Pinocchio

Sorry about the lack of posts to the blog these past weeks. I've been very busy during my free time, getting the house ready for a new baby and all (more about that later). So here's what I've been working on. The title should have been a clue, but if you haven't guessed it its a Pinocchio toy.

The canvas I went with was the blank Vinylmation. To be more specific, the red blank. Once again this wasn't by choice, it was because the kids had one to spare. You come to realize, that in the designer toy industry, the vinylmation canvas isn't really accepted. It is too corporate and defeats the purpose of designer toys with its insane amount of production runs. In the designer game, the less of a toy there is the more the toy is sought after. So you see runs of 10, 20, 250 etc... In some cases you get the 1,000 piece limited run which give more people an opportunity to purchase it and still have the exclusive effect.

So I decided to do a Pinocchio figure. I chose Pinocchio because he is by far my favorite Disney character and I thought he would translate nicely on the vinylmation canvas. But I needed to make him standout as a vinylmation, so I decided to take my x-acto knife to it.

I have to warn you, if you ever use an x-acto knife, always make sure you have sharp blades. You will not believe how many people I've seen slice their fingers open because they were using dull blades. So, I took the figure and put it into boiling water. Boiling the toy makes the plastic very soft allowing it to be cut easily. And as you might guess boiling the toy makes it very hot as well, so be careful when pulling it out and handling it.

I cut the vinylmation where I would be extending it or where I would not need a certain part (the ears). From there I drilled holes where the wires would go, for example in the hands, feet, head, and body. I put screws into areas that I would be adding clay to (thank you Kevin Gosselin). The screw helps the clay stay attached to the piece it's screwed into. I use foil to build out certain areas I don't want to waste extra clay on, like Pinocchio's hat.

For the areas that I needed to add clay but couldn't put screws in (the feet), I sanded the area a bit so that it would have an abrasive surface. I used plumbers putty for the torso and shorts area. Plumbers putty is a two part epoxy putty that hardens in about 3 minutes, so you must work with it fairly quickly.

After attaching the the body together with plumbers putty, I wrap a layer of super sculpey around it and start sculpting. The wires that attach the feet and hands get wrapped with sculpey as well as the tail and ears.

The picture above is not the final pose of the figure, I just put it together like this to give you guys an idea of how he will look. His hands will be angled up a bit more and his head will be turned sideways like the image of Pinocchio at the top of this post. I also was thinking of making him more of a grown up toy but the wife did not think I should do that to Pinocchio. Comment if you want to know what my idea was, but until then to be continued...