There's a Giant Robot in My Yard

Stage 1

Stage 2

The robot Halloween decoration was a success. In spite of being destroyed by two rain storms. I kept at it and finished it with just a day to spare. This was not going to happen if  it wasn't for my daughter who said:  "Daddy, why don't you just build it in the shed." I said because it wouldn't fit–lo and behold, with just a little bit of sawing of the neck, It fit perfectly and I was able to work without worrying about the rain destroying it again. Sure enough it did rain a lot.  This is the reason I did not want to work with paper s maché. If I did that, you need at least 3 sunny days to generate enough heat to dry that stuff. The cardboard boxes were easy to work with and thanks to a staple gun, I was able to keep things in place pretty well. For some stuff, I used duct tape but sparingly. I knew once it rained, that would  be the first thing to fall off. I got a window of sunshine at one point and it was the perfect time to paint the thing. It took two cans of silver to cover it. I'm sure my lungs will collapse from all of the poisons fumes I inhaled.

 I moved it to the front yard and wired it down to keep it from killing someone if it fell. The final size for the robot was around 9 feet tall. I designed it specially to not interrupt the power lines in the front. I added two  'spider bots' One on the garage and the other a destroyed version with lights wires and strobe lights. The neighbors loved it and many cars slowed down and apparently people posed with it. It's nice to make your neighborhood special for at least one day. It's hard to compete for interesting things when you live next to Berkeley and San Francisco.As expected, lots of people showed up but not until later because of –you guessed it, more rain. i was so glad because I bought a LOT of candy.

Final Stage

 I'm already thinking of next year. Giant Spider Bot? Witches around a cauldron? Who knows, I'm sure it will come to me next August.


That's all,
A

Gundam Style

It's that time of year again where I design an eye-catching Halloween decoration. This year, it was between a robot battle, witches or zombies. Since everyone is doing zombies, I decided to go with robots. Not just any robots but I want to put a really large Japanese anime style robot on the lawn because I figure, no one would do that one. I could do one that was old school like those clunky monster kind: but it would just take too many curves and it would have to be metallic which would take lots of toxic spray paint.  I want this thing to be as recyclable as possible so that I can get rid of it after Halloween without worrying that a peace of art I made is now killing baby seals or something.


 Me,  serving as Mr. Scale for stage one.

I like this style as the ones used in the anime,  Total Eclipse

So, going with the more squared off modern version, I want to make something that looks deadly and could actually fly if need be. Perhaps not as bonky as a Gundam style robot: Maybe a Macross style or  a Gundam/Macross hybrid. So far, I've created the armature. It was surprisingly cheap to build (around $12). As for the skin, I'm going with pure cardboard boxes cut up and rearranged. I usually work with paper mache so this is a new medium for me and one that hopefully, will be easier to work with. I decided to make the robot not too tall because if it were too high, it would touch our telephone lines in from of the house, and I'm afraid of it falling over during a rain storm. I want to make sure that it will survive high winds because at this time of year, the wind and rain start up and I remember the hell it caused my other two lawn sculptures. As you can see by my pics, it's around 10 feet tall, Big enough to be menacing. When I'm done, if I have time, I'm also going to make some bad-guy spider bots attacking the house. But, I'm not going to promise you anything.

Gundam Style!

That's all for now, A