Day 279

So far I've done seven of the nine crayons but I'm not going to post them all now. You'll just have to go to the art show to see them. Or wait until I post them after the show is over. I can say that the most recent ones I've made are pretty good. The first three I showed here were the easier ones. I left the harder ones for last so naturally they look more impressive when complete. I will show one more here though since this was the only time I took pictures while I was working. This is the Lannister lion if you couldn't tell. I was aiming for the standing medieval lion you typically see on shields and coats of arms. Unfortunately that silhouette doesn't match up with a crayon very well. A big problem are the arms where they should be outstretched, one up and one down. To fit on a crayon, they pretty much have to go straight up and down instead of at an angle which looks a little weird. It kinda looks like one of those Asian lucky cats but I can't really do anything about it now. Despite that, it turned out much better than I was expecting.

The upper photo are pictures while I was working and the tentative finished result is below. My basic methodology was to scratch out a sketch of what the lion's profile looks like on either side. Then I started carving straight inwards leaving wax to be the eventual arms and legs. Once I left enough bulk for those, I started carving the front and back to get the right profile shape. Once it looked like I had the right amount of wax left for the head, I went back to the arms and legs to make sure they were proportional. When I had the general shape I was going for, I started refining the different parts. I carved in a face and was shocked that it looked like a lion because I just had a blob for the head at that point and wasn't sure where I was going there. I saved a bulk of wax on the back for the tail which I did last. The initial plan was to have the lion stand on a stack of coins but I was tired at this point so I stopped. I might go back and do it but the feet aren't level so I'm not sure how it'll look.