11/19/09

"Little Joe"






Dear Mr. D:
I ordered little Joe from you several year ago. I thought you had retired, but I saw some ventriloquist friends and they said you were still working on figures. Little Joe's mouth gets stuck open sometimes and his eyebrow falls over his left eye (which also has a problem). He needs a little help.





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From Clinton (Mr. D): I have retired - but retired people need to do something...so I fix and build ventriloquist dummies. Ha. Send me Little Joe's head and I'll see what I can do to help him (and you).
Note: Photos above show Little Joe as he arrived (right) and when he left my shop (left).

3 comments:

  1. nice work!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Do not like either oil or acrylic base, oil too slow drying and acrylic too flat. I came up with shellac base white, mixed, tinted and toned with yellow ochre and raw unber and a touch of red for flesh color. I came up with this forty years ago, and put in the public domain on old Tribute site back in 2004. Drying time is less than 30 seconds if use product BIN you can still find at Lowe’s. The thing about using a shellac base is the solvent denatured alcohol, and so when you work back into a piece you don’t get a hole or uneven finish. As paint is removed it is put back on fresh at the same time in the process, without any intermediate step of paint removal. You are welcome to try the formula, which is dry to the touch or to even wash in a half minute, but you have to work fast else different tints and tones of the flesh color. Also, it is a skinlike finish, is not shiny, and does not crack.

    They say you can't teach an old dog new tricks but if you and Little Joe not interested I bet Kevin could put out a Slappy faster with faster drying time paint.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I misspelled raw umber.

    ReplyDelete