Studio Dan Baines Studio Dan Baines

FeeJee Mermaid in 5 Days, Prop Build Project Day 4

Time certainly flies when you’re working to a deadline! I was worried last night that I wouldn’t have enough drying time to complete by Friday however, I awoke to glorious sunshine and a baking hot day in tropical Kent! Perfect weather for today’s antics!

My silicone fish scale texturizer has set and everything on the mermaid from yesterday was dry and ready for the next stage.

I mixed a batch of Herculite plaster and some brown powder colour pigment, thicker than you would use for casting. This was about the same consistency as Angel Delight (if you’ve ever eaten that muck!).

 I then painted the entire mermaid in a thin layer working it into the rubberized tights skin.

This was then left to dry.

The next stage involved mixing another batch of Herculite, thicker this time. It was the consistency of wet clay so it could be picked up and spread over the mermaid’s body by hand.

Working from the head to the tale, covered small sections at a time, I smoothed the plaster and then textured the surface with a damp piece of crepe bandage to create a goosebumped skin effect.

To texture the tale I used the silicone pad I cast yesterday. The silicone was lightly pressed on to the plaster. It needs to be noted that the texture left behind is not an exact impression of the silicone scales. It creates a much rougher pattern but with a slight element of regularity. The true effect will not be seen until the final stage.

Once the entire mermaid had been coated and textured it was left to dry in the morning sun.

Now to turn our ghostly white mermaid into a mummified relic of the sea! I use two types of Dirty Down Special Effects Dye for this stage – Ash Blonde and Rust.

The Mermaid was given a coat of Ash Blonde. The plaster is very ‘thirsty’ and soaks the dye up very quickly. I gave her 2 coats and then left her to dry for 10 minutes.

I then gave the mermaid a coat of Rust. The same technique is used here that I used to create the baking parchment fins. Spraying the body at varying distances to create lighty covered areas and spots of saturation. I would spray areas like the eyes & mouth as close as possible to create darker pigmentation and lighter, further away sprays for the underbelly. You’re effectively shading with the spray can.

The spines were coated exactly the same way and the tips were wiped with a damp cloth to create the gradation of colour.

The tail and fins were then attached with liquid latex and rapidly dried with a heat gun. The latex was then also given a coat of Dirty Down to blend it in.

Ear fins and a dorsal fin were also attached.

The mermaid was then given some fresh air and sunshine for a further hour to dry.

The fins and spines were sprayed with Windsor & Newton gloss canvas varnish. This, when applied to the baking parchment on both sides makes it translucent and also enhances the colour.

Additional coats of Dirty Down and varnish were applied until the right look was achieved.

To create a taxidermy fish semi glossy finish to the tale I lightly brushed the tail with polyurethane gloss varnish. Using the same principle as dry brushing to only deposit varnish on the raised textured sections. The varnish makes the plaster & dye turn almost black and finally reveals a fish scale type pattern.

Once all of the messy stuff was over with I removed the protective cover from the base and aged the bright red baize with more Rust dye.

I had a couple of faux ivory resin mermaids in the studio I made a couple of years ago for another project. I decided to also mount these on the base and added a reproduction newspaper clipping featuring the exhibition of a FeeJee Mermaid.

Right, that’s enough for today. I’ll let everything dry and I’ll come back with a fresh eye tomorrow and apply the finishing touches for a final photo shoot.

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FeeJee Mermaid in 5 Days, Prop Build Project Day 3

We’re almost at the halfway mark and it’s time to finally give our mermaid some character by adding the skin and creating a face.

A matt black acrylic undercoat was applied to the whole mermaid.

To add some 'skin' to the bones I used a pair of tights.

I cut one leg off and then removed the foot section. The foot section was used for the head while the remaining tube section of the leg was used for the body.

The tights were then stretched over the skeleton and tail and secured with elastic bands, these sections will be removed and cut away later. The whole mermaid was then given another coat of liquid latex, this will secure the ‘skin’ to the bones and tighten slightly to reveal the bone structure underneath.

To accelerate the drying process a number of hot air blowers where arranged around the mermaid.

I then wanted to create a fish scale texturizer for the final skin layer. I rolled a piece of polymer clay and created a fish scale pattern with a sculpting tool.

I then covered the clay with a thick layer of plaster and once this was dry I covered the plaster in another layer of plaster coated crepe bandage to create a hard shell.

Once the plaster was dry I removed the polymer master and poured a thin layer of silicone rubber into the plaster mould. This will give me a flexible scale texturizer that I will use over the whole tail section during the next stage.

Once the latex skin was dry I could apply the spines and work on the face by applying teeth and modelling the eyes.

Using a scalpel I cut slits for the eyes, nose and mouth and rolled back the rubberised tights to create lips and eyelids.

The teeth were created by taking real fossilized shark’s teeth and splitting them with pliers to make sharp shards.

To insert the teeth I simply lifted the lips and placed the teeth behind the skin with a dab of superglue to secure.

