Tear Down!

The "Gold-Winger" has found himself in pieces again. I pulled him out of the closet the other day and started hacking away at him again. Ahhh, the fresh smell of another slash job....

If you remember in my April 2011 post, I wasn't quite finished with this gold blasted beastie just yet. I wasn't completely happy with his appearance, and there were still a bunch of areas on him that needed more work. The deadline for the gallery created a time constraint, so I hurried and threw him together the best that I could to get him done in time. (For anyone who has been around me in the studio.... I work terribly slowly. I tend to fiddle around with projects to the point of madness for years on end, instead of months like most normal people do....)

So after the Gold-Winger got back home from the gallery, I stuffed him into the studio closet in a box. Hidden away from the world, and from my eyes. Which was a good thing. If you're frustrated with something that you're working on, sometimes not looking at it for awhile can bring a whole new point of view to areas when you pull it out and see it once again. And that is exactly what happened. I unboxed him and noticed immediately some new areas with problems that needed changing. It was a total "Eee Gads!" moment that blew my mind.

Another thing that blew my mind was when I picked up the flying wing-ding after the exhibition, I got some interesting feedback. I chose to take them as compliments later on, but it was definitely a double-edged sword to my ego. I was slightly depressed for awhile, hence the storing away of the model so I didn't have to look at it.
The gallery staff ladies had no idea how I built him. They liked him very much, but they weren't aware that there was a hardening clay out on the market that had a solidifying effect. They had only seen the soft waxes and gummy craft clay used to build bronzes. So after I explained to them that he was made of Gapoxio over a chopped plastic armature, they were impressed. (So much so, that they asked me to teach a class...but I'm definitely not teaching material, so I respectfully declined.) Anyway....
When I dropped him off to enter him in the gallery, they were under the impression that I had purchased a model out of a store, painted it gold, and then glued a pair of wings onto it for the contest. I was horrified. I wondered if the judge had thought the same way!
The last thing that I want people to think is that I'm some sort of half-assed poser artist that throws together cheap store bought materials for a nice art gallery contest. But......the more that I thought about their comments, I realized that if they thought it was good enough to be in a store then maybe it appears to be somewhat professional looking. So I perked up and changed my tune a little bit. It's still a teeter-totter in my mental state about this model, but I've decided to accept their feedback in a beneficial way.

So alas, with his new hack-n-slash job currently underway, the Gold-Winger will once again be resurrected back into a "bigger and better" full glory sometime during this summer. He'll be packing a more interesting finish.....that much I am sure of. =:)