Post #687783 by tigertail777 on Mon, Jul 29, 2013 6:25 AM

Thanks for the kind words Wendy and Gene, really appreciate them. :)

well once the tiger has his fires lit he has a hard time stopping. I got more work done on two projects: the cannibal art swap piece, and more on the Egyptian one. Trouble is time has no meaning for me once I start I just now left the studio and have not gone to bed yet. I will right after this post.

First off... the cannibal art swap which was my first time carving anything of a wood variety, namely bamboo I had leftover from the studio build. If I do anything more with the dremel tool I am going to have to get the easier to handle extension that the people in the swap thread recommended because once again my hand went numb working on this. I decided to go easy though and just do basic sort of line art carves except for the little skulls on the border which were fairly easy with a different broader dremel tip. I have always liked the look of bone scrimshaw art so thought it would be relatively easy to emulate that and have a nice piece.
First I carved deeper on the border I already carved, and added the little skull border.

Then I added another border of tapa and skull designs on the top to balance it out... but my hand simply could not take the intricate detail I did on the bottom so it had to be simplified.

After the carving was done I added a light wash of brown acrylic paint which I rubbed into the grooves and wiped off the excess while still wet with a paper towel. This created the scrimshaw effect I was going for.

The top looked awfully simple compared to the bottom, so to make it seem more complex I added the same red paint in spots as what I used for around the shrunken head. After that to balance it I added a little more red spots to the bottom design.

And... viola! It is done. I am still not sure if I should leave it as is, or turn it into something more utilitarian like a desk caddy... although it would be an awful tall caddy. Also I am not sure if I should seal with anything and if so... what?

Now... time to cross over the desert sands again...

I started trying to work out more of the light sources and dark areas on the Egyptian painting. Especially the lit exit sign above the doorway arch. There are several light sources to consider; the fake lamp torch lights above the first level pillars, the over all house lights way up above near the ceiling (these probably would not be lit during a show, but I need as much lighting as I can muster to show the details) the little side lights on the end of the seat aisles, and of course the projected light of the movie on the screen which is the main light source. Several of these will have bounced secondary light in pooled areas. Because it is a dark scene though, it will have a film noir sort of look where the light bounces off edges of objects and not all edges will be clearly discernible.

Here is the main part I was working out the lighting on...

The main exit door close up.

And the organ loft.

And since I have already broken tiki taboo by not exclusively having tiki art, I may as well go straight to tiki hell and show off my current baseball card size pieces of work themed to 80's arcade games that are up on ebay for sale right now ( I know I am such a shill).

The centipede one is my favorite.

Come on down to carny huckster Tigertail's auction and let me get you into a fine new little pocket painting (run tiki faithful RUN! They have nothing to do with tiki! You have been warned!)
From that one auction you can view the other six if you look at the other stuff I am currently peddling.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/321172370284?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

Until next time when we once again cross the desert sands and view the ancient tombs of splendor, tiki friends.