The spines were positioned with a hot glue gun and then coated around the base with latex to strengthen the join.

I’ve left the mermaid to dry over night as tomorrow I will apply the material that will give the mummified effect.

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Studio Dan Baines Studio Dan Baines

FeeJee Mermaid in 5 Days, Prop Build Project Day 2

As expected, I woke up to discover that the air dry clay was still slightly damp however, it will be fully dry by the afternoon. For the morning task I thought I would make the fins and spines so that they are ready to fit at a later stage.

I decided to scrap the Milliput spines I made yesterday as although dry they were still pliable and bendy. I decide to use polymer clay and then paint them with bone coloured acrylic spray (Army Painter Primer)

The fish fins are made from baking parchment and are very realistic once complete. 

Just cut a large piece of baking parchment, lay it flat on a table and spray both sides with Rust Dirty Down Special Effects Dye.  The first pass should be uniform and even.

Then create spots on the paper by spraying a few millimeters away from the surface of the paper, the aim is to create spots of dye saturation in a random pattern.

Then let the paper dry.

Finally, cut the fin shape and fold repeatedly to create a fan. Then fray the fin tips with scissors. I’ve decided to go to town on the fins and create a head crest and fin ears but you'll see these when they are fitted later.

Once the fins are fitted to the mermaid they will be given a coat of gloss canvas varnish.  This will make them translucent and enhance the colour making them even more realistic.

After lunch the weather warmed up so the air dry clay finally dried!  You can see, as a result of rapid drying large cracks appeared - 

To hold the clay together and fill the gaps I gave it a couple of good coats of liquid latex to act as a skin.

I’ve also decided to go with the classic FeeJee Mermaid pose and set the limbs into position with tape, a hot glue gun and epoxy putty.

With all the major foundation work complete we can start to bulk out the body, apply the skin and textures.

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Studio Dan Baines Studio Dan Baines

FeeJee Mermaid in 5 Days, Prop Build Project Day 1

This 5 day tutorial was originally released on the blog of one of my previous business ventures 'Pyewackette and Pecke'.  It was a dark cousin of Etsy, a site dedicated to hunting down the best alternative artists and collectors and providing them with a platform to showcase their dark talents and products.  The project folded due to high demand for my own personal work so rather than spread myself too thinly I decided to focus my creative efforts here. 

I have received a huge amount of e-mails requesting the tutorial to be republished so here it is.  Enjoy me hearties arrrgh!

Unlike other artists I know, I work best under pressure and within time constraints however, I’ve not left this project to the last minute by choice. It’s been so busy here at Pyewackett HQ that I’ve merely lost track of the hours, days and weeks and possibly even the year! Anyway, next Saturday is the Alternative Market in Derby hosted by Curiouser & Curiouser and I was planning a nice big centre piece for my display, namely a FeeJee Mermaid. One thing has led to another and as you may have guessed I’ve not even started so I had an idea...

Over the next few days I will be posting a daily blog on the build of the mermaid. It needs to be complete and ready to ship to Derby on Friday so it’s going to be tight! I’ve made many bizarre props and creatures over the years but never a FeeJee Mermaid so I will be pulling together a whole host of building methods, techniques and idea I’ve never realised to hopefully create something worth displaying this coming Saturday.

Not enough people in the prop building community share their ideas which is a shame. Some people guard their techniques like Smaug sat on his hoard of Dwarven gold. If we don’t share then our precious methods die with us. As Adam Savage mentioned at MakerFaire 2014 – no secrets!

In his own wise words -

"nobody is going to take your technique and then steal your ideas, nobody has a monopoly on being you and if you think that your technique is what makes you interesting you’re being ridiculous, so share your techniques! When you share an idea, somebody may come back to you with a better way of doing it and you’re going to learn something from them and develop your own techniques even further."

So, I’m going to cover what I do right here. If you want to try it for yourself and go for it, if you know a better way of doing something let me know! Either way sharing, experimenting and learning is what prop building is all about, so through my blogs and workshops I hope to promote that way of thinking.

Right, let’s get to it…

Here's what I've achieved at the end of day 1.  We'll then look at what I did to get this far and any challenges faced....

I wanted my mermaid to be true to the original size which is about half a metre in length, I also had to consider mounting options at I did not have a display case or dome in stock.

The mermaid is built around an 18” medical skeleton model, a resin cast of a human infant skull and tail made from armature wire, tin foil and air dry clay.

Hands

In the past I have had to source real magpie or crow feet to obtain claws for fingers. Thankfully I can now just 3D print a bird’s foot, claws n’all without harming a single creature. I use the Up Plus 2 printer and using black ABS filament I printed 4 sets of Osprey feet. To get the shiny claw finish I brushed each foot with pure acetone. This also smooths out any imperfections and bumps let over from the printing process.

Each printed toe and claw was then snipped and attached to a wire hand armature. As mentioned before, I like to make the skeletons of the creatures I make fully poseable so that I can mess with the dynamic posing before any other materials are applied.

