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WOW. Just WOW.

You have won the internet!

Perfect from start to finish! That is indeed a beautiful and glorious butterfly.

Brilliant execution - it looks like it's just come off the page.

Very glad to have randomly stumbled across this thread. Just went through it from start to finish and loved every second of it. Such great things in here!

Simply gorgeous!

Thanks everyone. I feel I can hardly take credit though when Eric Carle's Very Hungry Caterpillar is such a universally beloved children's classic. All the design work was done for me and I just followed the plan.

That said I'm well chuffed it's come off so well. The size was a surprise and the wire mount gives it a pleasant bounce on the table top. The base is maybe a bit overwrought though. Too much clutter and not really suited to the style of the butterfly. I feel like a grassy hill would've served just as well if not better. Anyway, thanks for all the support and comments.

Hopefully I'll get back to painting the spooks now and thinking about what to sculpt next.

Sorry I am late to the party.

Very lovely butterfly there Crowe.

Cheers,

CB

As a great bug once said, "I'm finished! Finally I'm a beautiful butterfly!"
A beautiful butterfly indeed!

Thanks all. Glad to be bringing some brightness into the grimdark.

Now as promised...

A peak inside the cocoon.
No pupating insects were harmed during the making of this documentary.

The build began the same way as the rest with a paper clip wire inside some pink clay squashed into the shape of the butterfly's body. I lined up the body I had made against the picture in our big cardboard book and was suddenly aware of the size it was going to end up.

I put the book into the scanner and printed off some copies of the wings. I glued them to some thick card and cut them out. Assembly would require some stiff wire so i stripped some out of an old electrical cable I had and cut it to size. I didn't want the copper to react with the glue so i left the insulation on. I ground out a nice bendy track on each wing for it to sit in. And also added a couple of magnets on each side.

I fed the wires through the centre of the body and glued it all into place with epoxy and left it to set. Once that was dry I printed a reverse image of both wings, mounted them on some card and glued them on top.

The next issue was how to make him fly. While disassembling our old washing machine (to use the barrel for a garden fire barrel, it's really great!) I found a nice firm springy wire holding the rubber seal in place. I cut tree lengths and fed them up inside the rear of the body and glued them into the back of an old square base.

I glued that in place on an oval of hardboard with more epoxy and clamped down to set. Then it was time to think about the smaller details.


The legs were made with some garden wire and I used some more washing machine wire for the antennae with a couple of polystyrene balls on top.

I threw a lot of crud on the base including some walls I'd made, a big stone and some flock. I masked off the wings and some of the base features to hit the whole lot with a grey rattle can. Had to remember to mask those polystyrene balls!

Then it was time to throw a lot of static grass around the base. Some paint, some more bits of lichen and moss etc. All that good organic stuff.


The butterfly itself took a coat or two of yellow acrylic. I used proper artists tube acrylics to try and keep the crafty theme going.

No need for highlights and shading here. The edges of the wings did look pretty messy though. So I went all around the edge with a thick line of yellow acrylic right out of the tube.

Now the big guy's wings were all trim and ready for action. In this photo you can also see the page fold line in the original scan of the book. Love it!

And best of all, because there are magnets in there...

Hedgee's Heroes can ride into battle! Oh yeah!

This is literally the best thing I've ever read (and I've read some great stuff on here) - this whole thread makes me so happy!

Thanks Skin. Glad you're getting so much out of it.

Alright, now for something (not)completely different.
It's back to the traditional wire-frame on a single base sculpting.



Abracadabra diggity Noops. It's the Evil Wizard. (AKA the Monster's Witchy Friend)
Our first actually human character so I'm a bit nervous how this'll go. Wish me luck.

Good luck! I'm sure you'll do well.

Oh. My. Eyes! The best chaos dragon-butter-fly the world has ever seen.

Good luck and plenty of it!

Good luck Crowe.

Cheers,

CB

I'll set the evil wizard aside for a bit. Put some filler stuff on him, (the same stuff I've been building spooks on) which I hope will be good when it sets, otherwise I'll just pull it off and do the old PVA and paper trick.

In the meantime, I've finally got around to painting these guys.

Left to right its a Secret Service Security Spook, the Dread-Pirate Spook Captain, a Spooked Spook and a Water Spook. Nice to have this little collection done.

But what's Hedgee got here?

More spooks maybe? We'll have to wait and see what he gets up to.

