When I started this build, I had an intricately worked out timetable for building the Jabberwock, bearing in mind I would only be able to work Sunday afternoons and the occasional weekday evening due to real life concerns and the job (as mentioned some time before, when I first agreed to do the build, I didn’t have three foster kids living with me, I had a spare room, and weekday-days off with nobody else around).
The timetable inevitably slipped, but in an unusual nod towards efficiency I’d built-in recovery time. I gave myself a month for the last little bits of and details, and to get it painted, in the warmer, drier weather which comes in April.
Hah.
Hahhahahahaaaaa.
Detail of the interior gubbins of the caterpillar tracks, which would be visible through the various rips and cracks in the plating. As with much of the other detailing the idea was to give a hint of machinery inside, so it was all scrap wood, and rollers from paint tubs, and bits of delivery crates which would form the basis of the mechanical parts.
The caterpillar tracks themselves were represented from cut-up lengths of broom handle and bits of strip wood.
The wings were made from a dead camera tripod, with the material from an equally dead tent which was suitably cut apart (more free stuff from another 'job', in this case from being a Scout Leader).
With time to the exhibition ticking merrily down, the thing was essentially built, and ready for painting... or so I thought...
In a month with many a distraction stopping me getting the painting and final assembly done, and God's apparent weather-based displeasure with the project (it is difficult to spray-paint outside in a gale or snowstorm), I hit the end of the week before the show.
Having been forced to paint most of the bits separately in the cellar, apart from the bits which needed spray painting when I'd managed one dry afternoon outside to get it done (see the separate post on the painting process), I thought I probably ought to actually build the Jabberwock up as a final test.
The plan was that, on the Thursday evening before the show, I would cart all the bits up out of the cellar and bolt it all together, for the final detailing pass and some work with a spray can to bring it all together. A major issue of building a 10ft-high sculpture in an 8ft-high basement is that it couldn't all be put together at once at once. At which point of course the forecast week of hot, dry weather was replaced AGAIN by torrential winter showers, with snow, hail, sleet, rain, and gales.
No test assembly, no final spray painting, but a lot of panic to compensate. But I decided it was the sort of weather it would be enduring anyway, so decided to just get on with it.
Aaaaaaaaand then, at about 11pm on the Thursday, the realisation of yet another major problem; the monster would be, as I’d begun to fear, front heavy, and either topple onto somebody, or dismantle itself.
See, back in the early days of the design, the neck and head were going to be quite lightweight and made from washing line poles, but along the way I realised this would make it too fragile. So I made the head from wood, which increased the forward weight, which meant a wooden neck was needed, which made it still heavier. I also chose to drop the design for the front Cowcatcher, as it would have precluded the whole thing being transported in a single vehicle.
Typically these decisions came back to bite me in the backside, and whilst the sculpture wasn’t about to topple over or anything without provocation, it did mean that if some little darling decided to grab the neck and hang onto the Jabberwock, the sculpture would probably topple over. Now I’m not adverse to vandals being squashed by giant sculptures they are trying to break, but I suspected it would produce an inconvenient amount of paperwork and trips to the Small-Claims Court.
So on the Friday, with just over 18 hours until installing the work, I fabricated a sturdy box-like structure which was disguised afterwards (with a lot of scrap flexiply) as a cowcatcher, finishing it mere minutes before teatime on the Friday, and leaving it to dry whilst I packed the car.
Somewhat out of sequence, but I was so panicking about building and painting the cow-catcher/support that I quite forgot to photograph it under construction As can be seen, it is basically a box with a long base which could be hidden, supporting the weight of the whole sculpture on the front.
Oh and due to a piffling miscalculation about the calendar, the lease on the small Skoda was now up and the car had gone back to the dealership (to be sold on to the next poor sod who hadn’t realised what my regular speed-bump-laden commute to the Day Job had done to the suspension). This meant that Amy and all her sculptures were going to need to be fitted into the car as well as the Jabberwock, the Rocking Horse Fly pieces, the Cheshire Cat, the toolbox, some framed prints, and more besides. Happy, we were not. Luckily, Father in Law offered to help drive, in his Bigger Skoda, which gave a little more room for the sculptures, us, and the mass of other stuff we'd be taking with us.
Finally, at around midnight on the Friday, everything seemed as ready as possible...
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