I was watching My Neighbor Totoro the other day when I had a terrible idea.
“Welcome to another fun-filled day with your favorite pet.
Here comes Garfield!” And that’s the joke.
That’s the whole video really. Five seconds of research later,
I learned that this joke had already been done dozens of times over the
last decade by many talented Garf Artisans. So this video doesn’t even need to exist.
Unless… I mean…
My PEZ drawer is getting pretty full and in need of a good culling.
So for the health of the PEZ population, let’s do it.
Out of these three Garfs… “How are you feeling today?”
These two are more excited than I’ve ever been in my life.
But this one has the correct amount of smug. Cat portion complete.
Then for the bus, I’m using this empty bottle, but it has way too much neck.
It’s also too wide, so I need to surgically remove the midsection
using these decepticon-looking scissors that have a serrated edge for gripping Catbus flesh.
This is a much better size. Plus, when it comes together… A cute little heart!
As I was cutting out the window holes, I started to notice some drawbacks with this plastic.
The more material I removed, the less structural integrity it had until it became a warbled mess.
Purr-fect. But maybe I can salvage it.
Let’s get a coat of Garfield orange on there to see what we’re working with and no.
The drag coefficient is too high for this lumpy box.
But don’t throw it away, just put it in the bin of things you promised you’ll use one day.
Catbus has a streamlined caterpillar shape,
so let’s try that again. And while I enjoy repurposing
plastic bottles when I can, I didn’t have any with aesthetic caterpillar curves, so instead,
we’re building the Catbod out of thick cardstock. I sketched and trimmed out the bus facade.
Then duplicated it.
Before adding the roof, I’m loosely assembling the floor with a couple temporary globs of hot
glue that provide exactly enough stability to attach the rest of the catbus sides.
But I can’t fully seal this nugget, because we need to rip him open to add seating.
The guts of garfield will be coffee stirring stick stomach lining.
Which I’m gluing down to make the wood floor. To build the bus benches,we need some special.
Can you guess what’s in my hand? Yep, horseshoes.
And my other hand? Yep, more horseshoes?
And my other hand? Yep, soggy lump of clay.
A perfect little pea of air-dry clay squished into each horseshoe converts them into seat backs.
Then the horseshoes are squished into a clay snake to make a luxurious four-seat sofa.
After a sloppy coat of yellow for the bench and a sloppy stain for
the wood floor, I’m assembling the interior.
Now set that aside because it’s time to add the fur flesh to the exterior.
Using tacky glue, I’m attaching a few skin grafts of air dry clay all over the body.
But before the clay has time to try into a crisp exoskeleton, it needs some fur.
I’m using my cat fur texturing tool to engrave Garfield’s body into a ragged shag carpet.
Then some isopropyl alcohol to smooth out the especially ragged areas.
For the destination sign on the front of Catbus, I’m using this shelf assembly peg.
Then blending it into the
bus with more clumps of clay cat flesh. Then using a pin vice, I’m experiencing
some traumatic déjà vu as I drill into the hind quarters of this multi-limbed creature.
This hole is for mounting a skewered sausage… Which will serve as Garfield’s shaggy corn dog
tail that’s blowing in the wind as his many legs carry him forward at frightening speed.
Hey, remember this? Get a good look
because we’re hiding it away forever. Now let’s get ready for lots of legs.
And I hear you asking. Studson, why are you making
two centipede videos in a row? Firstly, I am not above
beating a dead horse centipede. But more importantly, Garfield isn’t a centipede.
He’s an arachnid. Well I mean, technically,
Garfield isn’t bound to any corporal form, if you’ve ever found yourself succumbed to the dark
power of the “I’m sorry, Jon” subreddit. But we won’t get into that.
Eight-legged Garfield is a nice low calorie curse for today.
I mixed up a batch of mac n’ cheese orange to match the PEZ head.
Then used a brown wash to soak into those fur crevices.
After some classic stripes decorating his long spine and strong thighs,
the cat components are complete. But what about the mouse components?
Using a few lumps of clay, I squished them together until I had a family of mice.
