Aḗras & Pŷr in the making - version 2 (continued)

 

Designing the pillar was another fun challenge. Even the centaur used a Breyer stablemate figure for the human half, to abide by contest rules that only Breyer dolls be used. 

  

  

In the spring of 2024, I got it all prepped and in primer and was very nearly there before the BCC deadline. I was so pleased that they look in-flight. It's easier to see in person, but the pegasus attaches at only one point of a wing tip, and the dragon attaches at the back using 2 points of his tail against the column. From the front, she looks entirely suspended in the air. 

  

 

 

These chicken feet make me ridiculously happy. They tickle me to no end. lol

 

At this point I was about 350 hours into the project over several months, spending all my free time the last couple months focused on finishing. On top of that, my husband was out of town for a couple months working on his father's estate. I didn't want to rush it at the end and I was literally exhausted. It was just a lot. 

With about a week left to go, things started going sideways and I made the difficult decision to forego entering in 2024 with the plan to enter it in 2025. This allowed me to go back and fix a few things I wasn't happy with, including stripping the pegasus, reworking the dragon's wings, and adding a Breyer Mini Whinnie to form a pegasus in an area on the pillar that was just a little too boring. Much better! 

I thought I would be ready to paint the pegasus in February for NaMoPaiMo (selfie pic above), but that didn't happen (work was even more crazy than usual) and I didn't get it fully stripped and re-prepped in time. Working towards a deadline usually pushes me to get the thing done, so I made a final push to finish all of it for Surfs Up live show at the end of May. I got 98% there and took it to show.  Here are a few pictures of the debut at the show.

 

 

I still have a few more tweaks to do before I consider it done-done, 

so the full reveal will be a little bit yet. I also need to figure out where to 

take decent pictures of it since it doesn't fit in my normal photo setup area. 

Since today is the deadline for the BCC, and I'm not able to enter, I at least wanted the chance to share alongside all my fellow artists who are entering this year. Good luck, all!

Aḗras & Pŷr in the making - version 2

Pivoting for the 2024 BCC rules required revisting the scale of the design in its entirety. The pegasus went from traditional to classic scale and I hit a local swap meet hard to acquire a herd of Stablemate bodies! I also had to figure out how to get all of it into the new dimensions of 18 x 30 x 24, and I did it! I repositioned them to both fly around the sides of the pillar, instead of having the juxtaposition of the dragon leaping off the top, but I think it worked out okay. Any guesses on what the dragon started out as? You can probably guess with the little bit of the Breyer you can see in the picture above. 

The wings were also an exploratory process. Here's a photo dump. Not shown, the umpteen bandaids used after working with all this wire and mesh!

 

 

  

  

  

The dragon was a fun challenge to make. Totally out of my comfort zone. I had a general idea of what I was going for, but much of it I figured out along the way (problem-solving again, anyone?). 

 

Did you guess she started out as a Wixom?

More fun facts - this project used: 

40-50 tubes of super glue

10 different power tools (see the last post)

25 different Breyer bodies (16? in the final piece)

7-10 pounds of epoxy, who's keeping track anyway? 

3 square feet of sculpting mesh

countless band aids

400-ish hours

and it took over a big part of the family room during all this time (my poor family!)

That desk doubles as my work desk on work-from-home days, which is always
a challenge having to move things back and forth. 

Stay tuned for more in progress pictures!

Aḗras & Pŷr in the making - version 1

I took what would have been my BreyerFest Best Customs Contest creation to a local show last weekend, so my planned slow reveal is out of the question. I still love to share a bit of the behind-the-scenes creation aspect, so here we go! 

Before I even left Kentucky for BreyerFest 2023, I was already scheming what I wanted to do for my next BCC entry. I settled on a Fantasy entry and eventually came to the idea of story-telling with a bas-relief pillar. I didn't start right after I got home, but I was thinking big and started gathering materials. 

I started construction in the fall of 2023. The original design was over 5 feet tall with a traditional scale dragon and pegasus and Little Bit scale models for the pillar. 

Version 1 roughed out at 5+ feet tall!

Some of the pieces from the original plan - NONE of these made it into the finished piece.
This was meant to be the "before" picture. 

Much of the construction phase involved problem-solving. For frequent readers of my blog, you may have noticed this theme. So much of the creative process is problem-solving! In the above picture, I'm trying to figure out the support structure to have a single point of contact with the pillar that will support the weight of a full-size model in flight with giant wings! Using a rod through the leg(s) worked well with Tootsers, so I started with that approach for the pegasus. (Shout out to Sarah Minkiewicz for mentioning Free Form Air in her newsletter, which I used in place of magic sculpt in the bulking-up areas to cut down on the total weight!)

Sometime in the midst of construction, the BCC contest rules were released, which included a height limit of only 2 feet for the first time. I was bummed, but not overly surprised given the rearing life-sized miniature horse entry the year before. So, I pulled out a saw and chopped the darn thing in half! 

 

The prior pillar design was now out of scale, so I popped off the models I had already attached to the pillar and sanded down the carving to start over.

 

 

Fun fact - I used 10 different power tools on this project: table saw, miter saw, circular saw, orbital sander, finishing sander, electric stapler, heat embossing tool, power drill, dremel, and Cricut. Okay, so maybe that last one is a stretch as a power tool, lol...

Speaking of the Cricut, I used it to make templates for the Greek motifs and letters, then used the dremel to carve them. 

Using the Greek theme was intentional as per the BCC rules "judging is on creativity of concept and execution."  Per Wikipedia, the ancient Greek concept of four basic elements, are "earth (γῆ gê), water (ὕδωρ hýdōr), air (ἀήρ aḗr), and fire (πῦρ pŷr), which dates from pre-Socratic times and persisted throughout the Middle Ages and into the Early modern period, deeply influencing European thought and culture."

The concept I was going for was to represent the Greek elements through mythical creatures. Pegasus, the winged horse from Greek mythology, represents air. The concept of fire-breathing dragons can be traced back to various mythologies around the world, including Shamira in Greek-Roman mythology. I chose unicorns and centaurs to represent Earth, which are both represented in Greek mythology. Finally, the merhorse or hippocampus represents water and is often depicted in Greek mythology drawing Poseidon's chariot. 

Someone at the show asked me what I used to make the pillar. My reply was a little bit of everything and I wasn't kidding. Since the original top had to be replaced, I used the cord from a power strip to make the ring at the top. Of course, primer didn't stick to it, even with Mr. Super Clear sprayed on first, so I had to sculpt over it (more problem-solving!). 

More to come on Version 2...