Winter mod winner.

Today I talk briefly about my final ‘winter mod competition’ entry. (Bare with me because as I type this it is Thursday night and I have had a few to drink!)

When I saw that the theme for the competition was winter I asked both my fiancé and little brother for input. We were bouncing ideas to each other when my 8 year old brother Jamie jumped up and said “Do a bear with his tongue stuck to some ice’. Well to me that sounded like a bloody good plan, it suited the theme and was a simplistic and yet humorous idea.

Now I had already created two mods as you all know and I was running out of both steam and ideas at this stage so I decided that this bear was going to be my last attempt at the competition. That in mind I decided I was going to go more complex than ever before, and so it began.

The bear is actually made up from 4 different bears. The body is from Fred; the head from Tex, Hairdryer from Singeon and the hand was from some random bear I cannot recall. I was not happy to just use the pieces in there current state so the hairdryer was repainted and placed in an opposite hand to that Singeon uses and Fred’s jumper was painted in some more festive colours. Making the hairdryer fit a random hand was a tricky task but with some filing and sanding I got there in the end.

Tex’s head was just perfect for licking ice but first I needed to make something that resembled ice. I am sure I’m not the only one who has had their tongue stuck to a pole, be it a lamppost, climbing frame or anything else of that nature. (Perhaps I’m very much mistaken? Please do let me know). Anyway from past traumas, lol, I decided to make a frosty pole. This was made from two lollypop sticks glued end-to-end!

I mocked all the pieces up before gluing them so that the hairdryer and face were perfectly positioned around the pole. Once the pieces had set I got my (not so) trusty spray snow back out. Having just spent 2 hours painting the bear the thought of covering it from head to toe in cheap, fake snow from the pound shop was daunting at first but it turned out well in the end. Sometimes you just have to bite the bullet.

So that the snow would not rub off I gave the bear a blast of lacquer to seal in all my hard work.

I finished the bear 2 days before the closing date and submitted my entry, which went down well, and a few days later I found out that I was one of the 3 lucky winners! I was over-the-moon; in just 3 months I had gone from creating my first ever mod to winning a competition that in all honesty I thought I would not stand a chance at. All the submitted bears were fab in my opinion!

Anyway, part of the prize was a heap of damaged bears and I knew I would be able to put them to good use. Firstly though I wanted to try my hand at creating some ‘home-brew metallic bears’. All will be explained tomorrow, but for now I have a few more drinks with my name on them! ;)


Have a good un’