My Nerdy Craft Time...

If you get it right away my heart is smiling for you. If not, read on!

I mean I've done some pretty nerdy things in my lifetime, most of them involve Harry Potter... The movies started coming out when I was in high school, so we had a lot of time to be exceptionally nerdy then. But there was also the coal inspired make up look I spent an hour on, just to go see the midnight showing of The Hunger Games movie, which was last year so I would have been well into my 20's at that time, I have no excuse. I could go on, but lets just stop at these examples.

It's no secret to my friends and family that I'm a huge Game of Thrones fan. I thoroughly enjoyed the books, but I completely love the show. Every sunday (when it's on) I watch the new episodes with my equally nerdy friend, and then spend an hour or so discussing it afterwards. It is kind of ridiculous, but we all have our vices right?

When I was browsing the clearance rack at my local craft store, looking for things to decorate my beautiful new zebra print vanity (also painted by me), I came across a plain, unpainted, undecorated bobble head in the shape of a little fox. I needed it immediately. I had no idea what to do with it, but it had to come home with me,. .87 cents later I was on my way. I originally painted it up to be a zombie fox at first. I want to share a general description of me straight from my mom, I'm a little morbid and by a little I mean quite a bit. which is a shocker for most people, because I'm so into glitter and hot pink. Life always tries to stick you in these little boxes eh? 

I actually wonder if I would have changed his eyes if he would have been better to me. Well this is what I ended up repainting. I still have a couple things to finish on him in this picture but I hated it. I couldn't finish it.  

So the zombie fox wasn't doing it for me, it just wasn't turning out the way I wanted it to. I scrapped it thinking I would paint it up like a skeleton. Then the nugget commented on how much my fox looked like a wolf and the idea was planted.

GAME OF THRONES! Of course! How could I have been so blind? Naturally, my fox was a wolf and if it was a wolf it had to be painted as Robb Stark. You know... after he was killed and they sewed his wolf's head onto his body and paraded him around for all to see... Fantastic.
While I scanned pictures of Robb in his battle armor, which I decide he needed to be wearing, I realized something big. That boy didn't have a single direwolf on his armor. Roose Bolton had his flayed man, the Manderly's had their mermaid pinned to their chests, but where was Robb's direwolf!? Sure he had it on some of his more decorative clothing, but none on his battle outfit. I mean, that's probably why he really died, fuck that insult to the Fray's shit, he didn't have family pride. Actually I'm pretty sure in the show his sword has a wolf head pommel, but I still find it weird that he didn't rep his house sigil in battle on his person. 

This was pretty easy to do. It took a couple of days, only because I needed to let the paint dry and because it is about 8 thousand degrees here at the moment. Now, I paint outside because I'm a very accident prone person, I'd much rather spill paint in my garage then in my house on my carpet. But I have a dog and a small person whom I mother, and neither can withstand extreme heat for extended periods of time so we had to make frequent cool down trips inside. Also, I'm not made for the heat. I'm a midwestener for crying out loud, we are made for the cold, not 100 degree temps.

I wanted to make a nice quilted pattern on his armor like Robb has in the show, but my hand proved to be much to unsteady for that. *Sigh* I'll never be a brain surgeon. I suppose I could have still done it, but I didn't like my lines being slightly off kilter at any given moment. I ended up using about 8 colors, Red, Black, White, Silver, Bronze, Yellow, a Terracotta brown, and pink for the tongue. I also used probably 3 brushes for this entire thing, one small, one medium, and a fan brush. So that was nice, there are few things I hate more then having to dirty 80 brushes on one project.  Basically I painted the bottom one color and dotted it to create "rivets", I guessed where they would have had to connect the armor to itself, since I wasn't doing a shadow where they would have melted it together, rivets had to do. I painted the wolf parts a flat gray and then did lighter and darker gray/white fur by using the fan brush. I also made some details with my smaller brush, such as the eyes, lining the mouth, and just dotted to make the teeth. I made the arrows with cut up tooth picks and painted strips of an animal cookie bag. You could do the same with tin foil, the paint doesn't adhere everywhere and you end up with a nice uneven striping effect, you could try to recreated it by hand but it would take you much longer. I put a little super glue on the end of the arrow and pushed it hard onto Robb to get a small raised up area around it. Which I painted red and then added some drippings from the wound. He has a little cloak as well, which I made out of felt. I originally wanted to put an arrow through his arm so it would stick out the back, but it ended up being way too cluttered and took away from his entire design. So I ended up with just 2 arrows. I needed the one in his leg, which is so prominently featured after they've sewn Grey Wind's head to Robb's body, and I know there was one in his shoulder. Obviously in the show, I can't remember if Martin described where exactly Robb was hit by arrows in the book or even if he was shot with arrows.... Dang I need to reread.
I also made him a little crown of galvanized wire (so it would be dull not shiny) and painted flat toothpicks. I wanted it to look rough and crude, Although Robb's crown was described as decorated with runes with black iron swords, I pictured it much more rough and quickly made. I've never worked with wire before, which I'm sure you can tell, but it ended up serving it's purpose. It's not horrible, but it could be better.

I did take the pictures with his cloak on, before I added the arrows, incase you're wondering why it looks different. I tried to get some good angles to show all sides. He's got a tail in back, because my original bobble head was meant to be all animal and not a grisly animal/human.

So that's my nerdy craft project, turning my decorative bobble head into a tribute to our poor dead Robb Stark from Game of Thrones. What about you? Any nerdy craft projects that you're super proud of?  I hope this inspired you to start your very own, to enhance your life and home with something you love!

As always,
Enjoy

*I bought the fox bobble head from Michael's you can find their website HERE and used regular acrylic craft paint, some of which I've had for years so I couldn't tell you exactly where I got them. Most of them were most likely purchased at Walmart and Michael's. If you'd like to know the exact colors I used (as far as names go) shoot me a comment and I'd be happy to let you know. The galvanized wire was purchased at Michael's as well.*