Off with his legs!

Soooo I have some new junk to play with!

I FINALLY ordered some samples of a few varieties of Willow Wax! I've been eyeballing this stuff for at least a year, if not more, and I can't believe I waited so long! I wasn't sure what would work best for sculpting, as I have a lot of experience with wax, and it's not my favorite medium to create stuff in...but I think I found my happy medium! Ether seems to be just about what I've been looking for! It's pretty firm and carve-able when cool, and warms up fairly easily with just body heat and some doing. The other waxes are all more plastic and even harder to work up, but I'm sure will have their uses. I might need an even firmer wax for legs and heads and such, I just need to play with them all and decide which I prefer. The customer service was amazing, especially considering this is a hobby business for Gary!

If you've been wanting to give something new a try, go check out the site: http://www.willowproducts.com/

So far my normal serrated loop tool makes a dent in most of them, but it's carving, not sculpting. My wonderful homemade guitar string loops (custom made by a good friend and artist, Frank Breckenridge, who sadly has no online presence to link to), really only make much of a dent on the Ether wax, when cold. They work best with serrated tools when cold anyways, and just sorta ball up and do weird stuff with them when warmed. Gary said the best way to get them workable is to just throw a slab on a foam plate, under a 75 watt lamp. After Zen is warmed, it's quite easy to work with, pliable, but pretty plastic still, not quite like clay.

I'm pretty sure Ether will be my workhorse wax, for bodies anyways. It's good while cold, won't squish and smudge with reasonably careful handling, but is still workable without having to bust out heat if I'm not doing anything major. Great stuff!

So now I'm faced with chopping the legs off Obcecado, and redoing them in wax. I'm not sure which one I want to attempt this with yet, and I'm not looking forward to it really. I was starting to get them blocked in pretty good, and starting over is never super fun. But I'm sure I'll thank myself when it comes to molding later, if I do.

I have worked on November a bit, but have had some setbacks here and there...this has seriously been the most trying paint job I can remember doing LOL I hope he comes out decent, ahk.