Something Evil Is Coming......

Thuggorre the Giant and the Cyborg Daemon busts are very nearly completed, been working on them on my days off and odd evenings here and there over the last few weeks. Both are sculpts I am pleased with despite giving me a few delaying headaches, a bit annoying especially as the daemon had such a quick start to a nearly finished state! I will be contacting Grey Matter Figures to do the casting of Thuggorre and hopefully get some US shops willing to supply the bust across the pond. We shall see.


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Conceptual Art Sucks

I don't know if anyone has been following Junior Apprentice whilst it was on, but one episode struck a cord inside me and has wound me up intensely. The art episode featured the youngsters selecting two artists from 6 to represent at a London gallery where they then obviously had to sell as much art as possible. The artists featured a photographer, a conceptual person, an installation person, a normal artist and an abstract painter. the sixth person wasn't shown. I use the term person in there because art doesn't come into the job and this is the thing that irked me. I believe the term is "conceptual art" (not to be confused with concept art) where the person comes up with some idea and thats pretty much it. No skill required. The conceptual artist is a lady called Jessica Layton who, bizarrely, house sits and looks after peoples pets whilst they are away on holiday etc. She then proceeds to dress up in their clothes hire a photographer to shoot a portrait with the pet and she pretends to be the homeowner. She also moves stuff around abit to mess with their heads as well. All rather disturbing I feel. Even the junior apprentices expressed their horror when they found out what she does. The girl interviewing her couldn't escape quick enough. Further to this I went to her website where I found out she also steals small items from them, sets up a stall and invites them to come down and view it. Wierd. How people view this as art really is beyond me. Art denotes that skill is involved in something. Conceptual "art" requires no skill, anyone can have clever idea. If you can't draw, paint, sculpt, carve etc you are not an artist. The real problem here is that talentless, prentious people are in love with the idea of being an artist, establishments like the Tate Gallery encourage it and provide lucrative rewards like the Turner Prize and then real artists have to pick up the pieces. For thoses who struggle to learn to draw, paint, sculpt whatever and have to make a living from it, these people are a real kick in the teeth to the effort involved. They errode and water down the real art world and encourage talentless people to be involved in a profession they should not be in. Having said that, I'd like to present my Turner Prize entry - imagine a white toilet, filthy inside from heavy use and no cleaning with a floater swimming on top. I have entitled the piece "Behold The Truth of Conceptual "Art"" It's a surefire winner.

This rant could extend into many other areas of modern life to - a mothering government which doesn't let you discipline your own children, simplified exams at school and university levels, television (big brother?) and media (celebrity gossip - who gives a crap about what dresses so and so is wearing), sport (cheating, use of steroids) its just a whole watering down of our way of life and we will be weaker for it.[/rant]


Onto the subject of sculpting. Thuggorre is approaching near completion one side of the front body to do, some additional details on the back of the cloak will be added after baking ( a chain attached to some heads and skulls). Then I have the dreaded eye to do on this and the Cyborg demon (will do both at the same time). seem to have real bad artists block on eyes for some reason.  Also did some painting on the wereat assassin bust I did a while back. The fleshtones look quite nice and I am pretty pleased with how that is coming.


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Tunisian Tales

Well after a "relaxing" week in beautiful Tunisia I am back. Why is that in inverted comas? Probably because I was a little grumpy with fellow holidaymakers lack of manners and rudeness. One spoilt little girl banging her glass at a waiter and demanding water, people just walking straight into you without saying anything and queue jumping galore. And oh yeah don't get me started with sunbeds.  I also witnessed a little girl of about 7 attempting to cut her own bread with a razor sharp guillotine, except it would have been all her fingertips that would have been cut if I hadn't stopped her pulling the handle down. I am not a parent, but I am sure most would agree that it was monumental stupidity to let loose a 7 year old on a guillotine with a great big razor sharp 4" wide blade. Anyway, Tunisia has beautiful countryside, seemed to be more looked after than other countries I have visited in that area. Lots of neatly planted agriculture and palms along the main roads. The modern towns are a bit grubby and lots of building work is unfinished or in progress. An old town we visited was very picturesque though. Of course the ruins of Carthage are a big attraction and I was quite pleased to spend a day out looking around despite the ominous police building with armed guards on towers along one perimter edge. I took some photos here that include many sculptures found at the site and will upload these in due course. Some in very good condition some not so much, but on the whole the site was pretty good.


I am now back to work and will be fitting in as much sculpting this week as I can. I have also been sketching and have another sheet of drawings finished and two pages in my sketchbook are in progress with 6 new characters. It is definately good to be drawing again after so long away from my pencils. I have also bought pen and ink so I can perhaps play with that soon again as well. Working in colour is on the "to do" list however and I will be going digital for my colour work, at least to start with. I do have acrylics and oils and would love to do some pieces on board and canvas. My wife is a big Disney fan so I may do some simple scenes and characters from her favourite films to start with.


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CMON Annual 2008

Good news from Cool Mini Or Not website - their new annual 2008 is nearly set for release. A preview is available in the forum news post and allows ou to flick through a few pages of absolutely stunning minis! I am very pleased that the photographs I submitted of my own qualifying pieces were accepted and included in the annual as well, so that is quite exciting for me and I'm really looking forward to taking a look through the book and having a printed version of some great miniature art rather than just a collection of saved photographs on my hard drive. Check it out in the news section of the CMON forum.

On the sculpting front I have had a few days off, and got back to work on Wednesday, Thuggorre now sits on his new base and sculpting is underway on the cloak and chest armour. Now I was going to add some ringmail to it, but decided against it as it didn't fit in with the way I did the leather armour, so maybe on the next sculpt. I am pleased with it so far. The Cyborg Daemon awaits his eye still and a tongue, I took some time off for this one whilst I awaited delivery of the ball bearings I ordered for the eyes and because the eyes on both sculpts weren't looking right it put me off my stride on it. Back to that soon. The ogre rider sits patiently on the workbench, no work on that this week other thn cursory checking glances.

I am away for a holiday, so won't be doing anything over the coming week although I do have alot of sketches to upload and will possibly get around to doing that tomorrow before I go. The new designs however won't be up for everyone to have their vote on as I have already picked two favourites from the new sketches.

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