Fairy on Toadstool
(Alex
de Jong, The Netherlands)
The use of email from the Spanner group is acknowledged
About
nine months ago my wife and I were going to a party and on the way there I had
nothing to do for about an hour. I thought to my self "Let's think of
something to build". A vision came into my head of a fairy sitting on a
toadstool. I thought that that would be very difficult and tried to think of
something else. But the fairy kept lingering in my mind. (I have a fondness of
faerie, fairies, dragons and such things) So it was decided that 'sometime' I
might start on a fairy. On the journey home some details were thought out. We
got home at about 2am and went to bed. While my wife was fast asleep I could
only keep thinking of the fairy. So I went out of bed and stayed up till 4am to
build the first version of the fairy. Right from the start I knew I would build
several models, each one as a study for the next one, learning more techniques
as I went along. That first fairy was mostly axles and brassware (for joints)
and explored the length of arms, legs and torso. Also it featured wings that
would 'flap in sync'. The second model was a Meccano man, built in November
2004. It explored how to build arms, legs and torso which simply looked good. No
wings. This was, thus far, the best looking Meccano figure I had ever seen.
About three weeks ago I started on the other part of the model: the mushroom.
Although it's shape looks quite complex it is fairly easy to build. The most
work was the inside of the hood: 80 curved strips. And while I was up to speed
the third (and current) fairy immediately followed. This time I wanted to get a
more feminine look and used more curved parts as before. E.g. the Meccano man
had a straight back. This fairy is more slender.