The hand shape was filled out with white Milliput and the original skeleton hand was replaced with the new larger clawed mermaid hand.

Skeleton

As I discovered from my mummified fairy hoax, then best way to replicate a corpse if to use a realistic skeleton to drape you skin over. Don’t bother making your own, just an ‘off the shelf’ school biology model will do. You just need to make it poseable. I just deconstruct the skeleton, removing all screws etc and rearticulate it with armature wire and tape. To bend the spine into position I just heat it with a heat gun, bend to the desired position and then immerse in cold water to set it.

The signature feature on a FeeJee Mermaid is the oversized freaky head. I removed the standard skull from the skeleton and cast an infant skull in resin. I then modelled a nose and closed eyes with Milliput. The ears will go on later.

After a lower jaw section was cast and attached, the head was then screwed to the articulated skeleton.  The upper torso is now starting to take shape and the over sized head and hands already give the FeeJee mermaid that signature look.

Tail

I’ve never tackled a fish tail before (excuse the pun) so this was new territory for me. To gauge the desired length I cut a large piece or armature wire, twisted one end around the pelvis of the skeleton and then cut to what looked like the right length for a mermaid’s tail.

With the remaining Milliput left over from the hands and face I rolled a number of spines that I will use later to model a dorsal fin.

A rough tail shape was then modeled with tin foil wrapped around the wire.  Tin foil was also packed into the rib cage cavity and and abdominal area to give additional strength and to act as a key for later applications of modeling material to grip to.

Base

At this stage I needed a base. This would allow me to handle the mermaid safely, dynamically pose the skeleton and allow it to dry without any contact with surfaces which may crumple or alter the position.

The studio is full of remnants of old projects and bits that I keep in hope they may come in handy one day. I had a nice large and heavy diorama base from an aborted Golden Demon Awards project so I roughed it up on the belt sander and gave it a quick dusting with 2-part crackle paint.  A red velvet baize was then fitted.

To mount the mermaid I took an antique wooden candle stick and dismantled it. I then drilled a hole in the plinth and screwed the candle stick to it.

A steel rod was fitted into the rib cage of the mermaid and a hole was drilled into the top of the candle stick allowing the mermaid to be mounted securely but also removable.

Tail Part 2

Once the mermaid was securely mounted I could continue modelling the tail. This was done with air dry clay, not everyone’s favourite material but it allows me to sculpt what I want quickly. It does crack when it dries however, I will cover what I do to get around this on Wednesday when it will hopefully be dry.

I continued the vertebrae from the upper torso and down the fish tail and added some rough texture. Most of this will be covered over the next few days with layers of latex and plaster so a neat finish is not important.

As you can see from the image above, the base has been wrapped and taped to protect over the coming days.

The main aim of today was to complete the foundations of the mermaid figure and get it mounted.  I'm hoping the clay will dry by Wednesday morning at the latest although I have bought the mermaid into the house in the hope of speeding up the drying process.  Depending on how she does over night will dictate what I cover tomorrow!

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Fairy Folklore Dan Baines Fairy Folklore Dan Baines

For fear of little men...

Not a week passes in the rural UK without an article or feature about the folklore surrounding parts of our landscape.  In an almost last ditch attempt to protect if from development we seem to be reaching back into the annals of history in hope that some good old fairy fueled fear will make us consider the consequences of our actions.  As I've mentioned on previous blog posts, nobody admits they believe in fairies until you introduce the threat of bad luck or even death.  Then and only then do you make their normally skeptical unpointed boring ears prick up and listen.

Thomas the Rhymer, the famous thirteenth century Scottish mystic and poet, once met the Faery Queen by a hawthorn bush from which a cuckoo was calling. She led him into the Faery Underworld for a brief sojourn, but upon reemerging into the world of mortals he found he had been absent for seven years. Themes of people being waylaid by the faery folk to places where time passes differently are common in Celtic mythology, and the hawthorn was one of, if not the, most likely tree to be inhabited or protected by the Wee Folk. In Ireland most of the isolated trees, or so-called 'lone bushes', found in the landscape and said to be inhabited by faeries, were hawthorn trees. Such trees could not be cut down or damaged in any way without incurring the often fatal wrath of their supernatural guardians. The Faery Queen by her hawthorn can also be seen as a representation of an earlier pre-Christian archetype, reminding us of a Goddess-centred worship, practised by priestesses in sacred groves of hawthorn, planted in the round. The site of Westminster Abbey was once called Thorney Island after the sacred stand of thorn trees there.

But no one believes in fairies anymore, do they? Of course not. Ask most people and they will say that it's all old superstition that has no place in the modern world of the 21st century.

Yet when you delve deeply in to our inherited mindset, you find beliefs that defy logic yet are very much part of who we are. A great example of this occurred a few weeks back when I was standing in a field with Declan Little, our local fencing contractor, discussing the location of a new fence to protect yet another small wood I hope to plant shortly.

Standing alone and right on the path of the proposed fence line was an old thorn tree. It has been there as long as I can remember and while blown over by a past storm, it is still very much alive and growing strongly.

