Mother – An Unorthodox Halloween

The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly…

What a long strange road…

It’s been a while coming, really, but between dealing with uncertainty, unemployment, and family deaths, I’ve been neglecting this website for a few years. It’s needed an update for a while, I’ve known.

The road has been one of those that cause you to evaluate what is really important to you. I’m not sure what it says about priorities, but Halloween come out ahead of a lot of things.

It was very nearly down to feed the family or make Halloween in 2014. It had come that far, when a lot of other things had fallen aside. Fortunately it didn’t quite come to that decision.

2015 was filled with it’s own roller coaster of putting things back in order, both financially with stable employment again, and as a family when my wife lost both her parents. Mother and Father were not just creatures, but my own way of working through this in my head.

So, with 2015 in the books, and a new appreciation for just how important this “hobby” is, I decided to finally put in the work here on the website….

And the first update broke the entire thing.

For 2 days I sat looking at a dying husk. I had thrown a static archived page up live to the public, but I was unable to edit anything, unable to go ‘live’. My patience for such things is fairly limited. I’d try things for a couple hours, and have to take a break. I contacted my host, and we’d fix one problem just to create several more. There was only one option left.

KILL IT.

And start from scratch.

I was able to save most the content, though some of the really old stuff probably doesn’t link correctly these days.

So, we are back from the dead. And better for it.

Now fully responsive, it should be readable on your mobile devices. At least the main page here…I’m going through and working the other pages one at a time. Once I figure out how to configure some of the other gizmos, we’ll have more features popping in as well. It’s taken me two weeks to get these bare bones back up out of the ground, and it’s time to start adding some flesh to them.

Scariest…

Father was made this year, specifically to enter the South Ogden City Scarecrow contest.

First saw last year that they had nothing but overly cute entries, I just could not stand for that.

I’ll take that. Was worth all the looks he garnered from passing vehicle.

I have two competing ideas for next year. One can barely be called a “scarecrow”. But then, I lost to a flat board.

Halloween in Summer, and Motherfest!

Busy couple weekends here.

First, the kids and I took advantage of the Halloween in Summer festival in Magna.

Good to see so many local artists out there making Halloween items.

(Talia practicing her creepy face)

From Buildup 2015

And so many costumes!

From Buildup 2015

But, back home it was time to get working on Mother.

Unfortunately, I ran out of material fairly quick.

From Buildup 2015

Some quick orders placed, and a review of my schedule going forward with work projects, back to school, and weekends about to be taken up with canning tomatoes, it come down to a now or never situation for finishing the bulk of work on Mother this weekend. So, we declared it Motherfest, and most my time was spent elbow deep in material, working on Mother Friday and Saturday.

By Saturday afternoon, Mother was mostly finished.

From Buildup 2015

Only needing a quick wash of black Sunday evening. There’s a bit of work left, but she’s finally presentable.

From Buildup 2015

Hello mother…Hello Father…

Father is swiftly approaching completion.

Getting some more of the basic form down.

The “clean” nature was bugging me, and even though there was some more form work to do, I had to fix that.

Finally, most form work finished, just a little bit to do on the right arm. Lighting redesign (subtle), and improved form on the left arm. Needs some detail work in places yet, and I need to make a stand for the city contest.

Mother, on the other hand, has just begun work. Finally putting some skin on, and getting a couple babies into place.

As I was finishing up the skin session with light starting to fade (too darn hot to start much earlier), I looked up at the rest, and all that skin was shifting in the breeze…she appeared to be breathing!….how fitting.

Father.

Every year, I like to have something of a preview out for Walpurgisnacht.

Mother, while coming along, simply had too much work to even get anything resembling much to anyone done in time, and there are some areas I need to figure out on her. So, I figured why not work on one of the other ones, one that will go together quick.

Talia has declared if the big one is Mother, this must be Father. “Then there will be a whole family.”

It started out simple enough, figuring on just throwing some skin on.

But it really wasn’t meshing with Mother the way I wanted, and I needed to be working on something I can send to the scarecrow contest. Mother is too big to haul around.

So, I started with a 2×4 and redesigned the body screwing bits right to the board. Soon it was coming together.

I actually have a “hand” for the right arm, just haven’t gotten around to attaching it. The left arm I haven’t been able to find a suitable piece, and may end up sculpting one instead.

Still a lot to do, but Father is a suitable preview to mark the half way point.