DREWspective

So the shapes have arrived, and we’ve hit a snag as we’ve found out the shapes that were ordered were too small for the existing head pieces.

It also turns out that most of the ordered pieces, which were bought from a shop in the US, could have been ordered over here in the UK! However, these shops had kept themselves very well hidden.
For future reference, a search for pin craft in your favourite search engine should take you to the right place to buy polystyrene shapes. In most cases, you’ll be able to get the parts you’re after.

Where are we up to now? I’ll show you:

I initially made a start on the first three models, painting the head separately from the bodies.

Everything went well, until I had trouble getting the right flesh tone for the white characters. I have a formula for creating a good flesh tone, but unfortunately I didn’t have the right colour paints. In the meantime, I stuck the heads to the bodies.

A trip yesterday to both the London Graphic Centre in Covent Garden, and Cass Art in Leicester Square, turned up six more tubes of acrylic paint and some white gesso primer. As the head shapes were low density (LD) polystyrene, I applied a couple of coats of primer to them, as well as the top part of the body.

You might or might not be able to see it, but there are five different skin colours in the photo: brown, white, olive, pale white and a kind of orange tan white.

Next question is: what is the next step?

I might have solved the problem of how to make the legs: along with the paints, I bought some 12mm balsa wood dowel, which might or might not work as is. I decided on balsa wood as nowhere seems to sell ordinary polystyrene rods, and a request to a company that makes custom polystyrene shapes turned out to be fruitless.

I still have next to no clue as to how to make the arms. Right now I’m toying with the idea of using art straws as a base, and it’s a matter of getting hold of some. Due to my job, I can’t get to any art and crafts store during the week whatsoever.

I’ve been in negotiations with a US company that sells various three-dimensional foam shapes.

Unfortunately their online shop is designed so that customers must reside in the US, so I sent an e-mail asking whether they’d ship to the UK. Luckily they did.

The communication process was painfully slow, and one of the items in their catalogue was no longer being made. A week later (yesterday), a payment went through on my card; I found out through a call from the card company, who gave me quite a scare.

So right now I’m waiting just on the shapes. I’ve finally received the paints, which came sometime last week.