As we gazed at it we both knew that it was in the way but I also knew that nothing would induce me to remove it. Now Declan is a much younger man than I am so I asked him to please not laugh at me when I said I wanted the tree to remain as it was, untouched.

Not only did he not laugh but he added that he was hoping I wasn't going to ask him to cut it as he would have had to refuse.

Relieved that we were of one mind, we then recalled the famous incident in 1999 when construction on a national route from Limerick to Galway was delayed and eventually rerouted to protect a fairy thorn tree that stood in its path.

Stories abound of misfortunes visited on those who risked disturbing lone thorns and there have been many incidences in the past where digger drivers have refused, despite threats of sacking, to touch them.

These trees have a remarkable power about them.

A gnarled thorn, often growing in harsh rocky ground, survivor of wind, weather and grazing, somehow possesses its own unique aura.

Rural electrification

Despite whatever feelings we might have regarding old beliefs and superstitions, such trees deserve our respect. I have heard it said that rural electrification killed off the fairies, especially in the West of Ireland.

The theory was that if you were outside at night and heard a noise you couldn't explain, then immediately your imagination summoned up images of spirits from another world and with it a fear of disturbing them.

When you could turn on a light and see that perhaps it was just a cat or whatever, then at least the sound could be rationally understood.

The screeching of an owl or a vixen late at night must have also had a chilling effect on anyone walking or cycling alone in the countryside.

When I was a child my family always took an annual holiday in the west and I will never forget the stories of fairies or "the little people" that the hotel staff regaled us with.

There is a hill at the back of the hotel that I still feel has magical properties thanks to all those lovely tales of the otherworld and what might happen to you if you got lost there at night.

While walking in Sligo in the early 1900s, WB Yeats asked an elderly man he met on the road if he believed in fairies. "I do not," replied the man, "What do you take me for? What kind of eejit would believe in the little people or in witches and goblins and leprechauns? Don't be ridiculous. I do not believe in them. Not at all..." There was a pause. "But they're there," the man concluded.

The thorn tree which prompted these musings is one of many that are respected throughout Ireland and regardless of how others might scoff, no-one damages what might well be a meeting place of the fairies. Hawthorn trees are believed to bring good luck and prosperity.

Hopefully mine will survive for many years to come.

Source

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Fairy Folklore Dan Baines Fairy Folklore Dan Baines

Foreign Fairies

For me one of the most compelling pieces of evidence supporting the existence of 'little people' is their documentation in almost every culture. Whether it's Native American Indian folklore or ancient Persian texts, they all refer to what we commonly categorize as fairies. They generally have similar traits regardless of location, emerging from forests or subterranean domains to help, hinder or horrify we surface dwelling destroyers of nature.

This very interesting article by Chauburji appeared in Pakistani newspaper The Nation.

On a long ago visit to Ireland, I found that the lives of the Irish were deeply linked to strange stories about things that could at best be called paranormal. The central characters in these stories, which my host in that beautiful country adamantly maintained were true, revolved around hereditary precognition, Leprechauns and ‘The Little People’. My interest in these accounts was aroused as I was born and raised in a house, where inexplicable things occurred on a daily basis. These occurrences were always benign and even protective, causing us to lose fear.

My mother sometimes spoke of mythical beings known as ‘baalishtias’ (derived from the word ‘Baalisht’ or ‘one hand width’). These miniature people, no more than a hand width in height, had perfect human features and hid themselves in forests by day, coming out nocturnally to forage for food. When we questioned our mother on the subject, we were told that she had heard these tales from her grandmother and the local hill people during her family’s annual summer sojourn to Dharamsala and Srinagar in the pre-independence era.

I too happened to hear similar accounts from Jumma Khan, our summer home caretaker cum cook in Murree. According to local narratives, these tiny beings inhabited forests, had magical powers and exhibited total empathy with insects and small animals. In everyday parlance we could perhaps refer to them as fairies, elves and pixies. I found that the Irish description of ‘little people’ was exactly similar to these ‘baalishtias’.

Stories about ‘miniature people’ with magical powers and the propensity to do mischief, are as old as antiquity and have featured in classics such as Gulliver Travels and the fairy tales of Hans Christian Anderson. Box office hits have been produced around them indicating that the subject holds a never ending attraction for human beings of all ages. It is interesting to note that tales about existence of such creatures is not restricted to Ireland or the Sub Continent, but can be found in ‘folk lore’ around the world – in Greece, the Philippines, Hawaiian Islands, Flores Island, Indonesia and even amongst Native Americans in the United States.

Legends speak of the little people playing pranks on humans such as singing and then hiding from those, who looked around for the source of music. It was often said that these creatures used music to lead travellers astray in the days before modern transport. Other stories say that if accidentally spotted by someone, they begged the person not to say anything about their existence for a reward, which usually consisted of help in times of trouble. There were also unconfirmed reports regarding remains of tiny people discovered in the United States around Montana and Wyoming many years ago.

