Ion-Class Astrobots – Skunkadelia https://skunkadelia.com Steel Sculptures of Friendly Robots Tue, 03 Sep 2024 15:42:37 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.2 https://skunkadelia.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/cropped-skunkadelia-favicon-1-32x32.gif Ion-Class Astrobots – Skunkadelia https://skunkadelia.com 32 32 Opal i247 https://skunkadelia.com/works/opal/ Sat, 25 Nov 2023 22:39:35 +0000 https://skunkadelia.com/?post_type=product&p=11728 Opal's hands took a whole day to create - it was a day of great joy. Note the slightly bent up pinky and ring finger of her right hand, shaped to contour the leg it's to rest upon.[/caption] The hand's that were made for opal may be the most expressive part of the sculpture; carefully created from square punch blanks from an ironworker, mated with ten small bits of a stainless steel bicycle spoke. Stainless is even tougher to bend and form just right than mild steel, and great care with the TIG torch was used to weld them on just so, without melting other fingers off in the intense heat affected zone. Needless to say I did not successfully perform the procedure ten times in a row, but perseverance and learning from setbacks helped to pave the way to eventual success. Opal's torso is a copper plumbing flange which sat waiting for decades in a metal box amongst other precious 'maybe someday' parts that are beloved and are reserved for just the right occasion. The whisky-brown tint was an unexpected result of the polyurethane coating discoloring from the heat - which came from a post-birthday touch-up weld, which the copper absorbed like only copper can. The colors looked so rich that I opted to add an additional coat of polyurethane layer rather than clearing it off with acetone. [caption id="attachment_11770" align="alignnone" width="1900"] Opal's arms were made with some bolts, a hacksaw, some files, a sturdy vise, and great deal of moxie.[/caption] Opal's arms started out as average threaded bolts. They were extensively hand filed to mimic the shape of a human arm, sanded, finished, and adorned with little bronze buttons. A full range of finishing techniques were used throughout the piece. I got lost in the process: musing about shapes to make, fussing over the tiniest of details with my magno-spectacles, and ooh-ing and ah-ing over cool looking stray file marks. I felt like some kind of eccentric cavalier watchmaker gone mad, toiling for hours on this magic little thing. [caption id="attachment_11772" align="alignnone" width="1585"] Opal's birthday. If you could zoom in enough you would find tears of joy in my reflection in her shiny metal knees.[/caption] After many hours of working and re-working all the little parts and pieces to be just so, and connecting all the perfect little pieces together to also be just so, Opal had her first sit-down as a complete piece on the edge of my weld bench. As tradition dictates, I rang the big bell above my work bench, and then took a break for a few minutes. These few minutes help me 'reset' my mind so I can try to experience my work with a fresh 'first impression'. This can allow space for a near-end critique of the piece. When I did this 'reset' with Opal, I had moment of absolute head-buzzing joy. To me, Opal is nothing short of the culmination of a lifetime pursuit of pushing art through craft to create something meaningful from the mundane - even if it is only to remind people to smile and be happy. She is iconic in my pursuit to elevate my art as well as my craft, and I will always hold this one very dear to my heart. 1 lb, 3.6 oz. 7.5 x 3 x 3.5"]]> Nina I425 https://skunkadelia.com/works/nina/ Fri, 17 Nov 2023 01:01:20 +0000 https://skunkadelia.com/?post_type=product&p=11673 anything short of my best work is a waste of that time! Making hundreds of robots can get your mindset locked into a rhythm, following well-honed procedures. My old mantra was to pick the parts, lay them out on a table until I felt I had something to work with, then weld all the pieces together, determining the final pose as I proceeded. After that was naming the robot, stamping out and attaching the boilerplate, Then it was cleaning and polishing, then finally applying the clear coat to 'seal the deal'. While having a routine is great for honing your craft, it wasn't allowing me to be flexible when trying to create something unique in each piece. For art to succeed it has to break free of the routine - even if that routine has worked effectively in the past. I approached Nina with an entirely new plan: which was almost no plan at all! I gave this 'comeback piece' with new constraints:

Do whatever work you feel like doing on the piece at any given time

For Nina, if I wanted to make a hand, I would make a hand. If I wanted to make a face, I would do that. I'd have arms and a torso cut, filed, and polished without legs even picked out. This allowed for a great deal of flexibility in design choices and I was able to let the piece evolve more slowly. It also allowed me to savor making each part just right. Instead of picking out a couple of arms and sticking them onto the torso, I would think about making the best arm for this piece, and to enjoy making the arm just so - hacksawing facets, filing rounded parts, working the part to get beautiful polished and satin brushed finishes; and not stopping until that arm was the absolute best arm for the piece before moving onto some other part. Spending an hour on an arm led me to another amazingly large eureka moment: the notion that I could reshape each individual part with hand