Stumped

Today the crew joked about another 'mid-sized' piece currently going through the shop. Mid-sized for this project is extremely large compared to most projects we build. The Gruffle stump house is to be built in three pieces. The bottom section is a large stump and will be buried on the door side to a depth of about two feet. Golfers will play up the ramp and under the front door. The ball will then drop out of one of two pipes onto the green to the right side. It is going to be a fun hole to play.

The next section is the cone shaped roof (armature visible behind). A flag pole will perch on top, complete with a Gruffle pirate flag of course. Like always the mid-sized (read that GIANT) features will shrink dramatically when we get them out of the shop and onto the site.

Krafting a Kraken

At the same time the big and fancy pieces are making their way through fabrication, wiring, concrete and sculpting and the painting other smaller pieces are also going through the same process. The smaller pieces, like the signs tend to have lots of finicky details and like the sculpting the painting of these is typically done with smaller tools. The big pieces are the priority and when the concrete needs sculpting all other tasks in the shop cease in order to get the time sensitive job done.

To facilitate this production schedule the smaller pieces typically get done in bits and pieces with a number of people doing the work as they are able. The concept art helps guide people but often they are a little vague or things have changed along the way. We are constantly trying new things and techniques as well trying our best to raising the bar on every piece. The answer to this is for Peter or myself to do a small section and then let someone else finish things off. This assures a continuity of style through the project.

The Kraken's Krew sign was done in this fashion. I initially set the tone for the piece but Jenessa and Angie have done the bulk of the sculpting. Others too had a hand in some of the parts. The work has been done in bits as they could squeeze it in between more pressing jobs.

One more day of sculpting and we'll be into paint!

Never quite done

The new website has been up a week now and traffic has been brisk. We've received many favorable comments and a few suggestions as well. We appreciate it all.

The work on the website continues, constant tweaking, fixing of grammar and spelling booboos. We've even added a few more pages and a whole lot of information. The latest addition is a page describing what we do and and a list of a few of the projects of note we've done.

The website, like us and our work, will be a continual work in progress.