I once wrote a column describing a personal encounter with what appeared to be a miniature dwarf-like face that peered at me from the bull rushes, during a duck shooting trip with my dad and uncle near Chuharkana somewhere in the nineteen fifties. I had been left behind in the car, while the adults had waded into the water. To this day I am not sure whether what I saw was a figment of my imagination or something real. The fact is that I put my hand on the horn and did not lift it till such time that my uncle returned and berated me for scaring the ducks away.

Almost every child anywhere in the world has been raised on stories that feature fairies, elves, gnomes and pixies. These characters have been both good and evil. No childhood would be complete without tales that titillate imagination and (as some psychologists would insist) even create illusions. Nonetheless, my advice to anyone travelling to Ireland is never to pass a ‘frivolous’ comment on hearing strange stories, for such a remark will not be taken lightly by the locals. I for one would like to reserve my comments, for every folk tale or legend has been known to have some basis or the other. In this case too – who knows?

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Dan Baines Dan Baines

The Krampus Returns Part III

The expansion for Krampusnacht is finally complete!

Originally the Krampus face was going to be permanently fixed to the wallet but I had visions of broken horns and damage to the exposed face so I decide to give it some occult functionality as a pendulum. The Krampus fizog comes in two finishes, traditional hand painted or cold cast bronze, mounted on a black snowflake and trimmed with fur. When not divining for naughty children it also makes a devilish decoration for your tree.

I've also included a festive fireside tale that has a truly disturbing climax that will chill even the warmest Yuletide night. The traditional stories of the Krampus are scary for children but not quite enough to get most adults quaking in their boots so I set about crafting one for the 'olds'.

'Windows to the Soul' tells the sad tale of a bullied German boy who freezes to death one snowy Christmas night and how the Krampus hunts down his tormentors. Rather than giving the kids a generous whipping with his bundle of birch twigs the Krampus not only collected the souls of the guilty but also their eyes as punishment.

The full expansion for Krampusnacht is available here and the Christmas tree decoration is available here. The Krampus tree decoration is limited to 100 pieces and each is signed and numbered.


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Designing the Doomsday Hex Factor Trophy

For the second year running I will be organsing Doomsday VII. This is the UK's top bizarre magic convention which takes place in May at Sneaton Castle in the iconic gothic seaside town of Whitby.

Every year I get numerous e-mails from people wishing to perform who either don't have enough material for a full show, want to try something new or have literally never been on stage in their life. So this year I have decided to replace the evening gala show with The Hex Factor! Each performer is given a 5-10 minute slot in which to display their magic routines, disturbing talents or anything you feel suitable for the Doomsday audience. A panel of judges will give feedback but ultimately the audience will decide the best act of the evening.

The winner will be awarded a full performance spot at Doomsday 8 and a pair of free tickets but more importantly they will win the The Hex Factor trophy! To dangle the carrot for potential entrants I thought I would get the creative wheels in motion and design the trophy.

hex1.jpg

Nothing screams occult more than a skull on a stick, especially one adorned with inverted pentagrams and glowing red eyes! I wanted the trophy to be more than your typical golden cup with a marble base. I wanted to create something that if you had it on your shelf at home it would genuinely worry visitors. What the hell did you have to do to win such a monstrosity? Satanist of the year 2016?!

The horns are 3D printed in translucent ABS. These were originally part of a Maleficent headdress but I removed the skull cap section and just printed the horns on a slightly smaller scale. The plaque on the reverse is also printed in black and translucent ABS. All that was required for the demonic red glow was a set of silver micro-string LEDs positioned in such a way to give the illusion of red pupils and a back light for the pentagram.

If you're thinking of entering the Hex Factor then you're currently in with a one in seven chance of winning the trophy. I'm going to cap the entries at 8 people so that we can have two 40 minute sections, an interval and guest performance from Brian Maxwell. So I need two more volunteers to sell their souls and be potentially ripped apart by the Doomsday dogs. However, you could walk away with the Hex Factor trophy! I can't promise you a million dollar contract and a pad in Malibu but what I can promise you is a glowing sheep skull impaled on a metal pole – I know what I'd sooner have!


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Fairy Folklore Dan Baines Fairy Folklore Dan Baines

Woe betide he or she who fells a fairy tree...

Since watching Jordskott I've been fascinated by the fact that most people scoff at the existence of fairies however, if you introduce a life threatening superstition people suddenly show some genuine fear and belief.  Take this article from The Irish News which discusses fairy trees and the dire consequences of cutting one down.  It once again highlights that a primal fear still exists in most of us that nature and its possible elusive guardians are a force not to be messed with. 

ONE of the first stories I reported on more than 20 years ago as a trainee journalist was about a fallen tree.

It had been partially uprooted in a storm and was lying across a footpath and on to the road. Pedestrians had to step out on to the road to get past and even cars had to swerve into the opposite lane to avoid it.

It lay there for more than three weeks so I phoned government departments and the local council offices who all insisted that it was someone else’s problem.

