Whittling Them Down to Something

Andy’s abandoned our horrible monster children to bum around the Middle East with his lady friend.  This means I’ll be solely responsible for gestating the brood for the next few months.  Unfortunately, that means things will be slowing down for a spell, but I’ll do my best to keep it poppin’.  Lately I’ve been whittling away the hours carving the kids’ craniums out of castoff couches.

It’s hard to keep your workspace clean when carving up couch cushions.  The static charged foam slivers tend to get everywhere, clinging to clothes and carpets alike.  You can tell where I’ve been working by the scattered foam shrapnel I leave in my wake as I go back and forth to the kitchen for more coffee.

I generally try and carve the basic skull out of one solid block of foam, carving features such as brow furrows, noses and ears separately and then gluing or pinning them in place.  When they’re eventually covered with fleece skins the ears will have to be done on their own and then sewn down.

It’s important to regularly check how well they perform, what the range of mouth movement is and how easily they can be operated.  I’ve had to tear out and rebuild the interiors of a few of them to ensure they’ll perform up to snuff.  It’s easy to forget that these guys are tools as much as they are sculptures.  The look of the object is certainly important, but it needs always to be balanced against the usability.

Tags: Chip Doogan, Foam