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!