Finally, I put the question: "Was the reason that the tree had not been moved because the workmen were afraid of being cursed by the fairies?"

Needless to say the response was met with bluster, derision and even contempt. But no-one could explain why a fairly routine operation to move a fallen tree that was clearly causing a hazard to pedestrians and motorists had still not taken place.

I went to look at the tree on a number of occasions. It was a hawthorn (known in many parts of Ireland as a fairy thorn) and while it was badly damaged it was still alive, part of its split trunk still rooted in the ground.

Superstitions about fairy thorns are deeply rooted in Ireland. My grandmother used to regale us with stories about the horrors that befell farmers and builders who cut down fairy thorns, usually entailing them being decapitated after the axe they were using to hack the tree hit a rock, bounced back and seemed to hang in mid-air before making the fatal cut, being torn apart by wild animals or meeting some other unexplained but gory end.

Even today if you drive down a country road you will inevitably come across a ploughed field with a lone hawthorn standing in the middle of it.

On a purely practical level trees are essential to human survival on this planet, turning carbon monoxide that mammals exhale into oxygen which we then breath in.

No trees, we all suffocate – yet this has not stopped humanity as a species decimating our forests and jungles. It is estimated that the equivalent of 50 football pitches of woodland are destroyed every minute.

Ireland is one of the most deforested countries in the world, with just 10 per cent of woodland, the second lowest coverage in Europe. When humans first arrived here around 10,000 years ago the island was a huge woodland broken only by loughs and mountains.

Despite the mass destruction, trees and forests still retain an archetypal significance for us. The superstitions surrounding the fairy thorn are just one manifestation. A walk in a forest, sitting under a tree or just looking at the leaves of an oak swaying in a breeze can be hugely restorative to a world-weary mind.

In the past three years I have planted around 200 native Irish trees, mostly in a small neglected field, trying to create my own woodland. Mountain ash, birch, alder, willow, apple, oak, Scots pine and a yew tree. Sapplings, that cost around 40p each and barely came past my knee are now as tall as I am and in a few more years will begin to reach maturity – though I may not be around to see the oak in their full glory.

I worked with the charity One Miliion Trees in One Day to secure more than half the sapplings and they are planning another tree-planting day in two weeks' time (February 20).

In my little, still fragile woodland, there are six hawthorns, and a curse on anyone who even thinks about trying to destroy them.

Tony Bailie
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Fairy Folklore Dan Baines Fairy Folklore Dan Baines

The Irish Cottage Haunted by Violent Fairies

LIXNAW, Ireland — All is not well in the cottage at the edge of the Ballynageragh bog.

The simple home lies on the outskirts of this blink-and-you’ll-miss-it village in west Ireland’s County Kerry.

During the last two decades, no fewer than five inhabitants of the tiny white public-owned building died suddenly in tragic and unusual circumstances.

The unsettling events have tapped into a culture of legend and supernatural belief that continues to color life here.

One man dozed off with a lit cigarette and succumbed to smoke inhalation. Another hanged himself shortly after moving from the house. One inhabitant died in a car accident, and a fourth was stabbed to death while traveling in Wales.

Was this cottage built on a fairy funeral path?

Was this cottage built on a fairy funeral path?

Then in November 2013, neighbors found the body of Susan Dunne, 62, in one of the cottage’s bedrooms.

She had moved in 18 months earlier with her autistic teenage son, who stands accused of her murder. Patrick Dunne, 19, is being held in a Dublin mental hospital until his trial in April.

Dunne’s murder was the last straw. Villagers buttonholed Kerry County Councillor Robert Beasley during local election campaigns in May to say they wanted the county-owned house destroyed.

Although Beasley says he raised the motion at council meetings, several factors have delayed a decision about the cottage’s fate.

Among them, no action will be taken until the county has arranged with Susan Dunne’s family to remove her belongings, which remain in the house.

But for all those who want the house leveled, there are also many who argue that the deaths were just a coincidence that doesn’t justify the demolition of a perfectly good dwelling.

Ireland’s devastating financial collapse in 2008 and prolonged recession forced the local authorities to slash budgets. As a result, County Kerry has been slow to replenish its public housing stock. Waiting lists are long.

Some would be happy to live with the cottage’s bloody legacy as long as they have a roof over their heads, locals say.

“There’s a lot of people who would love to have it,” says Paddy Quilter, proprietor of Quilter’s pub in Lixnaw. “All this bullshit about knocking it down — ah.”

Quilter says he doesn’t believe in ghosts. A clutch of locals drinking at the bar nod in agreement. But all are familiar with the host of legends, superstitions and fairies that once populated late-night tales in rural Ireland — and that still have real-world implications for many people.

“In the old days, they called it piseog,” Quilter says, a Gaelic term (pronounced pi-shawg) meaning superstition, voodoo or anything suggesting a supernatural power at hand. “There were a lot of piseogs and ghosts before electricity came in.”

It’s a word someone might use to explain an unusual or unsettling phenomenon — the mysterious deaths of five residents of a single cottage, for example.

