"Khonsu"--CM Sham

That custom Sham from my last post is finally finished and named! He is "Khonsu", and I am quite pleased with him. I'm going to put the information from the page I'm working on for him here. He'll be going up on eBay next week--starting March 16.

Introducing "Khonsu"

Khonsu is a customized Breyer "Sham". Every inch of this sculpture has been resculpted by me, Maggie Bennett, leaving him entirely new--a true drastic custom. While he still maintains Sham's original pose, I have corrected flaws such as Sham's wildly differing leg lengths and odd proportions. I've also made him into a gelding, which I felt better fit his feel.


After completing the sculpture I have finished him to a softly dappled rose grey (bay gone grey). He is delicately detailed all over with his dapples following hair patterns. Also note his detailed mane and tail, showing the long lines of individual hairs. His finishwork includes acrylics (airbrushed and handpainted), archival ink, and colored pencil. He has been thoroughly sealed for durability.


Since he is a customized Breyer he is eligible to show at Breyer-only shows such BreyerFest Live. I would consider him LSQ (live show quality), but he has not been shown.


I have included many pictures of him; click on any of them to view them larger. If you'd like more pictures just contact me!

Supernova, and general "stuff"

Most of my time lately has been spent working on commissions, and I need to organize those photos and post them, but tonight is not going to be the night for that. In between I've been working on a few other projects--Supernova and a couple of customs. Nova is approaching completion and I'm currently waiting for a critique on him.

On the CM front... I am working on a drastic CM Sham and a CM PAM. The PAM is my NAN donation (enough acronyms?) and is still in the early stages; the Sham is finished being resculpted and is in the painting stage. He's going to be some shade of gray but I'm going with the flow and seeing what he says he wants to be.

 

  

I have been posting smaller and more frequent updates on my new Facebook page, which you should be able to get to here, assuming I can manage a link. You can subscribe to that page and see my little updates!

Haidar's Auction Now Live

Haidar is up on eBay right now. That is all.

Deputed Duke

I painted this Duke (sculpted by Morgen Kilbourn)  several years ago and recently pulled him out and re-did him in preparation for sale (he is sold). I was especially pleased with his hooves:

His new owner had asked me to add nail marks as she is going to be giving him shoes herself. For more pictures, please click here.

Supernova...again (take four?): the importance of primer

There's a certain danger in posting in-progress shots, particularly early ones--the piece may change so much that the early shots no longer have any relation to the later ones. I think this is what's happened with 'Nova--he no longer looks very much like those early shots at all!

No changes were made between these two pictures except the addition of primer (although the angle is a bit different). Apoxie® Sculpt, particularly in what they call the "Natural" color, is somewhat translucent--which makes it quite difficult to see details. I needed to give him a coat of primer on this side of his head so that it would photograph better--I now need to match the other side of his head to this one, and it's easier with a flipped photograph, and a mirror as well! You can see that his head is still pretty rough, with visible tool marks and other defects. This guy still has a long way to go--only one of his legs has any detail sculpted in at all right now! His ears are solid because I know I will break them while sculpting if I carve them out now (also why he doesn't have a forelock); his chest is quite rough... just a lot to do! I only work on him evenings and weekends, so it does take longer as well (workdays are spent painting).

Supernova...take three

Well... Supernova needed more than I had thought! His new head (shown in "Supernova...take two") was too large by about 1/4". That doesn't sound like a lot, but it made a huge difference. And once I had sculpted him a new head to the correct scale, I realized that his neck was much too thick and large. And once I fixed his neck, I realized that the rest of his body was also much too wide. So I removed a ton of Apoxie (resulting in an incredibly dusty studio!) and resculpted nearly the whole thing. Again.

I also had to move his right foreleg back, which finally sorted out a number of issues I had been having (back appeared too long but measured OK, chest was messed up, etc.) And I had to cut all his legs up and correct the lengths and angles. At least he's back in one piece now! His legs still need a ton of resculpting as the muscles and tendons aren't correct right now.

I gave him a new tail, this one is all flippy and fun! I will still need to fill in some areas as it will be extremely difficult to cast as it is now. He has a new mane that I want to add some more flippy-ness to as well.

As you can see I got blue apoxie this time around! I also got pinkish, but I like the blue better. These colors were on sale, so I figured I would give them a try. They seem pretty similar to the normal "natural" Apoxie, but maybe with slightly less of a tendency to "pull", which is definitely a good thing. I was trying to use the blue on his mane/tail/eyes (and eyelashes!) but I didn't remember to bring the natural with me on vacation, so if I want to work on him now he will have to lose his fancy color scheme!

Supernova does have a web page now, although it's rather bare. It is at http://maggiebennett.com/supernova.htm

Oh, one more thing--Happy Holidays!

Finishwork update

I've been doing a lot of painting recently and I thought I ought to share some of it with you! Bear with me if the formatting is a little odd here, Blogger seems to have changed since my last post!

This is a commissioned Zim to black tobiano who went off to Australia yesterday; this one took a lot longer than I had expected because every time I thought I was finished I would see something that looked a bit too "flat" or otherwise off. He has many, many layers of shading that unfortunately don't really show up well in photos.






This Zim, in silver dapple sabino, was immense fun to paint and I am enormously satisfied with him. He has a very deep, rich color which the light mane and tail and the sabino markings really set off. He has already made it home to his owner!

This palomino Cooper I painted as a sales piece (he is available now, $425 ppd, please email me at maggie@maggiebennett.com to purchase!). I have historically had difficulty with palominos when I was using pure pigments. I used a combination of airbrush, hand painting, and pigments on this guy and he turned out beautifully. He has layers of metallics through his coat that give him a gorgeous shimmering depth that changes as you move him. He also has very subtle dapples on his barrel.