Shannon Larratt is Zentastic

As you know, a while back I slammed my finger in the door of the Mustang (and a ’73 Mach I Mustang has a hell of a heavy door) and for a long time it was black. A few days ago the nail finally fell off and I found myself with only about a half-length nail (click here to see it close-up). Years ago I posted a picture of a fingernail bed tattoo on ModBlog, and more recently Rob posted a picture of Allen Falkner tattooing his. I’m not actually sure if either of these held, but I figured I ought to take the opportunity and try and tattoo mine as well, so today Shane Faulkner of King of Fools did just that.

I used EMLA cream to try and numb the tissue, and while it didn’t completely work, I’m suspecting it helped take the edge off. Either way, it hurt way less than I expected it would. To be honest, wiping it hurt more than the needle, which felt more “strange” than painful. That said, my endorphin response was going nuts from the anticipation of torture. It only took a few seconds so even with more pain I’m sure I would have survived. For aftercare I’ve sprayed it with spray-on bandage (ie. a thin layer of superglue) which I’m hoping will protect it. Still, the safe betting money is on it not surviving.

As a thank-you present I made Shane a skull bowl, casting it in white resin and then filling it with a blood-colored second layer of plastic. I’m waiting for some silicone to come in the mail, but when it finally arrives I’m going to make a really perfect bowl mold. I have a kiln on my dream list and if I do ever get one I’m going to make a series of them out of ceramic. I really need to find someone here in Toronto that wants to manage my online store for me. I’m just so awful at doing reliable fulfillment and then end up feeling horribly guilty for taking so long to send people their stuff.

I probably have to make a new mold from that skull (it’s a teenage Asian girl by the way) anyway, because last night I did an experiment casting in expanding foam and things didn’t go exactly as planned, as you can see — but at least I had the sense to wear gloves this time and not get it all over my skin:

I had high hopes for the material, a self-skinning foam, because I thought I could use it to build the bucket seat for my trike. However, it’s a hard foam, sort of like spray insulation, rather than a soft upholstery or “Nerf” type foam, so it’s not that useful for me. I actually can’t think of anything useful to do with it. I suppose I can use it as filler to stiffen otherwise hollow objects, but I can’t even think of anything that would need that. It does cast quite nicely though, so who knows. Even though that picture above makes it look like a total mess, it still came out alright as you can see below.

My main weekend project is building a shelf for my paints. I’m probably going to make it so it spins, sort of like a small-footprint vertical magazine rack or something. The goal is to have something where all the different paints are easily accessible so I don’t litter the floor with dozens of jars of pain when I’m working on something. But now I’ve got to do a little house cleaning as things have got more than a bit out of hand and I’m risking becoming a murder victim because of it.

PS. I almost forgot the highlight of my day, meeting a baby that was happily amazed at my beard, reaching out to touch it with the most wonderful grin of curiosity. I will spend much time smiling as I remember that moment. You can never go wrong with happy babies.