Museum Antics

While in San Diego we stopped into the Natural History Museum at Balboa Park to poke around the gift store and to our surprise we stumbled upon a giant animatronic T-Rex! The museum was kind enough to supply tables, paper, and crayons to draw the T-Rex and I'm not one to pass up that kind of opportunity. Here's the finished drawing and an embarrassing picture of myself showing off my work in the gift shop.

Tyrant Lizard King

As promised, the finished costume:



This is the core of the costume. Just cardboard and masking tape.



I was kind of pressed for time so there were several different ways that I strategically cut corners. My original plan was to paint it realistically and awesome with scales and all, but as it got down to the wire I realized that would take way too long. It turned out looking pretty cool with just the masking tape so I left it at that and painted the eye and nose sockets, and added some green to the teeth. It kind of has an Invisible Man feel, or should I say Invisible T-Rex? (patent pending)



I spent most of the day building up the one side with newspaper and tape and as I was getting to the end I realized I wasn't going to have time to do it to both sides before the party started. Therefore I decided that the left side would stay flat and exhibit an x-ray view of the T-Rex's skull. You might call it a "T-ReX-ray" (patent pending).



And here's how it actually looks on my noggin. The thing was a little front and side heavy so I didn't end up wearing it the whole night, but hey, it was my first ever T-Rex mask! I'm always amazed by how impossible these things seem at first and how easy they turn out to be in the end. All it takes is a bit of time and patience. I think I may end up painting it after all, just as soon as I finish some more time sensitive projects. Happy July!

Anthropomorphizing

Wow, it's been a whirlwind two weeks! I've been so busy that I really haven't had a moment to post on this here blog. Well, I'm back now so let's get to the sketches.

It was my birthday last Thursday (woo!) so we had a costume theme party. The theme? Inspired by my various animal portraits, it was to dress up as an anthropomorphic animal or inanimate object! There was actually a great turnout for costumes, which I was a little surprised by. Several bears, an amoeba, a zebra, a cat, a pica, a squirrel, a house, aprairie dog, a rabbi(t), a moth, an an insect, and others that are escaping my mind at the moment. Here's a drawing I did while trying to figure out the logistics of my costume - a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Finished product pictures coming soon!