Sunday, April 14, 2013

Arts and Crafts With World Famous Dave Ensign

From the F77 Mailbag:

 " My name is Darlene and I'm stuck on a project. Maybe you handsome men can help me figure it out. I want to build my own F77 WDW Jungle River Cruise Rhino in my backyard but I don't know where to start. Any ideas? Darlene-West Kansas, Missouri."

 Sure thing, Darlene! Just follow these simple steps and you'll be on your way:

 Step 1. Find a nice side view picture of the existing Rhino. Grid it off into neat little squares. Maybe 10 across and 7 down. Whatever looks good to you.


Step 2. Go out and measure the real Audio-Animatronic figure. Height and width. Photograph some of the details while you're at. Don't go too crazy with it though. You're not laser scanning the damned thing. You want to leave some room for your own artistic enjoyment as though you went back in time and are now sculpting the original. Leave room for fantasy! It's great suicide prevention!

Step 3. Order yourself some Styrofoam ( or EPS Expanding Polystyrene). Ask for 4 feet by 8 feet sheets at 6 inches thick. Get 7 or 8 of them. When the truck shows up take the sheets inside your makeshift tent. That way no one will know what you're up to and therefore won't file, yet another, complaint with the Union Office. Keep in mind however that the proof of a good artist is how many grievances he/she has had filed against them in any given month. 47 is a good number.


Go ahead and grid your first Styrofoam sheet according to the dimensions of the Rhino. Loosely sketch the figure in red Sharpy. It has to be red. Why? It looks cool and all official-like. 

Step 4. Cut the shape out, like our artist here, on a shitty band saw until you have an entire 6 inch thick Rhino.



Going by your measurements of the real Rhino, start cutting more layers until you achieve the desired thickness. Glue these layers together with "Great Stuff" expanding foam. You can find it at your local hardware mega store.


Put some weight on the layers while they're drying. Next thing you know, BINGO!, you have a something that's starting to resemble F77.




In 5 days you have a finished Rhino. This concludes day 1. Tomorrow we'll start shaping it. Before you go home make sure you roll that thing back into your tent. You want it to stay nice and dry while goons from lazy areas of WDW take secret pictures of it to use against you. 






1 comment:

  1. Not sure how serious you are with step 2. Most people aren't going to be able to get at the animatronics in the jungle cruise readily- you can't exactly hop out of the boat without 1) Being seen and 2) Getting soaking wet, making it really obvious what you did even if you DO manage to not be seen.

    ReplyDelete