Saturday, December 28, 2013

Day 346

It's been awhile since the last time I wrote here. It hasn't felt like a month has gone by but I guess it has. It's been even longer since the last time I posted some new crayons. I wrote about Tumblr and Etsy the last time I updated this blog so I'm going to just do new crayons for now and then hopefully some more posts in a few days to make up for lost time.

Back during the early days of my crayon endeavors, I was contacted by a graphic designer. Along with his usual design work, he also does speaking engagements for various events. He was doing one about creativity and came across my work and asked if he could include it in his talk. I said sure. Then he asked if I could carve The Dude and Walter from The Big Lebowski. Even now with so much crayon carving experience under my belt, I would hesitate trying to carve real people. I thought maybe I could do these two characters because they have very distinct features like their hair style and facial hair. I also thought I could include their sunglasses to cover the eyes to avoid having to carve those too. I told him I could give it a try since I wasn't that confident.


It's been years since I last saw The Big Lebowski. In my head, I envisioned Walter having blond hair while The Dude had more brown hair. So I decided Walter would be made with a yellow crayon and The Dude with a tan one. In reality though, they both have similar colored hair. I started with Walter since he seemed the easier of the two. I don't remember the process of making him too well except being pleasantly surprised with how he turned out. His face could be less flat but it's not too bad.


The Dude was a little harder. The main issue was his hair. In order to make space for his hair, I had to shrink the size of his head and face. I realized then his head size wouldn't match Walter's so I tried to keep the face as large as possible. The end result is that the proportions aren't quite right and he doesn't look as much like The Dude as he could have. He's usually pictured in his bathrobe but I liked the Southwest style sweater he also wears. It seemed more visually interesting than a plain bathrobe. Overall, I'm happy with the end result.

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