Willy Wanka - Part One.

Today I want to talk about the bear I have been working on the longest, Willy Wanka.

Willy Wanka is still a work in progress so this post will probably be one of two and I will update again once the mod is complete.

So, a good friend of mine on the forum had an idea for a Willy Wonka inspired bear and with the obvious word play I just had to run with the idea. I started with a Willy who had no feet and a Sticky Wicket bear. The Willy had the perfect jacket and the Sticky Wicket bear had the perfect jumper but merging the two was going to be a right ball ache!

I decided Willy’s lower half was also perfect for my mod so cut his legs off and then cut the legs from Sticky Wicket for a quick swap. This obviously cut Willy’s jacket in half though! I hollowed the remaining piece of jacket so that the mod could sit back into it and this left a 1.5 cm gap in the middle that I had to rebuild from clay. That was not an easy task but I got there in the end. Whilst the clay was out I also blended in the new legs.

I made a stick of rock and glued it into a hole I had drilled in the bear’s groin. The bear’s hand was in the perfect position for ‘cupping’ this and the other hand was perfect for holding a chocolate bar. I made a Wonka bar by printing a label, laminating it and then built up the thickness of the chocolate bar with some card that I later painted. I also added some tin foil to the bar so that it looked opened.

The bear had now got its candy but my bear had no feet! I had a William and Pip ‘Red hot pussy’ bear and decided that the grass looked like the magical edible World that the characters walked into in the film. I had to rearrange the feet positioning on this and then re-glue them into place before moulding my mod onto them. I also drilled out a chocolate pool for the bear to stand in. I am sure that I am making it sound easier than it was, lol! :)

I then decided the grass needed some props so I added a watering can that I had repainted and varnished so that it looked shiny and decided I needed more sweets. Now at this point I started to use something that I had never used before called ‘fimo’. I had used fimo in the past to make handmade jewellery, and it is polymer clay that you then bake in the oven. I made some gobstoppers from blending purple and orange and some lollypop sweets that I glued onto cut pieces of cocktail stick! Again I gave these a shiny finish.

Finally my bear was ready for paint and I spent my time making sure I did not rush this process. I decided the bear needed a mucky grin that I like. I am very happy with my bear so far but he is still missing a bow and top hat. I did try making these items but failed. (If anybody has a spare damaged Magica then please let me know as I think his hat will suit my mod a treat!)

Lying awake a few weeks ago I had an idea for a second bear, … an Oompa Dumpa! What else would an Oompa Dumpa do than make his very own chocolate bars! (The finest and creamiest quality of cause!) Hehe! :)