a week to my own art and projects.  I am thus reviving this blog primarily as a way keep myself publicly accountable with my creative output. I have quite a backlog of videos to edit and publish on my two channels and more than a few projects needing my attention.

In addition we are planning an exodus from Cobar later this year, most likely to the Sunshine Coast hinterland in Queensland. The sooner the better as far as I am concerned, but a great deal has to be sorted out before that move can happen.

 

A Long Time Coming

Finally sat down and got some solid editing done. The final parts are compiling now and hopefully I’ll have enough space to start recording some new content in coming days.
This September holiday started with whole family head colds so a bit slow off the mark on my pile of projects. still many days to go fortunately.

 

Bohdi

 

I have a new completed project to share.

‘Bohdi the Yeti’ was one of a number of holiday projects I set myself over the last break. Videos of some of the other holiday projects will follow in time.

 

I am currently working my way through the enormous backlog of footage captured during the build, editing and uploading the build vids to my new Youtube channel.

The first two build process videos are up and the third will be up by the weekend.

 

I am also doing another editing pass on the build videos for L’s Sir Vader costume and bringing them across to the new channel as well. Obviously work has taken a big toll on my energy and ability to maintain this blog with the regularity I would like, but more posts can be expected as the next few video’s go live.

 

 

 

 

 

Done

 

At long last the final two build videos are up.  First the painting:

Then the part by part display and photo shoot:

Next project is simmering.

 

A visual treat: