Done with the first arm up to the elbow!

I've been working on the first arm, her right.  It was a little tricky getting started.  There's been this flow moving up through her body, all going in one direction... up.  But with the arm, there's a sudden almost 90 degree change in that direction.  There are a lot of new shapes converging here too: muscles, shoulders, shoulder blades and underarms.

This is also the first time in the seven months I've been working on her that I don't have the four thicker wires laying the ground work, setting the parameters for how everything else is going to be filled in.  It's all the thinner wire now.  It took me a couple days to find the first line, a fairly bold one at that, squiggling its way down the underside of the arm, but once I found it, the other lines began to fall into place.

With every wire I add, it gets harder and harder to get the Dremel in to grind the welds inside the underarm and shoulder blade.  With the finished shoulders closing in the torso, I can only get in through the arm and neck holes.  It's going to get even trickier when this arm is finished and I move on to the other arm, as I'll only be able to get in through the neck hole.  It'll ease up a little once I get past the underarm/shoulder blade though.  Then I'll be able to come in from the unfinished end of the arm.  I'll just have to grind each weld as soon as I do them.  Up until the shoulders, I was able to pop in multiple welds, as many as eight, before I had to go back and grind them down, but it's starting to get tight in there now. 

It looks really pretty so far.  I've finished the shoulder blade and the underside of the arm all the way down to the elbow.  Since this first arm doesn't get too close to the head, I think I'm going to go ahead and finish it out to the fingers.  The second arm bends back towards the face, so I'll probably finish that one to the elbow, then move on to the head before I finish the forearm and hand last.
 

The hands will be a challenge, but I'm looking forward to it.  Her lazily splayed fingers will hopefully add a layer of delicacy to the piece that's been hinted at so far, but hasn't fully emerged. 

Getting sexy...

Still at it.  I finished off the last two of the thicker wires last week.  They run up along the front of the arm pits, outline the shoulder muscles and end back at the shoulder blades.  They're only the outlines of the shoulder muscles, but they already hint at the direction of her arms.  She's in a really interesting place right now, so I decided to move her over to an empty wall so I could get a few clean photos of her at this stage.  At this point, all that's left are the arms and the head.  It's really scary and exciting.

I've been working on the shoulders this week.  One is done, the other is almost done.  Once I've finished both of them, I'm going to fill out the shoulder blades, start on the arm pits and work my way out to the elbows.  Since one arms bends back so the hand is near her face and the other stretches up over her head, I'm going to pause at the elbows and move on to the head so the arms don't get in the way while I'm working on her head.  I had considered just facing the music and starting on her head once the shoulders were done, but I realized the open space between her shoulders will be my only way to get in and grind down the welds inside her arm pits.  Still not 100% sure how I'll get in to grind down the welds on her neck, but it may involve leaving the back of her head open and building the hair up off her hairline rather than giving her a scalp and attaching the hair to that.  It will probably look cleaner that way as well.  We'll see.

So I've been obsessed with another song lately.  I first heard it as the soundtrack to a claymation video, which, in itself is one of the more beautiful things I've seen on the web, but I've fallen madly in love with the song as well.  The song is "It's Raining Today," by Scott Walker.  Here's the claymation video with the song.  Watch it full screen.  You won't regret it.  Kick back and enjoy.