George Hurrell, Joan Crawford, 1930s

Joan Crawford by George Hurrell (MGM, 1930s), originally uploaded by greta_g.

Ilustração Portugueza, Estudantina Madrilena, 1920s - 1a

Ilustração Portugueza, Estudantina Madrilena, 1920s - 1a, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Spaniards.

Diniz Fragoso, Bertrand Magazine, The Role of Men, 1927

Diniz Fragoso, Bertrand Magazine, The Role of Men, 1927, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Via Dias que Voam.

"A vision of the future

Well, if women smoke, play football and drive automobiles...

If they ride horses, go to the barber's and give conferences...

Who will take care of the pots and pans and the children! ...If not men?!..."

MAKING MARLEY: PART 5

Paint Master: I’d originally considered casting Marley in a translucent resin. The more I thought about it, the more problems presented themselves. I’d always intended to have the line produced as cold-cast collectibles, and so many of my decisions regards engineering and paint applications were governed by that. It would have been possible to do a one-off or a two- zee, with a translucent casting, applying a series of air brushed clear glazes with some opaque touches, but as a production piece, it would have been unmanageable. The same consideration went into the chains. I think it would have been cool if they were all rusty and corroded, but hard to keep consistently in production. I laid out a template for the length of chain sections, where they linked and how they were to be arranged on the figure. I don’t know what a “glowing lobster” looks like, and I don’t know that it would have changed my mind in Marley’s color. The color scheme for his costume is bland, dull and washed out, keeping the focus of the piece on his portrait. There was a good deal of dry-brushing and washes in painting him up. The only gloss touches were the eyes and glasses on the bound head and the eyes and interior of the mouth on the unbound head. The locks, keys and ledgers were painting in a buffable gunmetal paint. With a little dark gray rub. The base too, was grayed out. I’d played with a few versions of a ringing bell but thought a cast shadow of the bell in a different position would get the idea across. That was the plan, anyway. I still hope, one day, to be able to bring these figures to market and complete the line. The future’s a big place. Body parts crossed for luck.

Tamara Toumanova

toumanova_tamara, originally uploaded by bossyk.

Jorge Barradas, ABC magazine, 1921 - cover

Jorge Barradas, ABC magazine, 1921 - cover, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

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Jorge Barradas, ABC magazine, 1922 - cover

Jorge Barradas, ABC magazine, 1922 - cover, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Via Dias que Voam

MAKING MARLEY: PART 4

Resins: “Tis better to gate in abundance, than to labor over a faulty resin.” These days, I probably over gate. I’ve become less ambitious when it comes to casting and cleaning resins than I used to be. The trick to good gating is to think like resin. It’s not as easy as it sounds. I’ve been outsmarted by urethane more times than I’d like to admit. The torso was a direct pour, cast with the neck pin in place. The base, too, was a direct pour, with the pivot pin cast in place. Both were swapped out with a steel peg. I ran a lot of little gates for the hair on both heads, pins cast in place. Both hands were loaded molds and then tapped to dislodge trapped air. For Marley’s props, I sculpted two locks, to keys and one ledger. The larger lock has my initials on one side and my wife’s on the reverse. The smaller lock has my son and daughter’s initials. I had intended to have these figures produced as cold cast collectibles and so needed to keep the props down to a manageable assortment, otherwise, I would have probably done a couple more keys and locks and a smaller ledger. His glasses were cast in clear and the frames painted in. I used the same ponytail for both heads. PART 5 - PAINT MASTER, wil be posted on Friday. Happy Thanksgiving, all!

Roberto Nobre, Civilização Magazine, 1929

Roberto Nobre, Civilização Magazine, 1929, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Via Dias que Voam.

MAKING MARLEY: PART 3

Wax: With a set of wax castings, I started the finish work. I needed a resin head to make sure of a good fit into the body and so finished the head first. Next, I worked the hands and created temporary keys into the sleeves. With a resin of the head and hands, I concentrated on finishing the body. One of the beauties of wax is being able to work individual parts to finish and then wax-weld them into place. I don’t think I could have gotten the kind of movement and finish on the torso if I would have had to work around the arms. With the arms and torso done, I reassembled the figure, finished out the seams and was ready for molds. The bandaged head of Marley became the gape jawed Marley. I wanted to keep as much consistency between the two heads as possible, and so used the original head as the base for the alternate head. Having resin parts to work to a wax makes keying parts much easier. The head, hands, and ponytail were all resin parts keyed to a wax.

Cyclax Cosmetics, 1936

Art Deco Cyclax Cosmetics Advert, originally uploaded by glen.h.