tools, like a stone sculptor removes stone to reveal the art. I began filing down parts of axles to shape them more like a human's leg or arm. While this technique seems so obvious in hindsight, I never explored it until Nina, and I haven't seen it before from other artists who work with re-purposed steel. This revelation of 'less-is-more' led me to filing the brass 'charm-rivets' I've been using for over a decade, giving them an improved form as wells as a brighter finish. While all of these innovative techniques lead to some synergistic results, the time it took to make Nina was quadruple that of Ion Class Astrobot construction times of the past. This completely broke my tried-and-true pricing tier - Nina's a small robot with tons of craft time and innovation. And with no way to classify the robots in any kind of pricing structure, my made-to-order astrobot program was no longer a reliable way to price custom work. Nina broke my website! Nina is easy to photograph, because she's got a realism to her pose and her proportions. Through the lens she looks like she's in a movie, able to express complex emotions through body language. She's got real weight on her feet as a human would carry their weight - and a spark of life about her. 1 lb, 14.7 oz. 9.5 x 3.75 x 2.5"]]>
Pinto i415 https://skunkadelia.com/works/pinto/ Thu, 10 Feb 2022 21:59:39 +0000 https://skunkadelia.com/?post_type=product&p=11331 Mima i403 https://skunkadelia.com/works/mima-i403/ Thu, 06 May 2021 21:10:08 +0000 https://skunkadelia.com/?post_type=product&p=7935   Mima has a waist that spins counter-clockwise from above, but not the other way around. This, along with her neck, allows for her to dance and pose in interesting ways.]]> Silver i398 https://skunkadelia.com/works/silver/ Thu, 04 Feb 2021 15:56:13 +0000 https://skunkadelia.com/?post_type=product&p=7733 Kate i396 https://skunkadelia.com/works/kate-i396/ Wed, 30 Dec 2020 16:51:20 +0000 https://skunkadelia.com/?post_type=product&p=7584 Ka1 i393 https://skunkadelia.com/works/ka1/ Fri, 11 Dec 2020 18:24:45 +0000 https://skunkadelia.com/?post_type=product&p=7304 Storey i392 https://skunkadelia.com/works/storey/ Fri, 04 Dec 2020 03:26:00 +0000 https://skunkadelia.com/?post_type=product&p=7316 Star i381 https://skunkadelia.com/works/star/ Sat, 04 Apr 2020 21:13:30 +0000 https://skunkadelia.com/?post_type=product&p=6386 Oberon i373 https://skunkadelia.com/works/oberon/ Wed, 27 Nov 2019 05:57:05 +0000 https://skunkadelia.com/?post_type=product&p=6181 Xavia i372 https://skunkadelia.com/works/xavia/ Fri, 15 Nov 2019 04:11:57 +0000 https://skunkadelia.com/?post_type=product&p=6144 Yonder i364 https://skunkadelia.com/works/yonder/ Mon, 10 Dec 2018 17:35:29 +0000 https://skunkadelia.com/?post_type=product&p=5713 Faust i362 https://skunkadelia.com/works/faust/ Mon, 10 Dec 2018 17:11:13 +0000 https://skunkadelia.com/?post_type=product&p=5701 Pearl i355 https://skunkadelia.com/works/pearl-i355/ Wed, 22 Aug 2018 17:47:40 +0000 https://skunkadelia.com/?post_type=product&p=5555 Deedee i349 https://skunkadelia.com/works/deedee/ Tue, 03 Jul 2018 14:34:55 +0000 https://skunkadelia.com/?post_type=product&p=5517 Lewis i343 https://skunkadelia.com/works/lewis-i343/ Mon, 09 Apr 2018 16:49:37 +0000 https://skunkadelia.com/?post_type=product&p=5443 Elysa i342 https://skunkadelia.com/works/elysa/ Thu, 22 Mar 2018 04:35:06 +0000 https://skunkadelia.com/?post_type=product&p=5411 Related The Birth of Elysa]]> Kai i339 https://skunkadelia.com/works/kai/ Mon, 05 Mar 2018 19:11:39 +0000 https://skunkadelia.com/?post_type=product&p=5395
My fellow SCUL pilot and friend Couscous had the notion of having a Skunkadelic figurehead for his ship NSC Glittergasm, and he had a very clear idea of what he wanted:
I like the accent of color in Mo, but also the variety of colors in Shelley. I'd love to work with you to pick out parts and figure out how to mount this on Glittergasm if possible - I have a few ideas - while also having it be able to stand on it's own so it can live in my space station during the off season. As for a pose, I like the idea of an arm outstretched forwards because I think that works well for a figurehead. Perhaps the other arm held closer to the body as if holding something? It would also be neat if the hands could have a small hole through them such that I could later create small items for the bot to hold such as a wand or a book. Depending on what part(s) we choose for the eyes, i may also be interested in an insertion point from the back of the eyes such that I could wire in some small lights while the bot was acting as a figurehead.
We got together at my studio space and picked out the parts together. Since Couscous was handy with tools we both got to do some minor alterations of metal before welding. The thick copper body we chose turned out to be much more of a heat sink than expected - and would glow for a good while after welding. This does not typically happen with TIG welds, at least with steel. TIG brazing with silicon bronze to weld copper to steel is tricky, particularly in this small scale. We worked together on ways that this Astrobot could grip an object. Couscous' ship blows bubbles - so I was excited to show him the  metal bubble-wand I had been saving - we needed to chop the middle out so it was proportionate to the robot. I also had a beautiful, small hook clamp which would work nicely to grip the wand. All the pieces came together, so to speak. At the time of this posting, Kai has successfully been mounted on Glittergasm and has fully functional glowing blue optical units already installed.
