stinkycrayons
New Member
- Joined
- Aug 3, 2014
- Messages
- 6
I love finding new ways to recycle old toys as in the case with this cute little skating Elmo figure. As part of a grab bag of odd toys I got this little skating version of arguably the most popular Sesame Street character; Elmo. It was bright and colorful but also worn from hopefully many hours of enjoyment by a kid or a weird adult. The black smudge on his eye gave me the inspiration for this figure. What if Sesame Street was rated R?
The series could go in many excellent directions if it were rated R. Just take a moment to think about all the weird, funny, horrific and amazing ways Sesame Street could appeal to adults. Go on, I will wait…………………..no, think more dramatic! Use your imagination buddy!...........
Well I hope you have some awesome ideas in your head. Maybe one day Sesame Street will go rated R! For this toy I wanted to play with the idea of him skating and getting hurt yet still being cheery about it. Kind of how talk shows downplay real issues for things and just promotes shopping. So I took little Elmo here under the hobby knife to do some modifications. I cut his arm, stomach, foot, shoulder and elbow. His arm is barley attracted now. I guess my other inspiration was parents that over-react when a kid gets a small scratch and they think the kids is on Death’s door-steps.
Along with the cuts I cut out part of his brain underneath a yellow painted helmet. I’m planning on sculpting part of a brain for him to hold in his right hand. Maybe a plague below could say “Today we are learning about the letter Bâ€. As in brains and blood. I had the bizarre idea to cut his eye out and have him hold it as if he could still see from it. Everything is ok, continue to spend that disposable income Charlie! The bland wide-eyed face is hilarious in this setting to me.
I wanted the paint job to be more adult in nature but not ruin the character like that of the character design in the movie Superman Returns – Readers may now pause to puke at thinking of watching Superman Returns. So I painted the toy in a hull red color to make the blood have more contrast. And look EXTREME! Speaking of the blood I put different shades of reds around the cuts and a few drops on his skates. Its really harder than I thought to paint blood. The last step will be to add gloss coat to all the blood spots I think to look like fresh wounds.
Some future ideas are to paint red veins on the eyes, lighter shades of pink on the blood spots, shade more details, add small bandage to his nose, sculpt part of the brain coming out of the helmet and create a base. I don’t know what to do for the base, I’m bad at thinking of base ideas. So please help if you have a cool yet simple idea. Maybe a set of staircases? Time for some re-runs of Sesame Street!
For the poster I was inspired by the trailer to Rambo, the 2008 version. Because in the trailer they wanted to show some pretty brutal stuff but the censors would not allow them so they blocked everything out with this ugly looking artificial mud. So I photographed the character against red, a hard challenge but it also makes the scene over-dramatic and it looks more horrific than it is. Then afterwards I went crazy putting the most Fox News and Nancy Grace thinking I could into the poster copy. While it’s meant to be sarcastic there is some truth in being responsible for your own kid. And that taking away swing-sets, slides and jungle gyms is really an un-needed dumb exercise and a real shame for kids.
When I’m done I will put some pictures up of it against better contrasting background to see details more. This is just for fun and to see how the project is going. It’s hard to finish models I find. All the little details get super tedious. Opening a bottle, stirring it, cleaning brushes just for one little dot of paint. I enjoy the grand aspect and planning more than the grunt work.
If you have any ideas, critiques, painting suggestions / tips / complaints please let me know. Just don’t defend Superman Returns for any reason or I will go Big Bird on you!