MAKING MARLEY: PART 2

Every figure in this series began life in clay. We’ve discussed in the Pop Sculpture, the importance of working out the various issues posed by a sculpture by working them out in clay. After taking a series of pictures of myself as Marley, reciting his lines as I did so, I found a pose I thought worked well. (I won’t share those pictures of me as some of may have just eaten) I sent a set of pix of the rough clay to my friend and Master Sculptor, Tony Cipriano, who suggested turning his left hand, palm up, instead of the palm down version I had. A subtle difference, but an important change that helped balance an accusing finger with a open gesture of generosity. With the clay done, I made a series of waste molds, cast waxes and started the finish work.

Civilização Magazine, The Punishment, 1930

Civilização Magazine, The Punishment, 1930, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Via Dias que Voam.

Man: No matter what I won't stop following you until you accept to date me.
Woman: Jerk! It'd serve you right if I married you!

Arraial de Sto. António, 1931

Arraial de Sto. António, 1931, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Sheet music cover. Scanned from a sugar packet.

MAKING MARLEY: PART 1

I’ve read A Christmas Carol nearly every Christmas season since I was seventeen. The book has grown with me as I’ve grown. That, to me, is the test of a timeless tale, one whose relevance keeps apace with the view of the world in which we live. Late in 2007, I started work on what I’d hoped would be an eight figure series of busts based on Dickens’s Christmas classic. The last figure of the four I completed was the Ghost of Jacob Marley. I started by rereading all the passages relating to Marley and researched the various incarnations of him that have appeared over the years. By imagining who this man was, “in life”, I looked ahead to whom he had become. (The picture in the upper left hand corner is my first attempt at a Marley sculpt done in 1983)

Design: I wanted the various characters to be able to interact with each other while maintaining a base-front display. I pitched the pivot idea to DCD years ago for a series of mini busts. The figures were to pivot within an iconic rock structure with a Justice League logo carved into the front. At the last minute, the idea was scraped, as was the logo. What resulted was a series of figures stuck on a rock, which made no sense. The next opportunity to try the pivot was on a series of Hellboy busts I did for Dark Horse followed by a series of Elfquest busts with the pivot feature. What a designer considers the money shot isn’t always shared by the collector. The pivot allows the collector to position the figure the way they want. Not a world shaker, granted, but anything that gives the collector a little more influence over his/her purchase is a plus.

So, the figures of the Christmas Carol Collection would pivot. I also wanted to tie the figures to the book as literally as I could. I researched what the first edition of the book looked like and recreated art to reflect that design. The book evolved into a removable ornament with text from the book relating to that particular character. That, in turn, led to the creation of an alternate base front. Scrooge’s bed curtains play an important role in the story. The alternate base front uses the parted bed curtains to reveal a low relief sculpture directly related to that character and their place in the story. With Scrooge, its Marley’s head as the door knocker (shown). Tiny Time is his crutch and leg brace. The Ghost or Christmas Present is the boy and girl who represent Ignorance and Want. For Marley, I used a bell, as the bells ring throughout Scrooge’s house announcing Marley’s appearance, without moving. The pivot feature is easiest to accomplish using the casting-the-peg-in-place method, described in Pop Sculpture..

Fado da Boa Hora

Fado da Boa Hora, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Sheet music cover, scanned from a sugar packet.

Fado da Madragoa, 1937

Fado da Madragoa, 1937, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Sheet music cover, scanned from a sugar packet.

Making Marley

Next week, in celebration of the Season, we'll be running a multi-part post of the making of Jacob Marley. From clay studies, to wax, molds, casts and paint master, we'll cover, in detail, the creation of the last figure in Tim's Christmas Carol Collection. Stay Tuned!

Greta Garbo 'The Temptress' 1926

Greta Garbo 'The Temptress' 1926, originally uploaded by greta_g.

Stuart Carvalhais, Fado Espanhol, 1927

Stuart Carvalhais, Fado Espanhol, 1927, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Sheet music cover. Scanned from a sugar packet.

Mirror, mirror

Mirror, mirror, originally uploaded by starduste.

Stuart Carvalhais, Fado Paris, 1927

Stuart Carvalhais, Fado Paris, 1927, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Scanned from a sugar packet.

Stuart Carvalhais, ABC magazine, 1922 - cover

Stuart Carvalhais, ABC magazine, 1922 - cover, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Via Dias que Voam.

Tokalon powder, 1920s

the 1920s-ad for Tokalon powder, originally uploaded by april-mo.

Brunelleschi, Le Pont Rouge, 1928

Le Pont Rouge by Brunelleschi, 1928, originally uploaded by Silverbluestar.