Great new spooks - I thought Secret Service would be my favourite, but Spooked Spook takes it now they're finished.

Nice to see some of the spooks getting some individual appreciation. There's a favourite spook for everyone and probbably a favourite doggie henchman or Hedgee's Hero too.

Now as you might have gathered Hedgee is a pretty big deal in our house despite being only a few inches tall. But as with all beloved teddies it's a bit of a problem when Hedgee gets lost, which due to his miniature size has happened a good few times. This has meant that there have been a couple of replacement Hedgees over the years. (Gasp!) But funnily enough he's always been found (eventually) and all the replacements have just become much beloved cousins, Nedgee, Sledgee and Wedgee.



So as you can see we felt that seeing as Hedgee has his own Hedgeehammer (TM) miniature it's only fair that the rest of the Hedgee crew should have one too. So here are the wire frame beginnings of Naval Officer Nedgee (he might be a pirate) , Sledgee the Sledgehammer (he's a Hedgeeweight boxer) and Wedgee the Wise (he's a good wizard and super smart).

Sorry to spam you all with yet more wireframes. It's been a productive day.

Happy to see the family grow...

My creative director has advised me that I've mixed up Sledgee and Nedgee. He's quite adamant that I redo this picture with the right wire frame in front of the right hedgehog.

Quite right too - don't want to be spreading fake news

such familiar arguments! I love that hedgee is getting his cousins involved. I look forward to seeing the wire frames in the correct order!

Progress from today.

I almost forgot to take a pic of this guy at the filler material stage. Turns out this stuff isn't so good as the old PVA and tissue paper trick but I stuck with it.

So here's the wizard after a first round of green.
I've been thinking about his clothes a lot. It's by no means decided what he should be wearing. Boots maybe, a big sleevey shirt? A bow tie? I've no idea.

In other progress...

Paper filler stage is complete on all three hedgehogs. (Correctly identified and arranged this time!)

Hedgee also has an update on his side project and it's not Spooks!

It's Nop and Dop the stars of the boys latest book "Square Cops"

More of that stupid rubbery plastic foam/clay stuff on the go again. I'm going to hit it with a heavy layer of grey primer once it finally stiffens up. I mean, Hedgee is gonna do that, of course. Hopefully that'll solve the greenstuff plus wet tool issues when it comes to face sculpting time.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And today has also seen some detail in green appearing on the (too cute to be)Evil Wizard.



I'm going to tackle his actual face and head next I think. Then it's arms and hands and shirt etc etc.

Very nice work, this is excellent sculpting practice, and very good sculpting it is.

So many hedgehogs! one of my nephews had a similar experience with his beloved stuffed rabbit, except he didn't know that there was more than one. Until the day he walked into the laundry room and saw one hanging up to dry while he had the other in his hands. Came out with his eyes huge, just saying "TWO BUNNIES" in the most stunned voice possible.

Ahem, anyhow. Wizard is looking good! I love his hat

Thanks OldMate, Thanks amazingturtles.


So now we have some facial features and I've got to say with the pointy hat and the beard he's beginning to look more gnomly than wizardly. But not to worry. He'd be a pretty big gnome. And he'll have a suitably wizardly looking paint job.


Here's the back view. Nice proper starry wizard cape too.

Yeah, far too starry to be mistaken for a gnome! Some nice work on the trousers there.

OH MY!

This is without a doubt the greatest thing I have ever seen on the internet!

In one thread you have managed to encapsulate everything that is great about our hobby, parenthood and frankly life in general!

Its easy to get mixed up with negativity and general cynicism in this day and age, but here you are proving that being a good person and thinking about others first can lead to great things!

I'm sure you`re son will go on to do great things in life with someone like you as a role-model!

I don't post much but this thread just makes me so happy!

This thread shows skill, technical ability and caring

I salute you Sir!

PS. Do you think we could get an "adventures of hedgees heroes" series of battle report type things thread? Would really love to hear how all your hard work worked out in the end.

Square cops and the Wiz are looking great! Maybe a rim on his hat would make him look more wizard than gnome? That might be hard, so maybe his power have gone to his head and grown it? Looks awesome... kinda hoping he gets blue clothes, red hat and a white beard too... sorry!

That wiz is evil enough.. Making him more evil would require turning the star on his wand upside down - or painting anarchy symbol on it.

Very good greenstuffing here! Great progress, please keep up and keep us informed and in the news! Cheers!