The Making of Guin XL – A Guided Tour

Hello, my Lovlies!

Recently {not actually “Recently” so much, as this post was original written/created on Nov. 5th, 2012 and I never published it[until now, quite unfortunately, clearly -.-], as there’s was always “something more/else” that I wanted to include, etcetera. Anyhoo, now continue and don’t be shocked when you notice edits, should I make any. I feel nearly more concerned with “dusting things off” honestly, whilst feeling faced the the decision of “Action/Inertia(Stagnancy/Procrastination)” and doing nothing more…of course, I’ll…well, I just shut up and let “you” read ^.^}, I got commissioned for a “from-the-bottom-up” custom creation and since I am frequently asked about my process and/or how do I go about making Guin, I thought that I would take this opportunity and share a bit of that with all of you :) This will also give you all a bit of an idea about how easy it can be to work with me and bring your custom creation to life! The following is an excerpt from the message that my client sent me, requesting a special custom piece:

My dad is going to be celebrating 25 years in law this coming April, and after showing him my figurines, he’s considering ordering 2. He’d want Guin to be bigger though (about 50% bigger than the current Guins) and he’d want Guin to look like a lawyer, with the scale or a briefcase, etc. We don’t have a lot of ideas, but he’d like to know a price estimate for 2, along with an idea of how Guin would be. He’d also want his initials and 25 years, along with 2012 somehow on it, either on a briefcase that Guin would carry or on Guin’s stomach. The Guins would be going to females, if that would help you with ideas in some way. My dad would want to receive them by the end of March. If you could let me know if it would be possible to do that, or if you could sketch a picture and show me, that would be great.

So that was what I was given as a starting point, which wasn’t actually that bad. I do prefer some pictures to get a better idea of what my clients really want, but we were all very pleased with the end result, so that just goes to show you, you don’t even always need a picture, just hopefully some general idea of what you want and/or don’t want.

Alrighty, so here we go! Below is a photo of the initial concept of Guin XL – Lawyer Edition, which was created using some Dollarama modelling clay. Working out concepts with modelling clay is something new to me, as I once used to sketch out my designs was how I used to work out all of my concepts, but recently I decided to give modelling clay a go and will never look back! This also saves me a lot of time, effort, and money (in the form of potentially wasted materials, should something not work out)! Also, it’s just fun ;)

I found once I got past the insane difficulty that I had, trying to convince my hands to make Guin (who I have been make the exact same size since 2008!) a significantly larger size, it was relatively smooth sailing after that. Though yes, I still sat there and stared at the clay with a furrowed brow for periods of time that were a little to long and frequent for my liking (I had trouble getting the size of things just right and was trying to make sure I had copies of the clay ball sizes that I would need for each piece), but all and all it wasn’t quite as bad as I had originally anticipated.

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Here is where I stood Gasping Pengahli beside Guin XL, to illustrate how much larger he really was, since I knew it didn’t translate well with Guin XL by himself. This was also the very first time that anyone (who doesn’t live in my house) had seen Gasping Pengahli!

Mental Wanderings By Candlelight

  The ice storm knocked out the power at just before 6am. The day was spent sleeping, snuggled up with my daughter, who turned 6 yesterday, talking, thinking and reading. I also did some needle felting, which I haven’t done in years and finally completed the face on the little snowman that I started so long ago. I poked at my acoustic guitar for a bit, as well and found myself crinkling my nose in disappointment, as I realized that my hard-earned callouses have softened to the point of being disqualified as a “callous”. Something that tangibly emphasizes the impermanence of things if you don’t keep working at it on a regular basis. I often think that my adept ability to let go and move on and love of experiencing new things is as much a hindrance as it is a benefit to me and those of whom are effected by my existence. It makes up a good portion of why people tend to find me enjoyable to be around; as I find something interesting in everything and everyone, so I am legitimately an agreeable person and not just for the sake of being so, but because I am a curious person and want to collect as many relatively sane experiences I can. I have a fascination with how another person’s presence within an experience completely changes everything. I am an analytical person and love knowing how everything ticks, why it tocks. Aside from that, I am a perpetual optimist, polite and appropriately-inappropriate. I’ll hold the door open for you and give you back the money I seen you drop. There’s a few good reasons that most people like me. 

