Solomons Island Part 1: Giant Prehistoric Barnacles

Giant Prehistoric Barnacles

I spent most of this past week in Solomons, Maryland with nothing to do except relax, walk around, see the sights, mix it up with the locals, and get some of those delicious Maryland Blue Crabs (my favorite food and pretty much the only left over trace of my having lived in MD until the age of nine). The one attraction that was recommended to me again and again was the Calvert Marine Museum around which these next three quick blog entries will revolve...

Cartoon Math

So I was doing some character study today and it occurred to me that since cartoons usually only have four fingers on each hand, they probably wouldn't have a base 10 math system like we do. Four fingers on each hand would seem to lead to a base 8 system. After a little research **cough** **wikipedia** **cough** I learned that this is called "Octal" (instead of decimal) and has in fact already been used in both real world fictional settings.

Experimenting with Neoprene As Latex Alternative For 'Fitted Masks'

A couple weeks ago I was contacted by David over at Critical Coatings who had seen the neoprene masks on my site and thought he might be able to save me some money on supplies. His prices for the basic Rigid, Semi-Rigid, and Flexible Neoprene formulas beat out those from companies I've used in the past, and his customer service was amazing. We got to talking, and I told David about a new type of mask I was working with called either a 'Fitted Mask' or 'Sock Mask' depending on who you ask. I had been using latex to make the masks, but both David and I were interested in experimenting with neoprene to determine the benefits of using one material versus the other. In the past, I had only used neoprene on the clay-model plaster-cast style hard masks, but love the material & was quite excited at the opportunity.

One of the major problems with the idea of using Neoprene for this application, is that in it's usual form, the material is close to the consistency of water. This is great for making clay-mold plaster-cast 'slip masks', but not so much for this type. The Latex I had been using is roughly the consistency of pudding, and is perfect for being both spreadable and absorbable into the nylon and other materials being used. So David whipped me up a batch of what we're calling 'Viscous Neoprene' using specially designed thickeners to achieve the proper consistency.