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Blue i332 https://skunkadelia.com/works/blue/ Wed, 10 Jan 2018 22:58:33 +0000 https://skunkadelia.com/?post_type=product&p=5337 Shae i331 https://skunkadelia.com/works/shae/ Wed, 10 Jan 2018 22:54:24 +0000 https://skunkadelia.com/?post_type=product&p=5336 Jules i348 https://skunkadelia.com/works/jules/ Mon, 04 Dec 2017 20:56:37 +0000 https://skunkadelia.com/?post_type=product&p=5282 Bibi i322 https://skunkadelia.com/works/bibi/ Fri, 22 Sep 2017 01:30:51 +0000 https://skunkadelia.com/?post_type=product&p=5136 Cameron i312 https://skunkadelia.com/works/cameron/ Wed, 17 May 2017 04:22:50 +0000 https://skunkadelia.com/?post_type=product&p=4979 Frodi i106 https://skunkadelia.com/works/frodi/ Tue, 25 Apr 2017 15:06:10 +0000 https://skunkadelia.com/?post_type=product&p=4947 Bart i306 https://skunkadelia.com/works/bart/ Mon, 17 Apr 2017 16:43:39 +0000 https://skunkadelia.com/?post_type=product&p=4928 Chuckles i139 https://skunkadelia.com/works/chuckles-i139/ Wed, 01 Feb 2017 21:19:05 +0000 http://skunkadelia.com/?post_type=product&p=4802 Toki i301 https://skunkadelia.com/works/toki/ Wed, 01 Feb 2017 20:38:47 +0000 http://skunkadelia.com/?post_type=product&p=4794 Columbia i298 https://skunkadelia.com/works/columbia/ Thu, 08 Dec 2016 01:08:11 +0000 http://skunkadelia.com/?post_type=product&p=4747 Galen i111 https://skunkadelia.com/works/galen-i111/ Wed, 19 Oct 2016 04:13:45 +0000 http://skunkadelia.com/?post_type=product&p=4685 Roy i101 https://skunkadelia.com/works/roy/ Wed, 19 Oct 2016 03:59:16 +0000 http://skunkadelia.com/?post_type=product&p=4682 Bobbles i140 https://skunkadelia.com/works/bobbles/ Tue, 04 Oct 2016 05:02:16 +0000 http://skunkadelia.com/?post_type=product&p=4619 Karl i288 https://skunkadelia.com/works/karl/ Thu, 29 Sep 2016 05:32:27 +0000 http://skunkadelia.com/?post_type=product&p=4560 contact me. 3 lbs. 12 oz. 15 x 8 x 5 in.]]> Melanie i255 https://skunkadelia.com/works/melanie-i255/ Thu, 29 Sep 2016 04:55:59 +0000 http://skunkadelia.com/?post_type=product&p=4557 Jeff i274 https://skunkadelia.com/works/jeff/ Thu, 29 Sep 2016 02:39:11 +0000 http://skunkadelia.com/?post_type=product&p=4539 Monk i281 https://skunkadelia.com/works/monk/ Thu, 29 Sep 2016 01:39:43 +0000 http://skunkadelia.com/?post_type=product&p=4525 Edvard i290 https://skunkadelia.com/works/edvard/ Wed, 10 Aug 2016 22:32:59 +0000 http://skunkadelia.com/?post_type=product&p=4368 Rafe i285 https://skunkadelia.com/works/rafe-285/ Mon, 25 Apr 2016 15:59:25 +0000 http://skunkadelia.com/?post_type=product&p=4251 Nels i261 https://skunkadelia.com/works/nels/ Mon, 14 Sep 2015 21:05:15 +0000 http://skunkadelia.com/?post_type=product&p=3845 Lyle i243 https://skunkadelia.com/works/lyle/ Fri, 12 Dec 2014 05:15:00 +0000 http://www.skunkadelia.com/?post_type=product&p=2832 Gil i244 https://skunkadelia.com/works/gil/ Thu, 11 Dec 2014 15:22:48 +0000 http://www.skunkadelia.com/?post_type=product&p=2804 thirty bicycle parts, four hole saws, nut, bolt, washer, copper flashing, bronze, steel 2lbs, 2oz. 14.5"]]> Brad i240 https://skunkadelia.com/works/brad/ Mon, 24 Nov 2014 20:31:17 +0000 http://www.skunkadelia.com/?post_type=product&p=2725 twenty-three bicycle parts, two u-lock theft protectors, four drill bits, two flooring nails, wing nuts and miscellaneous hardware. Serial number: 141119 M240 Born: November 19, 2014 Height: 15 inches Weight: 1 lb, 4 oz.]]> Bill i239 https://skunkadelia.com/works/bill/ Mon, 24 Nov 2014 17:50:55 +0000 http://www.skunkadelia.com/?post_type=product&p=2739