Erik DeFries: Week 16A - Polygonal Sculpt

After using my Alien head for the serial slicing, I opted to use my Torso piece for the polygonal sculpt: for balance and whatnot.The turnaround time on this piece was... intense, to say the least. I arrived back in Dallas at midnight on Monday, November 28th (home for the first time since the 14th) and was originally intended to present the finished sculpture that very same day. Looking back, I still don't know how I would have managed the logistics differently: I don't think this sculpture would have fit back into my carry-on luggage anyway, even if I had found a laser-cutter or machine shop open in the quiet mountain town of Estes Park, Colorado.

C'est la vie.

Safely home, I set to work.

 

 

Due to the cardboard thickness, the individual fingers were a pain. Serves me right for choosing such an ambitiously intricate sculpture for my very first attempt at this process, I suppose. After much bending and folding, the hand came together.

 

 

 

Ain't she a beauty? Two thick coats of white enamel, to really seal in the flavor.

 

 

 

Painting and taping the base mesh.( The colors look a lot more blended in person: the photo doesn't do it justice, unfortunately. A gradient from red, to yellow, to blue.) 

 

Originally, I was planning on painting the hand gold, but then I got a wild idea in the eleventh hour: Melting crayons down the hand for a nice technicolor dessert! I got a box of crayons and a hair dryer for heat.

Problem: How do I attach the crayons to the hand in order to melt them?

(Failed) Solution 1: Masking tape... There aren't many materials that smooth, waxy crayons will stick to without help:

 

 

(Successful) Solution 2: Superglue, and pressing really, REALLY hard.

 

 

 

Before I fired up the hair dryer to melt them, I set one rule for myself: let it be organic. Wherever the wax drips, the wax stays. If it spatters all over the rest of the sculpture, if it pools in the crook of the elbow, if it turns the entire piece into some Jackson Pollock, Unicorn-massacre hybrid, so be it.

 

In the end, some of the spatter hit other parts of the torso, but most of the multi-chromatic chaos was contained to the hand.