Industrialization weakened Ireland’s belief in the fairy world but didn’t stamp it out completely, says Criostoir Mac Carthaigh, an archivist at the National Folklore Collection in Dublin.

As a result, he says, many people adopt a better-safe-than-sorry stance. Some farmers continue their forebears’ habits of not plowing certain parts of a field said to be favored by fairies, while disavowing belief in the supernatural themselves.

“Even down to today, there’s kind of a residual belief and it’s not articulated, it’s not spoken about,” Mac Carthaigh says. “’Leave well enough alone,’ is a phrase you sometimes hear people say.”

Sometimes it goes farther than that.

In 1999, the National Roads Authority was notified that a proposed bypass in western Ireland would destroy a hawthorn bush that played an important role in fairy military history. (You read that correctly.)

Irish fairies are no Disneyfied pixies. They hold grudges. Destroying the bush could result in violent fairy retribution — faulty brakes, mangled cars, death.

The government rerouted the highway and built a protective fence around the bush as an offering to the spirits.

The fairies’ main lobbyist in the human world in that case was Eddie Lenihan, a grizzle-bearded folklorist in western Ireland’s County Clare.

He began his career as a "seanchaithe," or traditional storyteller, when he was completing field research for a masters degree in linguistics and found himself more interested in the stories old folks told than the accents they told them in.

Lenihan says he’s contacted almost weekly by people who want to placate fairies on their property or suss out their feelings about upcoming construction.

His questions about the Lixnaw cottage have nothing to do with council budgets or housing demand.

“Was the house built in a place where it shouldn’t be?” he wonders. “Is there a fairy fort [a remnant of an early Christian structure] nearby?”

“It might be built on a fairy path or a funeral path, which would be a problem,” he adds. “It’d be lunacy to be on one of those. According to the old people, if you’re on a fairy path, you’ll never have peace or luck in a house like that.”

No fairy paths are evident near the cottage today. The low-slung structure, abandoned for almost a year now, stands at the end of a dirt drive blocked by a rusting gate.

Overgrown hedges encircle the property. As storm clouds closed in on a recent windy afternoon, the branches rustled with an insistent sound, like the footsteps of someone or something approaching.

The house next door is for sale. 

Article taken from The Global Post

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Studio Dan Baines Studio Dan Baines

The Krampus Returns Part II

I've had an usually creative week to the point where I feel the true spirit of the Krampus has taken hold of my hands and finished the job subconsciously!​

Gruss Vom Krampus! 

Gruss Vom Krampus! 

Since the last post I completed the sculpey master, created a mould and successfully cast and painted the first Krampus head.  As the horns are delicate I decided to make a 3 part casting (1x head and 2x horns) and it all came out rather nicely.  I'm also going to make a copper cast of the Krampus to allow for a few options on the final pieces. 

Master sculpt, resin cast and painted final

Master sculpt, resin cast and painted final

 

The wallet has been designed to accommodate the full Krampusnacht box as this has enough room for the additional routine photos that will come with the wallet.  When it came to the colour there was only really one option, blood red!  Once dry is was buffed and dirtied to give it an aged look.

The Krampus head is mounted on a 3D printed snowflake to retain the festive feel and to give me something more durable than resin as a backing piece.

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Each of the wallets will be numbered and limited to 100 to compliment the original print run of the cards.  An additional photo card will also be included in the package showing a group school photo to illustrate a cautionary tale of school bullies and the dire consequences, especially around Christmas....

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The next stage is to cast the bronze version and also look at some real fur trim to give the Krampus his signature beastial look.  

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The stud fastener may also be replaced with a more ornate version.  In the meantime I may knock myself up a Krampus tree ornament or transfer his face onto an 'Elf on the Shelf' to create the more terrifying 'Devil on the Level'! 

Embossed back

Embossed back

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Studio Dan Baines Studio Dan Baines

The Krampus Returns...

Since the huge success of Krampusnacht over Christmas I have received numerous e-mails from customers requesting something befitting to store their cards in. Although the red box I supplied was perfectly adequate there has been a demand for demonic bling, a satanic sheath that will protect your Krampus cards from do-gooders until next Christmas.

Krampus_1

I originally started to create a leather embossing plate of the Krampus but I wanted something with greater visual impact that would compliment the cards. I grabbed some sculpey from the studio shelf, cranked up some Bauhaus and 2 hours later I ended up with a face I definitely recognised.

The idea is to create a leather wallet which will be embossed with 'Krampusnacht' and possibly more devilry on the back but the front will be graced with a cast Krampus head plaque. I'm going to experiment with finishes but expect at least two which will be bronze cast and traditional hand painted with real fur trim.

Krampus_2

After a few hours of losing myself in sculpting the face I've got the sudden desire to complete the head and possibly even create a bust. Watch this space...





