April WIP brings May.... Robots?

chrisaakins

@EliaMurrayArt This is so freaking amazing. I am really excited to see who this turns out. I wish you had been documenting your process by making a video. I would have totally binge watched it.

EliaMurrayArt

@chrisaakins ugh that would have been SO COOL! Next time - I will set up a camera and film... it's been many many hours! I don't really know how to film things so I'll have to learn but that is a great idea!

theprairiefox

@EliaMurrayArt this is so much fun!

This reminded me of one of the Mo Willems lunch doodles where he talked about how he created a village using boxes and such. Might give you some ideas:

Lunch Doodles Ep. 04

EliaMurrayArt

@theprairiefox thank you for sharing!!! I'll definitely check it out

EliaMurrayArt

Technical Update

I began working on the hands. They were left until the end because I wanted to make sure I had the things she was supposed to be holding made first.

I initially thought I would be making them out of the same clay her head is made from but I quickly figured out that would be very difficult.

You can see the hands on the left, the white ones with wire sticking out. Those are the start of the clay hands. I thought I could sculpt them and place the items/glue the items into them. But this proved to look terrible, be complicated, and just not a viable option.

So after some research and zooming in to photos of stop motion puppets I began the new set of hands (in black). These also have a wire armeture. I used steel stick epoxy to attach the wire to the square tubing that act as wrist joints and then I wrapped the whole thing in tiny strips of medical tape. I used black because that is all I had on hand. In the future I would use white or beige.

If I could, I would then paint the hands with Liquid Latex but alas. I do not have any of that with me.

Working in this way allows me to adjust the hands shape around the items I plan on having her hold without being limited to a rigid shape.

Kat

@EliaMurrayArt this is amazing! I’m so loving watching you progress with this project, and I can’t wait to see it done. Great work, and a really fun scene.

Aaron_T

This is amazing! I can't wait to see it done!

Jeremy Ross

Hi @EliaMurrayArt, you are doing such an incredible job! I had fun just scrolling the evolution of your creation! Thank you so much for sharing your process! WOW!

natiwata

So cool to see this very analog process of creating art! I haven't done non-digital art for so long, but had an ambition to become a puppet maker when I was a kid. Very cool!

EliaMurrayArt

@Kat , @Aaron_T @Jeremy-Ross, @natiwata

🥰🥰 thank you all. I am so glad I can share this process with SVS. It is something I haven always wanted to do.

EliaMurrayArt

Prop Spotlight

Literally.

I built this little lamp this morning (I dont know where the cut off is and I can call this illustration done... I guess the deadline!)

I love the lamp so much I wanted to give it a little shout out because I know it is just a background element and won't be that noticeable.

It is made from little brass tubing, brass rivets, and a jam lid bottom!

The tiny lightbulb is from the hardware store.

All of this is secured with massive amounts of gorilla glue.

Surprisingly simple, but very satisfying.

Coley

@EliaMurrayArt

Eeeeeeeeeeek! Cutest lamp Evah!!!

EliaMurrayArt

@Coley 🥰🥰🥰 obsessed with it. I think it should be the star of my illustration.

EliaMurrayArt

Down to the wire!!

I am starting to wrap things up here in this tiny room with a tiny, failed, inventor and her exploded robot.

Right now I am essentially putting the icing on the cake and adjusting the things that I feel are not meshing together properly.

For example this Robot head.

At first, he was green, then red, then a different shade of red. And now finally a gray blue which I have settled on.

I made the mistake of assigning colors to important elements before I had the whole scene really nailed down (color thumbs should not be ignored, learn from my mistake!). Because I only had green paint for the walls the robot could not also be green and remain a focal point. So I tried red. That flopped. Twice. I knew the robot head had to have some red on it to draw the eye to it but an entire red head was way way too much.

So here I am. And I am quite happy with him because he looks like a clown. Lisa has been designing a "buddy bot" and so I think it is fitting that he looks like a robot clown that she would be building to cheer her up.

I hope for her sake, buddy bot 3.0 survives better than 1 & 2.

Coley

@EliaMurrayArt I like that grey blue, and the robot head is awesome it’s coming together!

teresaro

All of this is so amazing!!!

Jeremy Ross

Hi @EliaMurrayArt, looks great! Good choice on the colors!

EliaMurrayArt

Yummy Icing

Here are some little details that will be in the background of my illustration that I wanted to highlight.

I am still figuring out exactly where to put them but I thought it would be fun to just give them each their own personal little shout out because they will be playing second fiddle when all is said and done.

Lisa, as a little inventor, of course had to have schematics and instructions for her Robot. This is Robot 2.0 (we currently don't know what happened to the first robot but it is a safe bet that Lisa is hiding him under her bed... which happens to be the place she also hides her brussel sprouts. )

She has very few requirements for the Buddy Bot. Mostly she needs him to like flowers, give hugs, and have a brain. Though she admits the brain part isn't high on the priority list.

Dr. Fluffy is Lisa's co inventor. He usually tries to talk Lisa out of doing things, always the voice of reason, and yet Lisa tends never to listen to him. This time Dr. Fluffy really did try to tell her to read the instructions but Lisa had to follow her "creative instincts"... once again, Dr. Fluffy was right.

Lisa has a window! That's... about it for that...

🥰

EliaMurrayArt

Just getting crazy now

Had some extra time. Made a tiny drawing mannequin for Lisa. I imagine she'll become an artist after she throws out her robot attempt.

This is carved and glued. No fingers were harmed in the creating of this.

Coley

So awesome. Her goggles nearly kill me