Unicorn!

Unicorn!

We have a unicorn! 

Or, technically, we have two half unicorns...

and faith ;) 

 Lots of refinement to do (lots - a wash over the front leg, fixing all the seams, heightening...) but having all the pieces and having them all cut out is a big step [thumbs up!]

Early in the week I printed the body in two parts of 3 plates each (6 plates total).

 Then it was time to cut out and start assembling all the parts...small issue, I don't actually have the wall space for something this size, and even if I did, the walls are plaster, so I can't pin into them... so... I pinned them into foam core and hung the foamcore from a curtain rod with curtain rings for the front. For the back, I hung a line across the room and used clothes pins to suspend it in front of the window. It's not pretty, but it's up.

My elegant princess, roused from her human pillow, because the human had to photograph the back half at night so it wouldn't be back lit (oh the hazards of hanging directly in front of a window :P).

Jr. was ready the next morning when I got up to do refinements - she managed to keep my whole drawing board nice and warm (how does she know to sit on the carving pillow when I'm going to be carving, and on the drawing board when I'm going to be drawing?? - signs of a great assistant, always a step ahead :).

I continued refining the wing - working with white ink and color pencil so that the transitions between the sections are smoother

 
last week (L) this week (R)

In the primaries, I brought the pink forward and the yellow back to make a smoother gradient.

Adding little touches of white makes it vibrate - it's starting to hum like the best pieces do O:).

 I also continued working on the giant tree block for Cultural Chaos with Big Ink in June. (It's starting to feel very close - Eep!)  Thanks to some great photo tips from Lyell Castonguay, I set up the tripod and got some good process shots.  I think these are pretty funny - I'm actually carving here, so they're accurate in showing my concentration frown and idiosyncratic technique [I carve with both hands on the tool - it's weird, but it does ensure that I don't cut myself], also, I am covered in powder.

We can't close without a puppy update - Honey is growing so fast! I wanted to get a profile shot to show how long her legs are getting, but, being a very loving pup, she usually turns toward her human, so I caught her while she was preoccupied with breakfast ;) - that's my little bear at 12 weeks old [heart!]