Mysterious Machinery

During this period of time I also worked on my own projects. A lot of my best ideas came to me in the form of images that would just pop into my head. Many times this would happen as I would be falling asleep, a time when the wall between your conscious and sub-conscious mind is low. One such image was of a man turning into a motorcycle. This idea became ‘Iron Horse,’ which of course is a retelling of the Centaur myth. Instead of half man/half horse, we have a half man/half motorcycle blend.

I bought numerous magazines with photos of bikes. I had my trusty book of weightlifters for the figure, as well as the other source material. This was a

Iron Horse, classic sculpture by Bernardo (click to enlarge)

 complicated piece to sculpt and also to mold up. There were molds for the seat, the back suspension/axle, and the muffler as well as the main man/motorcycle mass. Once all the pieces were put together in wax, then the task of gating, or spruing, was required.  Again this was a large and complicated procedure for this sculpture, due to all the various components that needed to be fed with the molten bronze.

Fortunately I had a friend in the spruing/ceramic shell department. His name was Shelton Jacocks Jr. He was a very cool, laid back, black guy. He helped everyone with gating questions and he helped me figure out the best approach with this one.