Stupid
I "fake-joined" the I Love Disney Swap at Craftster, which simply means that, while you still have to follow the rules for said event, instead of actually exchanging the items that you made with another member, you're creating them for yourself. The deadline was September 17th, but, as I've been super lazy and irresponsible as of late, it took me more than two months after that date to get anything accomplished.
The object of said swap was to make a couple of Disney-themed crafts (one medium, one small), and, for the larger project ("bigger" being quite relative in my case), I decided to make another one of the weasels from Disney/Touchstone's 1988 hybrid live-action/animated film Who Framed Roger Rabbit? I don't care what Wikipedia says about their solitary nature, cartoon weasels are social animals and the Wheezy figure I made last year was getting lonely.
Like the rest of Judge Doom's infamous Toon Patrol (Smarty, Greasy, Psycho, and Wheezy comprise the rest of the quintet), Stupid (voiced by Fred Newman) is a dangerous and unpredictable fellow. While the Toon Patrol were the law enforcement of Toon Town, in actuality, its weasel members were hopelessly corrupt and much worse than any criminals that they were supposedly "protecting" the animated populace from. As they're cartoon characters, real world physics and consequences often don't apply to them; for example, the five hooligans are virtually immune to serious physical injury (i.e., a bonk on the head results in pain and circling stars, but this "harm" is only temporary and more for comedic effect than anything else). That said, the weasels all share a fatal weakness--a bout of uncontrolled and prolonged laughter will result in death and literally giving up their ghosts, as such, the weasels must try to avoid chuckle-inducing jokes and humorous situations, which, considering their own slapstick antics, not to mention the general goofiness of the rest of Toon Town's denizens, is much easier said than done.
As his namesake indicates, Stupid is mentally-challenged and rather child-like, so, he's not terribly effective without one of his nasty comrades keeping an eye on him and directing his activities and, even then, Stupid often still manages to mess up whatever he's been ordered to accomplish. For example, in close quarters combat, he's just as likely to accidentally whack one of his weasel buddies with his spiked baseball bat than his intended victim(s) and your average person would find it very easy to confuse and/or outsmart him. Left to his own devices, it's even possible that this critter might not be all that malicious--as Stupid seldom thinks for himself, this simple weasel is very much a product of the very bad company that he associates with.
Below are a series of photos depicting several stages of the papier-mâché modeling process over the first two days of work:
Here's the finished product. There are some minor imperfections here-and-there (small bumps and depressions on the figure's surface for example), and, were I to re-do things, I would probably change some of the paint colors I used (lighter gray or white stripes on the T-shirt and tan instead or orange on the belly/face), but, overall, I'm pretty happy with how Stupid turned out. Over time, perhaps I'll end up making the complete Toon Patrol quintet someday . . .
Materials:
Newsprint (since the election is over, I recycled my copy of the League of Women Voters Voter Guide newspaper into a weasel, which, considering who won the presidency, is entirely appropriate in my opinion), tissue paper, a Tractor Supply Labor Day sales advertisement (I used this to decoupage the blue shirt and shoe stripes, because I really didn't want to go through the trouble of masking to paint those), white glue, acrylic paint, and wire twist ties (internal support for the thinnest projecting bits that are most likely to break, namely the beanie propeller, untied shoelaces, and nail in the baseball bat).
Dimensions:
4.2 cm (1.7") wide x 8.9 cm (3.5") tall x 5.1 cm (2.0") deep.
Time:
Three days: November 25th, 27th, and 28th, 2016.
12/1/16 Addendum: Believe-it-or-not, I just happened to find and purchase a vintage 1987 Canasa Trading Corporation plush Roger Rabbit figure at a thrift store a scant two days after completing Stupid (and for a mere twenty-five cents to boot). What are the chances of that? I feel like some ancient Toon Town prophecy has been fulfilled! There's some minor discoloration in his white fur in a few spots (which may wash out, but I haven't had the time to try cleaning him up yet); even so, considering the toy is almost three decades old now, Roger is in surprisingly good shape.
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