McDonaldland

It was time to take another crack at making a merry-go-round, so this time I chose McDonaldland as the theme (the last merry-go-roun was a Sleepy Hollow/fall theme).

Most of this merry-go-round was made on the wood lathe, with the exception of the holes which were made by my new drill press. The base is made from a thin, but hard and smooth sheet of particle board, stained a dark walnut color with red felt on the bottom. It has a small peg sticking up in the middle that the platform balances on. The two levels are not fastened together and can be separated.

The platform level is made from a pine board that was turned round and smoothed out on the lathe. I wanted the platform to be green to resemble the lush green foliage of McDonaldland. Just like the green shrubery that the hamburgers grow on! First I painted the platform with an even coat of leaf green paint, applied a wash of dark green, and then a final wash of very watered down black.

For the middle post I wanted something a little more interesting than just a plain old column sticking up out of the middle, so I came up with what you see here! The little burger guy makes a nice knob for turning the merry-go-round.

After making the merry-go-round, it was time to make a brand new Ronald McDonald. This little guy was actually very time consuming to make! Ronald is wearing the outfit that he wore back in the '70's and '80's, and his pose is based on the pose of the statue that you see in the bottom picture. As you can also see in one of the pictures, Ronald's head is able to turn.

Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker

It had been a while since I had made any Star Wars characters, so I decided it was time to add a few more to the collection. While still based on the look of the Lego figures, I have started to move away from that look a bit more. The costume designs of these characters, as well as the hair styles are more based on movie referance pictures rather than on the Lego characters. For these two figures, I decided to give them rounded shoulders rather than the sharper angled shoulders that were used on some of my previous Star Wars figurines.

This is actually the third Luke Skywalker that I have made. I wasn't really satisfied with the first two, but I like this one. I added touches of gold paint in his hair that look really nice when the sunlight hits them.

For Obi-Wan Kenobi, I was planning on adding a hood made out of felt, but I was not able to find the right shade of brown that would match with the paint. Oh well. He's good enough!