Nest Egg Bank Finished

As mentioned a few days ago, I was working on an Egg Bank to save up a bit of coin for my little indulgences.
I finished off the nest with some paper mache sticks, which are very easy to make.
I found a paper mache site with tutorials and tips, and one stuck out for my project at hand, here's the link.
Making a slab, then cutting it into strips and rolling it between my hands gave a great shape and texture.

I gave the nest about 5 washes of varying browns, blacks and even a lighter shade of flesh tone, then wiped off excess with paper towels. In hindsight,  should have painted the base first before I glued the tops layers on. There were dozens of little spots that I couldn't reach with my brush, so I ended up almost pouring the wash into the nest and swishing it around.
The egg was just the paper mache balloon that was painted white, a hole cut into the top for the coins and hot glued to the base of the nest.
When all was finished, I sprayed it with a finishing spray I had. It wasn't until I let it dry that I remembered that it was a high gloss spray. I think I'll pick a matte finish this week and re-spray the whole thing as the shiny-gloss kind of detracts from the finished piece.
Now, I guess it's time to start filling it with my spare change and dread the day I have to break it to get into it.

Egg Bank

I started making eggs so that I'd have some base forms to build the dragon head up from the basic 'deer' shape that I began with. However, since I had to wait for one thing to dry before I could go to the next step, I started sketching out another idea: A nested egg for a coin bank.

I've always loved the idea of a piggy bank, one that you can't get into, rather you have to break it to get what's inside.
I've been wanting a projector for a long time as we only have a 17" tv in the living room. Now, since we only have about 20 hours/week to actually watch TV, we can't justify spending $600 for one for such a small amount of time.
A projector however, will suit our needs of having a big screen for the times we want to watch Epic movies and my love of playing my RPG's on a big screen, as well as  using it for sketching out sets and backdrop designs.
So, this little project is something of the child of the Dragon Trophy.
I started off with a paper mache'd balloon for the egg shape. As you can see from the sketch above, I needed a nest for it. I've always responded well to visible reminders, so a bank of this scale should only meet with success.
I built the nest out of some crumpled up newspaper, shaped with masking tape and formed into a ring. I made a base from a leftover prototype of foamcore for a set I made a few weeks ago. I used masking tape to rough the whole thing together, then paper mache'd the whole thing into one unit.

Then I added 'sticks' made from rolled paper mache clay. Let's just say that individually, they had more of a likeness to 'cat poop'' than 'sticks'.

Right now, the pieces are drying. The next step is to wash the nest with a black acrylic paint wash, then highlight with various browns, and add some real sticks and pieces of twine to fill up the space. The egg itself will just require a simple sanding and a paint job.
More to come.