  I have a problem though. There’s a catch to me – I don’t stay. I’m a “reason for a season” for the most part. Somewhere along the way I start crawling back inside myself. See, I’m an extroverted-introvert. The introvert portion on that should be underlined, bolded and italicized a good portion of the time really. I think this is something that ends up being a disappointment with people that know me. They meet me as a balanced extroverted-introvert and then eventually the scales of my personality tip in favor of my introversion. For some reason, though I’m constantly thinking, I suddenly find myself having a hard time spitting anything out. I’m back into my cycle of identifying with the lyrics from Silverchair’s “Across the Night”, from their Diorama album – “I don’t want to be lonely, I just want to be alone.”. I don’t really want to be alone either much. I just very much like to be able to choose when to be around people and when to not *chuckles a bit*. In any case, I tend to feel badly for those around me and for quite some time, find myself throwing a disclaimer, as to what I’m like, at people that seem like they may stick around for a bit. Reason being, the more balanced Extroverted-introvert always comes back. Especially in the more habitable months of the year. I become more introverted when I feel restricted. I suffer from a touch of Seasonal Depression. I found this year crap for it. I’ve been trying to analyze what made this Winter probably the worst and I think it’s largely due to the fact that I feel like the half-slumber I’ve been in the past couple of years, has coming to a close. I’m waking up and there’s shit I want to do. Time, snow and general weather conditions are making things more difficult than they should be though. Some days it feels like I’m trying to run through mud and if I decide to give it up for a bit, then I’ve moved into quicksand that threatens to swallow me whole. Generally, I go through it all silently, as I know full well that it will pass. It always does. One of the benefits of being highly analytical and largely introverted – I know myself really well. I know when certain cycles are coming, my triggers (both good and bad), what I need, what I want, what I want to do with my life. I know it all and it’s a blessing and a curse. The curse side of it being that achieving, getting to enjoy all of these things is the difficult part. Much of it all requires patience and I not a patient person. I’m all about perseverance, which can masquerade as patience often times. I’m also left with this constant feeling of waiting for something. It’s the majority of why I can’t get to sleep as early as I’d like. I tend to try and do things to shut out the feeling, that still keeps me up, though I atleast feel like there was a more valid reason to be up – “Oh I was up late because I was gawking at Facebook, playing my guitar, building a boat, whatevs.”. Then, of course, the next day I chastise myself for whatever activity I was doing that kept me up. Losing battle that one. Bleh. I do get to sleep alot earlier than what I used to, so there’s that atleast. I’ll get it sorted one day…maybe.

  I’ve returned from smoking a cigarello. The street lights are now out. They were on earlier. I was disappointed at the change of illumination more for the fact that I couldn’t see the ice-ladden trees anymore, than for the dissipation of hope that the power would return soon. The trees have been ravaged, but they looked so beautiful in the frozen stillness. This time, in the darkness, off in the distance, I heard the loud crack and falling of a tree. A domino effect of crackling ice, wrought from a gentle breeze, that at first I could not feel, cascaded towards me. It seemed at that moment, before the wind hit me, that it was trees reaction to their fallen brethren.

  I wish my daughter’s cough would go away. It just showed up today and earlier, while she was snuggled on top of on the couch, she went into such a coughing fit that she vomited her left over birthday ice cream cake all over me. Stellar fun that was. She’s been sleeping in her room since before 9. I desperately wanted to look at her sweet face, when I went to check on her a few minutes ago, so I lit up my lighter and surprised us both. I didn’t know that her eyes her open lol.

  12%. That’s enough rambling on, methinks. Back to sleep.

O Confidence, Where For Art Thou?

This was actually written in June 2013, I noticed some typos I couldn’t stand and now the date is technically incorrect :s

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Sometimes I wonder on days like today – an ordinary day where I feel content, yet tired, eventually feeling happy yet neutral towards any plans that could be made and then feeling this unnamed, yet familiar (been around many times, unfortunately) “thing” inside and yet somehow maybe metaphorically over my head might be more appropriate, that throws me into a state of melancholic pondering – “Am I really meant to carry out all or perhaps even any of my grandiose plans?”. Perhaps I’m meant to be like Richard Branson – coming up with brilliant things, bring them into reality and then let someone else take care of it, peek in from time to time to make sure it hasn’t been corrupted into something unrecognizable from what I meant it to be and then move onto the next thing of my fancy, all the while creating life-long financial security and having more than enough to do a great deal of charitable good in the world. Sounds perfectly ideal, actually. Haven’t a clue how I would do that though. What could I create, aside from The Artistic Mind Foundation (a working title and something I’ll elaborate upon another time), that could be passed onto another/others and be long-lasting? My greatest skills and/or natural inclinations are analytic and philosophical thinking, customer service, public relations and most anything art related. I know an empire that would exist for the world’s benefit/betterment could be created with my skill set, but how? And perhaps better yet, in what form or how many? I’ve never been good at mini-goal setting in order to achieve something greater. I know that’s what living a good life is. You do it constantly – accomplish this, that, and other things, all to be and achieve what you want in life – it’s what I do and most others for that matter. But how do I consciously make a proper business plan and what do I do it for?

