A Tuba Playin' Frog has Hopped into My Blog!

Frankie the Frog hopped into my blog to show you how he started out as a watercolor storybook character into a 3-D sculpture. He wants all of his fellow 2-D storybook characters to be inspired by his story of transforming from 2-D to 3-D. Enjoy his inspiring story of transformation!



Welcome to the Lilly Bug Blog! I am Frankie the Frog, here to share my story about emerging into 3-D from the pages of Christine's watercolors. Please feel free to leave your inspiring stories and comments here, we love to hear from you.

One day while Christine was in college, she was working on a series of watercolors for a storybook idea of hers. She worked on some sketches of some musicians practicing for an upcoming surprise birthday party. One of those musicians happened to be me, Frankie the Frog, playing my tuba with my cheeks puffed out, as I put my all into my musical talents.



From the sketch, came the watercolor and after a strong desire to make her storybook characters into a sculptures, Christine was signed up for Sculpture II the following semester. During her first week of sculpture class, she was introduced to a sculpting medium called, Apoxie Sculpt. Things would never be the same from then on.




Christine learned how to make an under-structure to support her Apoxie Sculpt pieces. She used one of her original sketches of me as an aid to shape a wire support as the foundation for my body.



After the wire under-structure was formed, Christine began to use a variety of materials to fill in volume for the shape of my froggy physique. Examples of some of the materials used were, masking tape, string and foil.



And once the layers of those materials were completed, Christine, mixed together the Apoxie Sculpt to cover over all of the volume making materials, so eventually my shape and character came into being.



The photo above shows one of the first layers of Apoxie Sculpt covering the under-structure. Upon looking in the photo archives, Christine could not find very many photos of the Apoxie Sculpt layering/sculpting process of my tuba playin' self. After the first Apoxie layer, came others to give me my own uniqueness, or Frankie-ness, as I like to call it. Once the Apoxie Sculpting was completed, Christine got her handy Dremel power tool to help clean up areas and further define my exterior. No worries, the Dremeling did not cause me an ounce of pain.



After all of the sculpting, sanding, and Dremeling was done, I in all my Frankie-ness, appeared in 3-D, albeit in a neutral gray color. Coming up in the next post, you will see me in living color. Don't miss it!