ysengrin | Entries tagged with potw

New PotW is up

29 May 2017

Cast Clay Paws

The latex of the old master wolf paws (over twenty years old) had shrunken unevenly, making them unsuitable for remolding. Ysengrin made a quick mold with plaster bandages and cast a shell of Monster Clay in them, filling the core with plaster. The clay casts will be corrected and retextured before making new molds for the wolf feet.

Location: The Workshop

Casting molten Monster Clay in the molds is a handy shortcut, though I'd want to have a less porous surface to be casting against for less cleanup. The monster clay "sets" so quickly that major gaps in the mold halves - an eighth-inch or more - sealed with very little leakage.

Should have the wolf feet for sale again soon!

New Potw is up.

22 May 2017

Pittsburgh Air Show

Photos taken at the soft opening of the 2017 Wings Over Pittsburgh air show.

Top photo is a F-22 Raptor coming to a stop; it's part of the Air Combat Command F-22 Demonstration Team. Behind it is a B-52 Stratofortress.

Bottom photo is a KC-135 Stratotanker - full image also has a taxiing C-17 Globemaster, cropped out of the thumbnail.

Location: 40° 29' 33" N, 80° 12' 45" W

New PotW is up.

15 May 2017

Bringing out detail

Experimenting with different painting techniques to bring out the sculpted detail. Also, putting rejected pulls to good use!

Location: The Workshop

08 May 2017

Flamboyant Visitor

This mature peacock wandered into the workshop through an open door to check out what was going on. None of our neighbors have peacocks, though one neighbor apparently saw the same peacock earlier about a mile away heading down the road from the highway. There's no I.D. band on the peacock.

Peacocks are not native to the area (or the continent).

That was a few days ago, and the peacock has apparently made us a regular stop. He's been seen at least once every day, looking in through the workshop door.

Update: the peacock hasn't been seen since the 16th.

Location: The Workshop

OK, so it's a two-fer this time. Getting back into the swing of things after a colonoscopy. No polyps, no cancer, though I do have some irregularities.

New Picture of the Week is up. I'm getting back in the habit of posting these regularly.

24 Apr 2017

Early Spring Morning

The trees are greening up nicely now, as shown in this shot of the Clarion River taken off the back deck early in the morning.

All is not as quiet as it seems. Loggers are at work on a parcel about a half-mile away and the sound of power saws fill the morning air.

Location: Clarion, PA

Workshop is open, though I have good days and bad days. The Lyme disease fairy graced me with a tick back on April fourth, and I'm currently on a heavy dosage of Doxycycline to try and nip it in the bud. Unfortunately there was a long delay before I could see a doctor; symptoms had already begun. Just a downside of living out in the country.

I managed to protect three pepper plants indoors over the winter - two ghost peppers and one scorpion. They're outside now, and putting out new leaves. Hopefully they'll produce nicely this year. I want to get some tomatoes going this year, too.

Slowly going back through the PotW pages and making them mobile-friendly; 2007 through to the present are done. Once I'm finished with that, I'll go through and fill in gaps appropriately.

Slowly getting the website updated. The Picture of the Week for this year and last year are now mobile friendly, though I'm not completely satisfied with them. Still have some graphical changes coming.

Those pages were still using a clunky template I made back around 1998 or so and really needed the rewrite. CSS wasn't really available back then. Using it is *so* much easier, and will make the needed tweaks I want to do straightforward.

I'll get the older PotW pages updated as time allows, and will back-fill last year's page for the missing weeks.

Current Mood: geeky
Current Location: The Workshop

19 Dec 2016

Paw, paws, paws

In-progress casting of paws. I paint the visible outer layers into the molds before assembling.

Location: Clarion, PA

Two pair of "spec" paws; they're still drying in the molds but will go up for sale (at the old prices) post-Christmas.

Slowly getting the PotW back up to date. Most of them are photos already seen either here or on twitter - I'll post the exceptions here :)

08 Aug 2016

Catalpa sphinx moth caterpillar

This is a late instar of the catalpa sphinx moth caterpillar (Ceratomia catalpae); they're just starting to appear this season. The younger caterpillars look quite different. They only feed on the catalpa tree, of which there is one large specimen in the front yard. For such a flashy youth, the adult moth is quite drab. The three-inch long caterpillar is supposed to be an excellent fishing lure.

The catalpa tree itself was heavily stripped of leaves across the following two weeks - the second picture was taken mid-August and added later. While the tree has evolved to readily produce new leaves, repeated waves of caterpillars can kill the tree.

Location: Clarion, PA

For a while these guys were everywhere around the catalpa tree; I was surprised that the birds weren't picking them off the grass more. The swarm of caterpillars seems to have passed now.

