Sculpting

A new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movie came out this weekend, but this sculpture above is in honor of that.  It is in fact, just one of the costumes and puppets we're working on at the warehouse.  Here's another one, a shark:

We have no idea what we are doing.  We just have a red hot sculpting tool, that cuts through styrofoam like butter.  Why butter, I do not know.  I guess butter is the easiest thing to cut through.  After the the cutting of the shape, we use an steel brush (the kind you use to clean your outdoor grill), and short of round every hard edge to a more uniform surface.  After that, simple sandpaper is the simplest tool to giving a smooth surface.

This is what we've been doing the last couple of days in our spare time away from the office.  Daddy is proudest right now of his unicorn fish, which is a completely unique idea for a character in the upcoming series.  It's an overly optimistic rainbows and ponies sort of character, best compared to the personality of Benny from "The Lego Movie."  It should be a lot of fun to write that character.

In the meantime, we're still sculpting with just a week to go.  Lots of work still left to accomplish, but we'll get there I think.

This morning, Daddy took Madison once again to Lowe's, this time to build a trolley.  This was no ordinary trolley though - this was one with jet turbines on the side and a wingspan.  Madison was quite handy with the hammer, getting to a point where she nearly doesn't need Daddy at all.  Soon enough, we had our creation constructed, adding yet another patch to her crowded work apron.  Right now, she's got quite a collection on there - and we'll have one more to add in a few weeks, the last of the summer series.  It's a giant robot, which is just the kind of thing Madison likes making.

Another thing Madison likes doing is going for a swim.  After a sweaty day at the warehouse, Daddy came home for a short time to make a trip to the pool.  The fantastic news is that she can touch the bottom of the three foot section now, on her tippy toes.  This means she doesn't have to hang on to me, or floaties either.  She can try swimming on her own, and when she tires, she can simply touch bottom. This is great, because unfortunately, the concept of swimming hasn't caught hold of her yet - she's still learning.  But this big revelation was a wonderful moment, because Daddy knows that her ability to swim is coming soon - and she wants to learn too.  We may go back again soon, in fact.

But Daddy had to get back to the warehouse to wrap things up for the day.  So back he went, unaware of the impending storm that was coming across the state of Georgia.

It struck when Daddy was on his way home.  Fortunately, Mommy and Madison were quite safe at home, because it was pretty epic.  Visibility was pretty close to zero for quite some distance.  Walls of illuminated water splashed up and over the windshield, blinding Daddy temporarily as he drove.  Lightning silhouetted the trees, which rocked back and forth with the tremendous winds blowing this way and that.  It was one of those drives home where cars pulled over everywhere, waiting it out, and those who braved the elements did so with their hands clenched tightly to the steering wheel, plodding their cars forward at a snail's pace.

But Daddy did arrive home safely, and for that he's fairly grateful.  Prayers tonight thanked God for the rain, and for the protection.  It's been a rainy weekend for sure!