One fun chair!

An old friend contacted me over the Holiday to whip up a fun painted gift for her 10 year old nephew.  I have a 10 year old boy and I know that sometimes, handpainted ideas are not easy to come by for a child of that age.  After all, they have outgrown (most of the time) the love of a cute painted firetruck or dinosaur.  My friend had recently purchased a video game chair/rocker for him... but it had no pizzazz!

Yes, boys like pizzazz too (perhaps they just don't know it)!

So... combining his love of the games both video and local baseball, we came up with the idea of...

The Phanatic Video Rocker

As most of my projects do, I searched an image I felt may work (usually on the cell) and began a light (light) sketch of the image with pencil.  I was so afraid of ripping the chair with the tip of the pencil, but I couldn't find any chalk and I wasn't working from a printed image to just transfer on... if you look hard, you can see the pencil marks for the eye balls below.

Lots and lots of thin thin coats of paint were applied until each was solid  and brightly filled with flat color.  Let me tell ya, the odd shape of the chair made for a few very fun (sense the sarcasm?) hours.

Then the fun began!  Have I ever told you how much I hate the process of blocking in the color? Don't like it... no way no how... I have even thought of having my hubster do the base color blocking for me I hate it so much!  It bores me because I'm the all 'instant satifaction now' type... watching paint dry is kinda like, well, watching paint dry!  But I luv luv luv the detail part.  Can't have one without the other though... 

With a double loaded brush with Kelly and Apple Green I added the 'fur' to the Philly Phanatic.  Shaded and highlighted the red hat, eye balls and blue fuzz above them.  Shoes were added and the jersey was striped with red.

After everything was done and all dry (yea!) the curly red tongue was added.  He cracks me up!

Pardon the paints and Christmas placemats (oh and the ugg-lee drapes)  in the photo but I couldn't wait to get some pics of this guy... so I didn't put much thought into the staging process... (smile)  What's new here, right?

Best part is my son and his friends really seemed to like it so crossing my fingers for a hit with my friend's 10 yr old nephew!

And guess what?  Sports are not just for boys!!!  Here is another customer order for the phanatic, slightly different paint technique, on a wooden rocker... for a girl!  Notice the pink hat (wink wink)  Just wish I would have taken more photos of this cutie with her pink/red.black polka dot arm rests and personalized back.  That's why I was in such a rush to take pics (I get rushed and forget)! 

I am in the process of designing an all new Pary Link page here... I'll be linking to the blogs below and also to those on this page!  Happy Linkin!

Mondays

Tuesdays > Wednesdays Thursdays Fridays Saturday & Sunday