EDIT: Fixed my tongue-tiedness :) Also adding an additional reference on the catalpa sphinx moth.

New Picture of the Week post, working up to the current time. Gotta catch 'em all ...

04 Jan 2015

White and Black Paws

A pair of the little beast paws, white skin with black pads and claws. The client specified which pads were to be black and which were to be left white.

Location: the workshop

11 Jan 2015

Colorful Paws

A pair of in-progress little beast paws for Ysengrin. The markings were based off of a pair of hockey gloves he owns, and as usual are painted from the outside in -- the pads are already done under the grey palms, and the red markings overlap the smoother edge of the white trim.

Location: the workshop

About those colorful paws -- I needed to rush-cast a pair of paws for myself for FC, and thought I'd make a pair that were a bit more playful.

For those who follow me on Fur Affinity, Weasyl or Twitter, those are the white & black paws that I posted earlier.

New Picture of the Weeks post! Gotta catch 'em all ...

14 Dec 2014

Kenai and Ysengrin

Kenai and Ysengrin pose over a breakfast involving massive amounts of smoked salmon. Taken in late October, 2014.

Location: Storytellers Cafe, Disneyland

21 Dec 2014

Sulley and Ysengrin

Sulley greets Ysengrin just outside of Monsters University. The little Diego plush in several of these photos is a stand-in for someone who loved Disneyland and couldn't make it that trip. Taken in late October, 2014.

Location: Disney California Adventure

Memories from having a blast at Disneyland :)

The little Diego plush isn't the one I left at Lance's gravesite, it's just another of the same Ty beanie baby Diegos. I modded it with strong magnets in the butt & both front paws and added an under-the-shirt pad with corresponding magnets so it could be worn in the park and on rides. I then "took" Diego/Lance on many of Lance's favorite rides and the character breakfast. A nice reminder, since I don't know when I'll be back in Dallas.

New Picture of the Week post! Gotta catch 'em all ...

07 Dec 2014

Plantigrade husky feet

A little something DarkFang is working on for a client -- thin, skin-tight feet with pads, an exact fit for the client made on lifecasts of their feet. Strictly indoor use :)

Location: the workshop

These are built up directly on the lifecasts -- there's no molds, and these are definitely one-of. Claws are soft foam covered in latex.

New Picture of the Week post! Gotta catch 'em all ...

30 Nov 2014

Ysengrin and Toothless

While we were on vacation at Disneyland, I stopped by the Build-a-Bear store in Disney Downtown and adopted a Toothless plush for myself.

It's a very chibi toothless :)

Location: the couch

I'd been wanting a Toothless from Build-a-Bear for some time; they'd sold out shortly after the first release, just before How To Train Your Dragon 2 opened. I could have gotten one at the Build-a-Bear about thirty miles away, but saw there was a store in downtown Disney and since we were making that trip ... so, the last day we were at Disneyland I walked over to the store, went through the heart ceremony and adopted a Toothless.

This photo was taken after we got back. I was suited up to take the photos for our solstice cards -- nudge me in mail if you want a card -- and took a few minutes to get a photo of Toothless cuddles.

Current Location: the couch

New Picture of the Week post! Gotta catch 'em all ...

31 Aug 2014

Dipped Wolf Feet

A client wanted a pair of black wolf feet, but wanted a more shiny latex-like appearance (rather than skin like). So, we dipped a set of big wolf feet, with claws installed, into thinned black latex to get this look..

Location: The workshop

These were also given a light coat of silicone lube before shipping to maintain the gloss.

New Picture of the Week post! Gotta catch 'em all ...

03 Aug 2014

Paws in progress

Small and large paws, side by side, with custom markings. Cleanup has just started on these paws. Their molds are behind them.

Location: The workshop

These were finished up and sent out a couple of weeks ago.

The new Picture of the Week is up.

27 Jul 2014

Mount Shasta (north face)

The north face of Mount Shasta, taken from a roadside vista point off highway 97. That's Shastina, a satellite volcanic cone, off to the right. Three of the Mount Shasta Glaciers are visible. Between Shastina and the peak of Mount Shasta is Whitney Glacier, running from the peak to the right is Bolam Glacier, and from the peak to the left is Hotlum Glacier.

Camera location: 41° 37' 01"N, 122° 12' 06" W (~19 miles away)

This photo was taken the day after the photo of the south face. You can see how different the land is on the north side of Mount Shasta - instead of forest there's grassland with scattered trees.

We saw quite a few large dust devils over the farms going north on 97 from here; none were close enough to really show up well in a photograph, though.

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Ysengrin Blackpaw's Journal

Entries tagged with potw

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