» Morezmore #23 Domovoi Caught in the Act of Shape-shifting Out of a Tea Cup***

Morezmore #23
Domovoi Caught in the Act of Shape-shifting Out of a Tea Cup
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Posted By Natasha Red October on September 21, 2009

11.29.2009 — Morezmore Evening Star — Breaking News — Scandal in House Fairies Community — Domovoi Caught in the Act — Public Shapeshifting Exposure — Cracker Theft Attempt Charges —Shocking Raw Footage From The Scene —

Full coverage follows…

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September 21, 2009
Well, first of all, about Domovoi:

In Russian folklore a domovoi is a household spirit, also called “the grandfather” and “the master”. Most often he looks like a tiny man, but he is a shapeshifter and can appear as a cat, a dog, a rat or a rabbit and transform out of and into inanimate household objects.

There is a domovoi in each house, and he watch not only the house itself but all the inhabitants as well. This spirit is a big trickster and mischief-maker: he tickles sleeping people, braids girls and women hair, squalls, knocks on the wall, throws pans and plates. He wanders around the house at night, and gets upset with dirty dishes left overnight.

A domovoi is fond of those people who live in the full consent, and take good care of their property. But he does not like lazy-bones and trollops and tries to hurt and harm them in every way. To secure himself from tricks and anger of a domovoi, the family might consider leaving little treats in the kitchen. Needless to say, Domovoi will help himself to cookies and fruit sitting on the counter when he comes out at night.

Russian domovoi belongs to a world wide nation – the nation of home spirits of all countries. Every country has its own name for them, here are a few names: Hob, House Elf, House Fairy, Brownie, Дамавiк, Stopan, Domaći, Dědek, Domowoj, Domowik, Домовой, Домаћи, Домовоj, Brounie, Urisk, Tomte, Heinzelmännchen, Jack o’ the bowl, Tonttu, Haltija, Wirry-cow, Kobold – the list goes on.

I would love to match the names to the country and I think you can help me with this. WHAT IS DOMOVOI’S NAME IN YOUR COUNTRY? Perhaps, we can name them all – write the name for your country’s Domovoi and mention your country as well in the comments below. Thank you

Heinzelmännchen (Germany) – thank you, Tascha Kaboutertjes

(Netherlands) – thank you, Es

Duende (Spain) – thank you, Raina

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I am thinking making Domovoi to look like he is caught in the act of appearing on a saucer with cookies. As Domovoi is a shape-shifter, he can transform himself in and out of unanimate objects, in this case – out of a teacup, sitting on a saucer with cookies next to it. As the process of shape-shifting is a highly private matter with Domovois, my Domovoi will be appearing to be utterly startled and embarrassed by being caught in the act of transfiguration, not the mention the act of stealing cookies. That sounded like a fun idea and I found an old blue and white teacup with a saucer. Here is the teacup, you will see the saucer later.

First I need to make an artmature (Domovoi’s skeleton) out of wire. The wire is 17 gauge galvanized steel wire. I need to start somewhere, so I start with the legs.

Next – I need to attach the armature to the cup somehow. The cup rounded-shaped, smooth and sleek. The wire does not want to stay on the cup. After a few attempts, I managed to wrap the wire around the cup and hook it to the edge of the cup so it stays there.

Then, with thin wire I managed to make a type of basket weave, tightening all around the cup and also attached legs – again, with thin wire. Here you go:

The wire hugs the cup securely. Now to make the whole construction even stronger, I cover it with Magic Sculpt and leave it to cure overnight.

Now, first go at sculpting Domovoi:

More sculpting and changing and also I bake what I have:

At first I was going to sculpt the hands right on the sculpt, but decided to make my life easier and made hand modules – the modules are brass tubes which fit on the armature wire. I can sculpt hands separately and bake them separately – without the sculpt itself, and then just assemble the parts together. More sculpting and baking and here is what I have now:

To be continued – Thank you for watching!

November 21, 2009

Back to Domovoi – finally!

Next step is to secure the arms modules so that they do not rotate. Magic Smooth will do this job nicely. Magic smooth, if you have not heard about it, is a gel-like epoxy. Here you go: Domovoi and Magic Smooth already mixed together. A little goes a very very long way.

Here is the arm module set with Magic smooth which can be smoothed with a wet finger:

Magic smooth cures overnight at room temperature, or within about 10 minutes on 270 F in the oven

Magic Smooth is also great for small household repairs. As it happens, I have this melamine kitchen tray which fell down and cracked. I have a number of those trays which I use all the time. Magic smooth will take care of this crack and make the tray usable again. The repair will be even dishwasher safe, unlike other glues.

After Domovoi cools down, I put the clay over the connections and bake one more time. I forgot to take the picture, but there is nothing special about that procedure.

