Thursday, May 26, 2011

Don't Badger Me!!!

Ha.  I started drawing badgers today and I've been giddy ever since I started.  There is something totally honest about letting yourself personify a new creature that makes you giggle to begin with.  I can't help but think of my friend Emilie talking about badgers being violent and nasty, coupled usually with a Big Lebowski "nice marmot" comment.

Anyway, after drawing a few out, I started to sculpt one out of bass wood.  I thought that I would just get the rough cut done tonight, but I actually made it pretty far into sanding as well.  I am very pleased that I am able to keep relatively the same degree of simplification to my characters in 3-dimensional form.  I was concerned that the figures would look too much like a box and like I had simply done nothing to the blank from when I picked it up at the lumber yard.

So here tis.





Let me know what you think.  Is it badger enough?  I love it currently, riding that 1 A.M. high, like I've been working on it for 7 hours.

Also on the docket today were a bunch of sketches to begin thinking about the 25 framed drawings that I will be doing for Susan at Artstream Studios in Rochester, NH.  It's so nice to be able to work with her again.  She is a wonderful shop owner.




At the bottom there you can see the first badger.  It got more and more ridiculous as the day progressed.  I am really excited about the simplified human figures, however.  In the past my people have looked more complicated than my animal creatures and this just seems unnecessarily complicated.

Hope you like the new stuff.
We'll keep you posted.
Peace
-Mike

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Very well done. I admire this type of creativity. Keep up the good work!

mightylark said...

Thank you so much, Olivia. You are too kind. :-)

Stacey said...

I really like the minimalist wood badger. All of the needed markers are indeed present. Nothing you dont need. Kudos!