As Ghandi said (I believe it was him), “Be the change you want to see in the world.” That’s what I want and try my best to do and typically feel quiet satisfied with how I am doing in regards to that; though I always want to be better tomorrow, than I am today, but that’s how things ought to be. Always progressing forward, even if at times it seems that you might be going back to something. It just means that there is something else you must learn from that type of situation and/or state of being, so that you can move forward wholly, completely. Perhaps forgiveness or self-acceptance, or perhaps it is Life’s way to allow you to “do it right this time”. A second chance. At 30-years-old, I feel no need for any “mulligans”. I am at peace with all the conscious and subconscious decisions that I have made up to now. This is something that I did not always feel, so it feels even more…peaceful…or something. I can’t really think of an appropriate adjective. It can bring me peace, just knowing that I have no regrets and feel that even my “mistakes”, weren’t mistakes at all, as I have learned from them all, the best that I could and they have all built me into who I am now. They have all led me to here and I love who and where I am in life right now. It’s not all perfect, nor am I, but I love and cherish it all. I think if I were perfect, I would no longer be “me”. No longer be “human”. I am not The Messiah, Savior of This World and I have too much to do as “me” in this life to want to even attempt to achieve perfection. Such a term is too subjective, a matter of perspective to actually even be hypothetically possible. All this and yet I always return, at some seemingly random point, to feeling “unsettled”, perhaps even slightly restless. Some would just call it “self-doubt”, but since I just used the word and find it “missing the mark”, I know it’s something more. “Unseen forces” set on derailing me? Probably a little bit, but that’s not the sum of the “thing” either. Due to the fact that I feel a bit less of a melancholic jumble and more “productively contemplative” (I like that. I’m keeping it), I think I knew part of the answer, or remedy rather, for a rather long time…I need to dump out my head on paper or pixelated screens more often. I used to write a lot; be it in a diary or some form of fiction (poetry or in The Castle) and have always missed it. Everything just up and poofed away from me a long time ago. I guess you could call it a, possibly nearly 5 year long Writer’s Block. Actually, clay/Guin came into my life and writing eventually got nudged out, to make adequate room, I suppose. Not to mention my beautiful Little Miss entered this world. Doesn’t really leave a whole lot of time to scribble, jot, or tippy-tap. Actually yes, I believe that’s been a substantially large piece of the puzzle – writing was always a part of me, a part that largely got left behind and therefore occasionally leaves me feeling aimless, perhaps even a little incomplete and therefore vulnerable, questioning so many things about my work.

Well, my parents and Lexi are back from there walk in the marsh (I changed my mind, deciding to stay behind and sort things out, which turned into this), so I guess that’ll be enough “head-dumping” for now.

~Me~

A Collection of Inspirations • Part I

Alright, so this will be ridiculously long, keeping your eyes busy for awhile, but I decided as I desperately need to make some room on my iPhone, so I can hoard more pictures, that I’d share somethings that inspire me, while having them here for safe keeping ;).

Hope you find somethings that inspire you and please feel free to share them in a post below!

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Quote of The Day

• “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

• “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated”

~ Mahatma Gandhi

Quote of The Day

“The first step toward change is awareness. The second step is acceptance.”

~ Nathaniel Branden • Psychotherapist & author

Quote of The Day

“Change is the essence of life.Be willing to surrender what you are for what you could become.” ~ Unknown

Quote of The Day

“Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.” ~ Maria Robinson

Quote of The Day

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

~ Steve Jobs • American Entrepreneur Apple co-Founder (lived 1955 – 2011).

Quote of The Day

“One day at a time–this is enough. Do not look back and grieve over the past for it is gone; and do not be troubled about the future, for it has not yet come. Live in the present, and make it so beautiful it will be worth remembering.”

~ Frances Jane Crosby a.k.a Ida Scott Taylor • American hymnist (lived 1820 – 1915).