Next thing – painting. I am using Genesis Paints and it goes like this:
- lightly cover the face, neck, hands, feet and tail with Prosculpt smoothing oil (almost dry brush)
- paint with Genesis Burnt Umber – trying to get into all the wrinkles, nooks and crannies (almost dry brush)
- highlight eye lids, ears, tip of the nose, nostrils, cheeks, palms of the hands and soles of the feet with pink tone (Genesis Red, almost dry brush).

- heat-set the paints and let it cool down
- paint all over with Genesis Matte medium and heat set the medium. Genesis Matte Medium will take away that plasticky shine. Here he is – painted and heat-set.

Next – hair. I will : fabritac glue, acetone (pure – to thin fabritac), scraps of tibetan lamb fur, toothpicks, sharp scissors.

There is a detailed description of how to put hair on Fortuna page http://morezmore.com/myblog/2008/03/31/fortuna-3/

the general principle is about the same.

Here he is, with hair. There is some hair, hard to see, on his forearms, chest, calves and tail. The hair on this head is attached with Fabritac Glue and the rest of the hair (fine-shred) is sprinkled over the Genesis Matte Medium. I was hoping that medium can hold the fine small shreds of hair – it does! rather well – once heat-set, it holds a little bit of hair – almost like flocking, enough to give an impression of hairy chest and forearms and tail.

Next step is dressing Domovoi, but meanwhile, here is what I have:

November 22, 2009

All right, it is high time to dress Domovoi. He will be dressed in a dressing gown – a robe. It is late evening, Domovoi is relaxing after the long day and he is comfortable in his soft cozy robe and slippers. He is appearing in the kitchen – shapeshifting out of the cup – just for a second to grab a quick snack.

So, the robe. It is made out of stretch velour – great fabric for OOAK, by the way, as it rather thin, stretchable, take fabritac very well and drapes nicely – in other words, very easy to work with and, in my opinion, it looks great.

There is no sewing of any kind – all is done with Fabritac glue. The pictures below are rather self-explanatory. It might be helpful to use paper napkins to get the parts templates right, if you are not sure how much to cut. Or just go for it, like I do. Here you go:

After it is all put together, I thought that I will use a decorative silk cord – to make the parts of the robe more pronounced, break monotony of solid color and coordinate the robe with the belt, made out of the same cord, with golden beads at the end. I think it turned out very elegant and manly.

Next – slippers (I am thinking leather slippers) and candle – and, of course, the SNACK – the main reason for this incident.

November 23, 2009

Good morning! I am making slippers. Here how to go about it:
1. Trace the foot on a piece of paper:

2. Cut out the paper template. Out line the template on thick piece of leather – for the slippers soles.

3. Use the same template on thin leather – the top of the soles. Then cut the top part of the slippers – you sort of have to keep trying it on the foot to figure out the shape of the top.

3. Glue with Fabritac the bottom and the top of the soles, trim the outline with sharp scissors.

4. Glue the tops of the slippers directly on the foot, stretching the leather so that it hugs the foot. Then glue the soles on.

5. Hide the glue and all the ugly connections by gluing the cord all around the soles and on tops, it gives the slippers nice finished look. Here you go:

I also finished the candlestick. It is made out of a miniature chess figure – the bottom part of a pawn, and a round jewelry finding attached with Magic Smooth. There is an opening to stick a candle in. The candle is real – one of those birthday cake candles you can find in a grocery store.

And here is what I have – almost done!

November 24, 2009

Domovoi is done. The last thing I wanted to do - the cracker. The cracker is real, and it is laminated with Liquid Fimo Gel.

Here are the 360 degrees pictures – thank you for watching this Work In Progress and talk to you later!

11.29.2009 — Morezmore Evening Star — Breaking News — Scandal in House Fairies Community — Domovoi Caught in the Act — Public Shapeshifting Exposure — Cracker Theft Attempt Charges —Shocking Raw Footage From The Scene —

November 29, 2009.

Morezmore Evening Star reports that Domovoi, a member of the highly secretive worldwide House Fairies nation, purportedly residing at the Morezmore Estate, Virginia, USA, was caught on film shapeshifting out of a teacup late last night – traditionally, a very private and closely-guarded act among house fairies.

The details are still unclear, but it appears to be that the incident occurred during his attempt to illegally obtain a cracker left unattended after the tea party. Domovoi escaped unharmed back into the teacup and the cracker was transferred to safety.

Concerns are expressed that there might be a possible cracker shortage in the House Fairies community and the International Crackers for House Fairies Relief Fund is being established to help in this matter. Meanwhile, crackers and cookies are to be left on the kitchen counter at the Morezmore Estate every night.

November 29, 2009

Domovoi is on auction – US$0.99 to start, no reserve. Please wish him luck!

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December 1, 2009

Domovoi is number 5 on the Ebay Pulse – Ten Most Watched List – in OOAK category. Thank you for putting him on your watch list!

http://pulse.ebay.com/Artist-Offerings-OOAK-Reborn_W0QQsacatZ2404

Supersized pictures can be found here:
http://www.morezmore.com/Domovoi

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