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T4TM (Theseus4TheMinotaur)

lost wax cast bronze, patina & paste wax

2023

(process photos & info under cut <3)

my minotaur boy!! pls click on the photos for higher res! my thesis is focusing on trans men and creatures (how original ik) and this was last semester's final. i spent a lot of time looking at sculptures of the theseus/minotaur story, and yknow? a LOT of them are erotic! i'm pretty sure i saw some of them on tumblr a decade ago, and that's led to this now!

as you'll notice, the minotaur has a big t-dick! i wanted to give him breasts and an enlarged clitoris to present a very masculine trans figure. the boy on the bottom is also trans because i say so . the piece is about looking up to older, bigger, hairier trans men and seeing something awe-inspiring and beautiful. the minotaur was locked up by a cruel father for being different, and i think modern adaptations tend towards a sympathetic asterion (his name in one version)

making this piece was. so much effort. it took me about 3 months to get it all together - from clay model (plasticine) to 3D print to silicone mold to wax cast, and finally bronze pour into the shell mold. and then a TON of filing, sanding, dremel-ing, and various other metalworking techniques that probably took years off my life.

i started with sketches and made theeeeeee ugliest model ever:

then used a 3D scanner to get it digital, then spent a goooood month or two making him pretty in blender! then i spent an agonizing few weeks trying to get it print-ready, and fiiiiiinally did

^^^ an early resin printed draft of the model - you can see in the final that i added lots to theseus after some feedback, but sadly the nosering broke off every time i cast it so i just. let that be <3

then came the moldmaking, and then the wax dipping!! the yellow stuff is shell mold (ground up ceramic bits and algae soup, sticks to the wax, then silica sand in varying sizes on top) which gets the wax melted out, and bronze poured in!

then it's all metalworking, cutting stuff off, and working with hot metal. they don't tell you about all the bronze dust and how annoying it gets wearing a respirator AND goggles. but it is for me health, me boy. here's him all cleaned up before the patina:

and then i spray him down with various chemicals to make it "patina" (aka rust) in pretty colors. wait a few days, then apply paste wax to seal it and give it that shine!

then we get what you see above!!! the blue was actually unintentional, and i'm still not super sure why it looks that way.. but it's pretty so idc <3

thanks for reading!! if you ever have any bronze/casting questions, don't hesitate to message me! <3

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I present to you...

PREGNANT XEMNAS

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Some 'Nort sketches today 💛

Xemnas, Ansem, and Xigbar.

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Can whoever keeps placing cones on the Ephemer statue’s head please stop. This is the third time the guards have had to take it down this week

(Brain thought he needed a hat)

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parasite

"...the horror of being made so perfectly for fitting within someone else that you lose everything you are and become unrecognizable."

(text used with permission from headspace-hotel's recent post about symbiosis and parasitism) | (detail close-ups here and here)

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somehow it is vastly easier for me to draw xigbar if it's not supposed to be canon xigbar. anyway here he is in an au my partner and i are developing. smile

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as you can see, i keep drawing him in a certain way

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Kingdom Hearts is a series about autistic people traumatizing their children, who are also autistic, and almost destroying the world, only to be stopped by a bunch of AuDHD bisexual teenagers and also Mickey Mouse is there. And Axel.

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Because I grew up playing Kingdom Hearts I can't play a video game without subtitles

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This is how the cutscene went, right?

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OH SHIT THIS VIDEO TOO

watch this video. watch it. do it. you want to watch it. ooowaaoaowww you want to watch it so bad

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（full）

collecting hearts for org13(?)