sneek peek

i'm having some camera troubles. 

but! this is what i had a few days ago. it plays beautifully, the action is incredible--so much better than i had hoped.

currently, it's stripped down. I made a few minor repairs and its being prepped for paint now. Just doing an epoxy grain fill and then more research on finishing!

k, back

lets cut the chase, i haven't posted in a while.

but.

here's some new work.

i had a few weeks of off time before i headed to pixar for the summer. so i thought i'd make some repairs on the guitar. it's still IP but the good news is it's all strung up and playable. it needs 3 more things. frets, paint and electronics.

re-routed the battery compartment recesses. my earlier attempts weren't exactly square.

old routes from about 2 years ago.  you can see the faint pencil marks outlining the cut.

the block on the left is the new piece. this was machines on a C&C because of the rounded edges.

fit!

roughly removed excess wood.

dry fit to see how much the piece needs to be thinned down.

two-grit setup to gradually thin the block.

dry with clamps to see true fit

almost perfect.

I decided to do all the cutting before i glued the piece in. made it easier to clamp to milling machine.

hello.

test piece.

test fit. yay!

done! can't even tell you how nerve racking that was.

custom fit to the EMG's

glue prep. gotta do a few dry runs before committing to a setup.

you can clearly see the old wood is oxidized. 

the plywood has two rectangles cut out to be used for the rear tremolo route.

i used a scrap piece of the same plywood to offset my measurements to get the exact depth i needed.

done!

here i soaked the are of wood with superglue and sanded it back. strengthens the wood.

these are small brass threaded cylinders my father made. planning on a direct mounting the pickups.

and voilà!

more updates soon.

promise.

turkey time.

So i've been working on a number of things recently. And i've finally had a moment to sit down and make a post. I wish i could spend all my time working on these but stupid school is making me write papers and do lame projects. :(

Anyways, here's the stuff.

First off we finally got back the footage from our film Beneath Contempt. Ben put together a small trailer so you can all see some of the work we've done. Ben directed the film and I was the Cinematographer. So enjoy!!

**trailer is gone...sorry people. :(**


I started doing some still life copies as well. Just trying to get better at seeing subtle colors. I'm pretty sure both of them are Jean-Siméon Chardin but I lost the information on the second one, however style-wise they seem almost identical.








And finally here's an update on the sculpture. This is the state it's in right now. Im back in philadelphia so im unable to work on it now. :( Again, sorry for the bad pictures. I need to get a better lighting setup so that i can properly light these when i photograph them.


The index and middle fingers are still rough and i'm yet to sculpt the thumb in. Once i clean up all the fingers i'm going to sculpt it and attach it.







Some work in progress images.











Also. I came up with a new technique. Previously i would place the clay that i was about to use into the oven and warm it up a little so that it would be a bit more pliable. (I'm using a 1:1 mixture of 2 and 3 ROMA plastilina) However, this would cause the clay to heat up unevenly and it caused the oils in the clay to granulate and leave large deposits throughout the clay. This made sculpting very difficult when i tried to do detail work.

So instead of doing this i placed all the clay into a ziplock bag and submerged it into hot water. Luckily the tap water @ my apartment in Boston actually comes out boiling hot so i don't have to heat the water up at all. And in about 10 minutes the clay is perfectly malleable so i can quickly build up the sculpture. Then in another 5-10 minutes its cooled enough to rough and then another 5-10 its reached room temperature and native hardness so i can do detail work. It's great!





That's it friends! I hope you all have a wonderful thanksgiving!!

posting 101!

Bypassing all the bullshit, here's what i've been working on recently.


Armature for a fist. I want to do some hand studies. This is the first of 3 i have planned. It's the easiest one to rig and find reference for.


Traced my hand and drew plans for the armature. This was more difficult than i thought it would be.


And these are a few drawings i did a few days ago. Just some more studies using various references i find online. These are really bad pictures...i apologize. :(











And finally a horrible photo of my pile of tool things.

Lots of sculpting to do this year. :D