Owl pellet discovery

     I had an exciting discovery in the woods the other day which won't sound exciting at all to most of

Great Snowy Owl

you I would imagine.  I found, what in ornithology is called, an owl pellet.  Essentially a pellet is what an owl pukes up on occasion.   It is made up of indigestible matter like bones, teeth,exoskeletons of insects, fur and feathers.  The one I found was all dry and obscured on the ground but I am pretty good at finding hidden things.  Now why on earth would I be excited to find something such as this?  Well perhaps I shouldn't be as excited as I am, but I have a very good reason which you will discover at the end.  You see I found something remarkable inside.  Let me explain, so what

Pellet soaking in water

you do with one of these pellets is to suspend it in water and allow it to fall apart.  Then you can sift through the remains and discover what the owl was having for his meal by looking at the bones.  You can play anthropologist.  So where I live there are several kinds of owls such as the Great Snowy Owl, the great horned owl, the barred owl and great grey owl.  I don't know which type of owl the pellet came from, but you could probably figure that out by the contents too.  What I want to determine is what do the wee bones came from.  So I put the pellet in warm water and let it sit for five minutes to loosen up a bit.  Then I gently stirred, poked and prodded it with that sculpting tool until it came apart.  With tweezers I picked up the little bits and put them out to dry while separating the

various parts into groups.  

     What became abundantly clear to me after just a short time analyzing the bones was that this was not simply a squirrel or pigeon the owl had caught and eaten.  I had discovered something far more remarkable, in fact, it could change how we see the world.  So I must admit that I am not a "professional" anthropologist or Boney McBonester as I prefer to term them, and it is true that this was the first pellet I have ever found and dissected.  I may not be "qualified" to say for certain what these bones are from, but

Faerie bones

there is something I have to say.  

      I don't want to toot my own horn but I have found something on my first attempt that Boney McBonesters have never discovered in centuries.  

I am fairly certain these bones come from a Faerie.

     My best guess is the faerie was flying about looking to chat with a gnome or something.  Maybe was on an errand from Gandalf but that is something I can't know for sure.  Ok well I am pretty sure she was on a mission from Gandalf.  So lets just say she was on a mission from Gandalf of great importance and was not watching up in the sky as vigilantly as perhaps she should have been.  I expect she was singing a song and the lovely notes caught the attention of the owl and it came down and ate her.

Likely source of the bones

Delicious faerie dust marinade.

     Anyway, so I really think this is my calling.  As I said I have never actually done this before and on my very first try I have discovered indisputable evidence of the existence of faeries.  I think that is pretty good for a first try.  It encourages me to test out my theory that Unicorns were originally put on Noah's ark, but they fell off the deck, due to over crowding,  and turned into Narwhals.

Bronze casting wax model stage

In my last post I mentioned that 30 bronze sculptures of the Dancer from my work "Hand" will be for

Stage three wax mould

sale.  They are 4 inches tall and will be ready in about three weeks so I am pre selling them to Second Life people first before I go to rl.  Currently 12 of the 30 are sold.  Those still available are listed below...

The Dancer 

1st =  $400 US dollars + shipping (sold)
2nd= $375 (sold)
3rd= $350
4th= $325
5th= $300

6-10 =  $275 (sold) (sold) (sold)
11-15= $250 (sold)
16-20= $225
21-25= $200 (sold) (sold) (sold)
26-29= $150 (sold) (sold) (sold) (sold)


I have some new pictures of stage three in the process to make the final bronze work.  In this .  This one shows two supports that keep the wax in place as it cools off (they will be removed). 

stage three wax model.

stage each piece individually is made into a wax model.  The process continues from here with the prepared wax shell completely covered in layers of heat-resistant plaster which then will be placed in an oven. While heating in the oven the plaster dries and the wax melts and runs out. The plaster mold is then packed in sand, and molten bronze is poured through some holes, filling the space left by the wax.

Yay exciting!  So everything is on schedule and the next stage will begin!

If you are interested in purchasing one of the editions then please send me an email to brynohhh@gmail.com  I will be accepting payment through paypal and wont accept any payment until they are all finished and I am happy with them.  Then at that point I will contact everyone by email for shipping details and payment.

Bronze casting of the Dancer

Zbrush not actual sculpture

     In my last post on Hand I mentioned that I had some exciting news to talk about.  So sometimes I will cross over my artwork which I create for the the virtual space here in Second Life, with something in "real life".  In the past it has been things like Museum exhibits at the Menage museum in Moscow, the Jewish museum in Berlin, with oil paintings of my avatar or characters and so on.  I have kind of taken a fairly big jump into the expensive realm of Bronze sculpture.  I have a million projects in my mind that I really do mean to get around to eventually.  One was to create sculptures of my characters in Second Life, and a while ago I did create some sculptures of the daughter of gears in

Zbrush representation of the bronze

metal and then also another in hydrocal.  The hydrocal feels to light in your hand and the metal one was attached to a backing.  What I wanted was a nice small bronze sculpture that was nice and heavy in my hand.  I don't know I just like to hold heavy little things.  It is a peculiarity of mine.  Anyway my friend Toy really pushed me to get this done and within a month I will have 30 bronze sculptures of my model the Dancer.  These will be for sale first to Second life residents with the remainder going to a real world gallery to be sold.   Once they go to the gallery they will triple in price so if owning one of these interests then don't wait too long to tell me.  I will put my email at the end of this post and they can be reserved.  Each of the sculptures will have an edition number and my

initial 3d printing

signature under the base.  So the first one poured from the mold will have a 1 and the final casting will have a 30 engraved.  I will be doing posts through each stage of the creation process with pictures.  Right now I have just been sent the 3D printing of the model for testing purposes.  The images above are done in Zbrush of the dancer and I have created a patina where the skirt is a bit greyish blue.  This patina will be matched fairly closely on the final bronze.  So what you see in the zbrush 3D model is very close to what the final will look like (and I will naturally show the final in pictures when I get them).   To the right here is the 3D printing and I am really pleased with how it came out.  It actually looks pretty nice just white like that.  Ok so here are the details.  The sculpture will be 4 inches tall and probably weigh about 2lbs.  It will fit right in my hand and be heavy! rrrrrahaha I can't wait.  I will carry it all over the place.... possibly talking to it but I probably shouldn't admit to  that.  These will be the prices per edition and you would tell me which edition you would like to purchase.

initial 3d printing

The Dancer 

1st =  $400 US dollars + shipping
2nd= $375
3rd= $350
4th= $325
5th= $300

6-10 =  $275
11-15= $250
16-20= $225
21-25= $200
26-29= $150

If you would like to pre purchase one of the 30 bronze sculptures then send me an email to reserve the edition.  My email is....
brynohhh@gmail.com

The Dancer from "Hand"

If there is interest by people in owning a physical sculpture of my work then I am thinking I will
make more for other characters.  The Rabbicorn, Mr Zippers, The Daughter of Gears and so on.  Anyway I am really excited and will share more posts soon as I get more images.. it is done through the lost wax casting process so the next images will be of the wax moulds.