Wow.  My last post was December 2nd.  Two months ago.  Well, I had decided I wasn't going to post again until the hair was done.  It took about twice as long as I expected it to (surprise surprise), but to be fair, that two months included my birthday, Christmas, New Years, my gf's birthday and our anniversary.  Two months is still two months though.  But... I've finally finished the hair, which means the sculpting phase of this project is finally finished!

Not really sure what to say about the hair.  It's long and wavy, so I got to bend a lot of really fun curves.  Like every other aspect of this sculpture, it was incredibly challenging.  I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted to do going into it.  Some things worked and others didn't.  I did things, cut them off and redid them.  I burnt through a bunch of wires and deserved to have my mouth washed out with soap every time.

Since I didn't give her a scalp, all her hair comes directly off her hairline.  I started at the back of the neck and started working my way up to her ears.  I didn't try to make each wire represent a single hair.  Instead, I used a few wires at a time to swirl around themselves, creating thick curls flowing down her back.  I let a pretty twist of hair drip down from her temples in front of each ear.  The rest of the hair in front swoops over/around her head, except for a few strands on her right side that spill over her shoulder and down onto her breast.  That turned out to be a really nice touch.  The hair does a beautiful job of shaping her head.   Grinding got to be tricky towards the end, but I managed to get my dremel in each time.  It was fun watching the open areas fill in, every wire bringing me one step closer to being done.  It was especially exciting, if not a little jarring, when I reached the point where I could tell exactly how many wires I had left to attach.  It's been almost sixteen months since I started this, and it feels great being this close to finished.

Once the hair was done, I noticed that two welds had broken in the face.  I assume it was from all the vibration while I was grinding down the welds in her hair.  I freaked out when I saw it because now that the whole head is closed in, I thought there'd be no way for me to get in to weld and grind inside the face.  Fortunately, I was able to fit the welder into an opening in the cheek and and the dremel through her eyelid, and fix up both welds pretty cleanly. 

I went over the whole piece and found some spots that needed a little more grinding to smooth them out, and when I was done, I used an air compressor to blow off the metal dust that's been collecting in all the crevices over the last sixteen months.  Next I sprayed it with vinegar and cleaned off a thin layer of rust that had started to form in some areas.  

I also added small rubber feet under the base.  It was sitting flush with the floor and I was worried that once I added the copper and patina to the base it might chip off when I moved it around or tried to tip it to pick it up.  It's now hovering about a half inch over the floor, and not only will it be safer now, it also looks really cool like that.

So patinas are next.  I'm going to do the hair first.  I'll report back shortly.

Been listening to a lot of new music these last few months.  Went to a couple great shows and made a mix tape for my girl.  This song kept coming back to me though.  This is the first single from Foals' upcoming cd, Holy Fire.  So good.  I've been cranking this one pretty loud.