Toolie Bird Landscape

Sometime back I started work on a diorama for the Toolie Bird cereal toys from 1969/1970. My Camel Train diorama turned out well, and it has been a fun side project to figure out where I’m going with the Toolie birds. They are mostly painted (I’ve not photographed the paint treatments… I’ll wait until the final reveal of the finished piece.)

I’d thought to create the entire landscape in Blender and print it out with a 3D printer, but with my recent papier-mâché mask-making class I thought the landscape might be more fun using a more tangible process. And why do it if the process isn’t interesting? I’ll still do all the pipe trees in Blender and print them, as I can get more of the details that I want that way.

The entire piece has grown. It is still approx 18″ x 18″, but now it will be 8″ deep. I was going to try and go 4″ and go bas-relief, but it just wasn’t working. I wanted more depth to dive into the landscape details.

I apply paper clay next. I used the powder-mixed stuff to bulk out general areas, but the texture is quite lumpy and difficult to carve detail. In theory, I’ll be able to get quite a bit of detail in with the ready mixed paper clay. Will see how it goes. Will do small sections at a time.

Meanwhile, I’ll finish the pipe trees in Blender and get them ready to print with a 3D printer. I’m brand new to 3D printing (I now have a resin printer), so it is a trifle intimidating… but I’ll figure it out! That is sometimes what life is about. You figure out each step and move forward. In theory, eventually, you will arrive somewhere you’ve not been before. 🙂