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Studio Dan Baines Studio Dan Baines

Studio equipment I couldn't live without - Part 1

18 months ago my wife pulled out all the stops for my 39th birthday and bought me a 3D printer.  Our trip to Boston a few months earlier saw us wander into a Makerbot store to escape the cold and from that point I knew I wanted one.  When you first own a 3D printer it's akin to winning a large sum of money, what do you buy first or rather what do you print first?  The options are quite overwhelming.

My previous tools had been more traditional.  If I wanted to build a steampunk clockwork mechanism I would have to source the components or cast new parts in resin.  If I needed an enclosure for a circuit I would have to trawl the Internet for a supplier of the nearest size which would undoubtedly be too large or a fraction too small.  The 3D printer solved these issues for me but it wasn't love at first sight.  I was shocked to discover that good 3D printing, in its current form at least, takes some degree of skill and knowledge to get it right.

Initially I had no idea what to print, nothing of any use anyway.  The obligatory bunny rabbit, Lego blocks for the kids and other random trinkets flooded from the studio.  Only one in three prints were what I would consider good.  The others had warped, misprinted of just ended up as a huge tangle of melted filament.  I had to teach myself everything from scratch and by learning the hard way you tend to learn the best way.

My wife did her research well and I ended up with the Up Plus 2 printer from Printme 3D in London.  It's a great machine and I can get a perfect print from it 99% of the time but in order to get this far I've got through hundreds of meters of ABS and hours of wasted machine time.  I'll share a few tips with you that I've picked up along the way that might help you finally get that perfect print.

Enclosure 

The Up printer has no enclosure and this is a big issue when you work in a cold drafty studio.  Due to temperature fluctuations and breezes from the opening and closing of doors I found that prints lifted and warped.  To solve this I purchased a huge 50 liter container made by Really Useful Boxes, made a level stand and flipped the box on its side.  I drilled a couple of holes for the USB and power cables and made a new home for my printer.  This provides a stable environment isolated from external forces that can disturb the printing process.  The boxes are really heavy duty and also make a great platform for my laptop which controls the printer.  

The interior of the enclosure is not 100% level so to rectify this I purchased a large chopping board from Ikea and installed this using a spirit level before placing the printer inside.  There was also enough surplus space to add a filament roller with bearings which I also printed.

Most of my printing is done at night so I installed some led light strips to illuminate the work area while the rest of the studio lighting can be switched off.  The eerie green glow not only pimps your printer but serves a purpose in low light.

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Printing Plate

I just couldn't get on with the supplied perf board printing plates that came with the Up.  After trying lots of alternatives the best solution I have found was to make my own from 1mm steel sheet.  For about £15 you can get about 10 or more plates cut to fit your print bed perfectly.  I then cover the plate in blue tape and get a perfect print with no lift every time.  You may want to experiment as the metal plate is much heavier than a traditional perf board but the Up does not struggle with the additional weight.  You could use aluminum but this bends easily and a slight kink in the metal will throw your nozzle height out.

I always print with no raft and minimal support where possible and heat the platform to 100 degrees C before each print run. 

Levelling 

This took me a while to figure out correctly.  The Up has an auto calibration facility for level and nozzle height which is temperamental to say the least.  After a couple of replacement calibration modules and no significant increase in reliability I decided to calibrate it manually.  It was the best move I ever made.  It took a day of tinkering and finding the right way to gauge nozzle height and get an eye for a level platform but it paid off.  Give me 5 minutes and a folded piece of paper and I'll give you a perfectly level platform.

Heating 

To get my print plate to the right temperature quickly I place my thick leather cutting gloves on the platform to insulate it.  I also extrude just before I hit print so that the nozzle is already nice and hot and the first  'nose wipe' sticks well.

 Printing Tips

Prints with large surface areas and corners such as boxes are prone to lifting.  To minimize this I always rotate my object so that the smallest surface area is on the print bed.  So instead of printing a playing card box for example laying flat I would rotate it so that only the shortest edge is on the print bed.

If you get a misprint look at why it misprinted.  A visual inspection will probably tell you what went wrong so that you can rectify it before your next print run.

If you use blue tape make sure you replace it after every print.  If it becomes tough to remove just heat your plate up to 90 degrees and it'll peel away very easily.

Once you've calibrated your platform level and nozzle height make sure that your print plate goes back the same way if you remove it.  I clip the corner of my plates so they always go back exactly the same way they came out.  The clipped corner gives me a visual orientation guide.

If I need a part for a prop, instead of jumping on the Internet and searching in vein I just take 5 minutes  and think to myself "can I print that part?".  75% of the time I've either found the part I need on Thingiverse or I've created my own in Sketchup.  I'm also in the process of mastering Blender which can export .stl files.

Nearly every prop I've made in the last 12 months has a 3D printed element that normally would've taken lots of time and money to source.  It's the one piece of kit in the studio that gets turned on first thing in the morning and off last thing in the evening.  So thanks to my wife she has revolutionized the way I work and if I had the studio space I'd have a whole array churning out parts day and night.  My gifts to her on the other hand are not quite as spectacular and she's still not forgiven me for the steam mop I gave her for Christmas.

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