Giant Purple Bug Worm Thing

So here's my 3D model thing. It is meant to be an enlargement (the actual thing being microscopic) of the Happy Bug Larva. My sketches were blue but I liked the purples better when I was looking around in the fabric store so I changed that. When I had sewn the whole thing up it looked like purple sausage links so it was back out to the store to get fabric paints to try to spice it up a little--now it's sort of cute.....oh well. I'm not sure bug larvae should be cute, but as it's meant to be a man-made bug maybe its designers also had art degrees or a weird sense of humor, or something like that. The whole thing took a lot longer than it should have--my sewing machine had a fit and had to be taken apart (I don't think it liked the last move very much) and then it had been a few years since I last sewed anything and I kept forgetting the simple stuff like which dials to adjust and the likes. Then stuffing a narrow tube in segments turned out to be extremely slow going if I didn't want to tear my seams. I did the body shaping by hand sewing/gathering with a fat needle and embroidery thread. I got the lights in ok, and sewed a battery pouch without too much trouble, and I managed not to get the electrical workings wet when I painted. There were originally meant to be model eggs and a fly too--a sort of life-cycle display, but I got sick and that slowed everything down this past week. I did make the eggs and the fly (and some red blood cells to for good measure) out of fimo clay but I fell asleep after I put them in the oven (my evil cold has been sapping my energy all week and I've just wanted to nap-- I never nap--it's weird). They turned black and the house smelled very bad. I got mad and threw them out--I should have taken pictures. But nothing caught fire so that's good, and I decided I'm not allowed to use the oven while under the influence of cold medication anymore......and that is the story of my purple bug larva, which looks pink in these pictures, alas, and is not quite as grand a project as I had hoped . I do like the silly thing though--it'll make a cute toy later.

--The Wombat

Ha!

I recently discovered that my computer has a paint program on it (part of Appleworks, which I've only used for word processing before). It's an Apple program and although it has a different name it works just like the old Paint program on the Mac Classic that my family had when I was 12. I used to love that program--I'd spend hours playing with it and I was actually pretty good at drawing with a mouse. I'm completely out of practice now, and my laptop has no mouse so I drew the ideas here with my trackpad--not easy! It looks like I did it with my right hand if it had been drawn on paper (I'm a southpaw). But it was a trip down memory lane and kind of fun so I'll put it up anyway.....

I want to build the larvae moderately large. I was thinking that paper mache might be the best medium--I could link a succession on little water balloons for the bubbly body and put my paper and goo over them. I've not done paper mache in even longer than I've tried to draw anything on a computer, but I mostly recall what to do. I think. Then I'm thinking I'll put the LED light thingy into it on the body just behind the head, mostly because I made the damn thing so I may as well do something with it. I also want to make a smaller model of the fly--probably out of Fimo clay. I'll put together a couple of eggs as well, and I'll have to play around with materials to get a transparent "membrane". Then I'll want to put the three bits together for a "life cycle of" sort of display. But I don't want it to look like a third grade diorama....I'll have to fuss with it a bit.

--The Wombat

Brain Parasites!

I found this quick video clip earlier this morning--I want my insect to look mostly like this, but it need to have a bit more of a recognizable head. And since it's at least part man-made maybe it will be a more interesting color....

VIDEO!

--The Wombat

LEDs and Solder

Right--so here's last week's project, uploaded a tad late as I feel as though I've been living in my car or at work for the last five days. Blah.

But here it is--note my lovely soldering ; ) I have a feeling the lumps weren't meant to be quite so big. But hey--it works. It's like sewing. I can make clothes, just don't turn them inside-out and look at the seems and everything's fine....

More later.

--The Wombat