My inspiration as metal artist, is a futuristic armored form with sci-fi aesthetics, which highlight the beauty of insects through industrial materials, reflecting craftsmanship, texture, and light interplay on metallic surfaces.
To make this Buzz Beetle Fighter ,I applied various disciplines such as sand casting, repousse technique and flat metal fabrication.This sculpture took 200 hours to make.
This is the basic planning stage, starting with a drawing.
I pierce out a plate of 1 mm brass. Then I repoussé with a hammer and a bowl of pitch, a concave line through the middle.
I solder first one side.
Once the other side is soldered in I file concave shapes, repeating the pattern on the beetle body.
Making the concave semi-tubing to close up the top body.
Ok, the body top is closed.
I make the templates for the wings and cut them out of brass and copper.
I cut the wings from two pieces of 1mm thick brass plate.
The surround is made from 1 mm copper plate.
I attach the wings to the body with placer screws.
First, I make a plastic model of the legs and then I sand cast them into brass.
I start finishing off the individual parts.
All four legs are sand cast and the front feelers are filed out of 6mm brass stock with a steel point fitted in the front.
Adding spikes and fangs for the mouth parts of the Buzz Beetle fighter. Made of glass, iron and silver.
Buzz Beetle Fighter ready to go do battle.
Building the display background using amethyst, malachite eggs and gold painted stones.
