From Bad To Good

As easy as your first step.

Dasher

Last Christmas, niece Devin's belief in Santa Claus was wavering. In her annual letter to him, she asked for a picture of one of his reindeer. Her parents suspected she wanted proof he exists.

Well, sure enough, on Christmas morning, Devin found a framed photo of Dasher under the tree, with a letter from old St. Nick himself that read

Dear Devin

Thank you for writing. You asked me for a picture of one of my reindeer, although they are very shy and dislike being photographed, I do have one photo of old Dasher as a young buck many years ago that I can give you.

When Dasher was still learning to fly, he would "dash" off in all directions, often landing in odd places. That's how he got his name. In this picture taken by Mrs. Claus, he landed on the workshop roof one day. It's always been one of my favorites. I hope you like it.

Merry Christmas and have a wonderful New Year.
-Santa

Christmas Decorating

I'm hoping to find time and decorate the front yard tree by turning it into a toy making Elf's cottage.

Making a Rooftop Reindeer

Last month I mentioned the chimney reindeer idea I had for the Home & Family show house. Well, he actually did get made, but sadly, it's taken me this long to post about.

Like many of my prop projects, they start with a sketch.

The actual prop build began with a support structure. I mounted a galvanized pipe on a plywood round. On top of the pipe I glued on styrofoam balls and blocked in his basic head shape.

Next, I covered him in good 'ol spray insulation foam.

I added his antlers. They were made from bent pieces of PVC pipe with lengths of thick wire taped on the ends as his antler points.

 Once the foam set up, I carved/sculpted everything into a decent reindeer shape. I also reinforced his antlers wrapping in layers of duct tape, and added small plastic balls to the tips to round them off, plus it gave them a little fun character. Using a sharpie I sketched in where his eyes and nose would be to get a sense of how he might look as I carved.

Using a couple of yards of craft fur, I stretched, pinned, cut and glued on his brown coat first.

 

 His white underbelly was next, also using craft fur. I carved his nose out of styrofoam and glued on.

I painted his antlers a brownish grey. His eyes were two halves of a split plastic round ornament painted black. I used black shoe laces glued on to accent his mouth and muzzle. His ears are heavy card stock cut to shape and sandwiched between glued on craft fur.

Once done, I screwed him onto the house's chimney, which being a TV set is fake and made of wood. I added Santa's bag next to him with a few presents. The antlers were strong enough to simply drape a line of Christmas lights on as if tangled in.

Getting him up onto the roof was an adventure unto itself, and a tale I'll tell another time...