Merry Christmas everybody!

Every season, since 1998, I've been coming up with a new Simpsons Christmas card to give to all my friends and relatives. Everyone always looks forward to getting one and see what I came up with this time! This year is the very first time I've put one up on the web for everyone to see. Some day they will probably all be up here. Here is this year's card.

May your season be merry, may your new year be even better than last year, and may God continue to bless us, everyone one!

-Lance

Snoopy (WWI Flying Ace)

My good buddy Kurt has a pilot's license and flies planes (real and model) and is a big aviation buff, so for his birthday one year I made him this Snoopy sculpt.

Pretty basic setup... I did the doghouse first and then put Snoopy on top after he was finished. His arms have small armatures in them but that's about it. The doghouse is solid. Snoopy didn't take me that long to finish. The hardest part was matching Snoopy's classic grimace in his face and making it work from every angle!

His scarf has wires running through it. This gave it support to make it sturdy but also doubled as the yarn in the end of the scarf.

I left this one unpainted because Kurt is an artist himself too. In fact these pictures were taken at his desk when he was doing storyboards for Warner Bros. Kurt really got a kick out of it.

Thank you Mr Schulz for giving us Snoopy and all his pals. You are very missed down here.

BILL from SchoolhouseRock!

"Bill" from the old SchoolhouseRock! cartoons is another costume I came up with for Halloween. He was just a big sheet of thick foam-rubber, glued together in the right places. The pupils in the eye piece have black nylon behind them so I could see out. The eyepiece is Velcro-ed onto the foam and I cut a square out behind it so I could see through the pupils. The nose was a small sheet filled with stuffing and pulled through a slot in the foam. I put a piece of wire into his top corner to curl it over a little, like Bill's did in the cartoon.

The bill badge was a piece of cardboard covered in fabric and attached to the sash. I wore long underwear underneath to keep everything white. The eyebrows and mouth were simply thick pipe-cleaners I pressed into the foam. The brows wiggled a little when I moved!

The briefcase turned out pretty cool! I bought a case at the Salvation Army and then glued foam-core on it to make the brass buckled and locks. Then I painted it the right colors. To make it look really cartoon-ey, I painted a thick black outline on every edge of the case. I worked pretty good.

The BILL costume was really comfortable to wear too. It was really easy to dance in! That looked pretty funny by the way. People would come and talk to you over the top of it. You couldn't take a leak in it though... well not in public anyways- WHAT!? ... guess it could use an upgrade.



Bill's resting place in my garage. He has yellowed over the years. Now he looks more like a parchment bill... or law!

"Ohhh Yeah...!"

Bugs Bunny

Bugs was a gift for my Dad the following Christmas after I gave Ariel to Mom. Like me, my father loves cartoons and Bugs Bunny was always one of our favorites. I picked a moment from the opera spoof "Rabbit Of Seville". The pose wasn't too hard, but what was difficult was nailing Bugs Bunny's attitude as well. I wanted him to look like he did at the end when he says "...Next!"

I used the technique of making a poseable armature figure again like I did with Ariel, so I could adjust the pose while Bugs came into being. Of course his ears had armature loops in them to keep them sturdy. His outfit was fun 'cause it had all the barber stuff along with it to figure out. Plus I made a little barber pole out of PVC pipe to put him in opera stage setting.

The comb was the hardest prop to build because of the tiny teeth. I sculpted and baked a rough version of the comb and sanded and filed the teeth in afterward.

The razor was a thin piece of polystyrene that I glued on top of a piece of armature wire. After I painted it silver, the whole thing looked like a straight razor. I was going to give Bugs whiskers, but at the time I couldn't find wire thin enough to pull it off. Everything I tried looked too thick and course, so I left him without them.

I painted his shirt pure white and then mixed a tiny bit of tan into the white to paint his fur. It gave the fur a creamy, off-white color next to the clean white of the outfit. I matched the green tile color right from the cartoon.

Bugs was great fun to sculpt and figure out. My Dad really liked it!

"...Yell and scream and rant and rave!

It's no use! You need a shave!"