These make up the headlights and taillights of Catbus.
But the important question is, do you think these are two seperate creatures sharing
a symbiotic relationship? Or are the mice an evolved
appendage that grew from Catbus? Important things to think about.
Then lastly, we need a destination. Start by fully botching
any hope for legible handwriting. Then redeem yourself by trying once more.
I’m sorry, Jon, but it’s time to catch the bus.
Jon may be a pushover, but he’s not spineless. Though, we need to hunch his posture slightly.
WIth a hunk of Jon flesh, I’m building up Mr. Arbuckle from the ground up.
A couple beans for his loafers. Unremarkable cylinders for his slacks.
A set of tiny pert cheeks. Then I wrapped his torso
in a slab of clay, which gets dressed up slightly with a tiny hem around the waist
and a collar around his nonexistent neck. His arms are two more unremarkable cylinders,
but this time capped with fancy cuffs. And then because Jon is a professional
cartoonist and his hands are his livelihood, his hands must be anatomically correct and
beautifully sculpted, which they are and I did. Just look at that accuracy to the source material.
Then I baked his body, along with a bunch of eyeballs.
Jon’s head is a bartlett pear and his eyes are two russet potatoes of different sizes.
And with all the extra eyes you made just in case,
toss those into the corner of your bits box where you’ll never find them again.
Then smush on the ears and briefly appreciate how you’ve sculpted Wallace.
But Jon needs hair. So let’s give him a
full pass of hair plugs on his scalp. But there’s a serious problem here.
He’ll be soaked to the bone if he isn’t holding an umbrella.
I’m using a piece of armature wire to make the pole of the umbrella.
Then wrapped a new noodle arm around it,
using the old ragged shreds of flesh from the previous arm to help the new arm grip on to.
Then it was time to paint. I really wanted a nice,
clean paint job, so I made sure to smooth out Jon with rubbing alcohol before baking.
Except on that eyeball where I wanted a huge pronounced fingerprint.
I painted up Jon’s baby blue the shirt, then contemplated
not painting the pants for a breezy look. But Jon strikes me as a nevernude.
For Jon’s face, I jabbed him in the eyes a bunch of times for the pupils,
but somehow when I attempted the mouth and nose, he ended up looking like some kind of dog boy.
For the umbrella, I sculpted an octagon onto a pre-existing junk dome I had lying around,
then shielded Jon before the storm of gloss mod podge came raining down.
Speaking of rain, we need some sloppy wet earth for Garfield to tromp through.
Starting with a piece of XPS foam. Did I bite this at some point?
Using a hot wire foam tool, I’m sculpting out a dirt road that looks heavily used,
including several lines of tire treads to indicate where vehicles may have driven down this road.
Then for the side of the road, a rock to add some natural texture.
Since this is going to be such a moist scene, it’s time to fully seal this road from the
elements with mod podge and black paint before mixing up a batch of wet, wet mud.
And please send me your condolences for having to watch many clips of Garfield and Friends in
order to find this one sloppy clip, even though it was a hell of my own creation.
This fresh, wet spread was a bit too good at filling the gaps in this board…
So I made sure to re-engrave the vehicle lines and pre-squish in the craters for
Garfield’s and Jon’s final feet placements. After letting the mud dry, it was looking too dry.
Especially for what’s meant to be a wet and rainy day.
A full seven coats of high gloss glaze later, it finally looked wet enough.
Plenty wet to be an environment where static grass can flourish on the sides of the road.
This grass will be somewhat sparse and patchy though,
because the bulk of the biomass will be various bushes and trees.
Adding the greenery is always my favorite part of a project, but this time it had
the added benefit of distracting me from thinking about Garfield for a little bit.
But after finishing up the mod podge puddles, I was once again confronted with him.
I glooped up his foot holes with fresh mud to hold him in place.
Then cemented Jon in a fearful limbo starring down his inevitable transportation.
Speaking of, we need a bus sign, which I made from a metal wire, an earring back, and a shelf peg.
Then placed it behind Jon as a reminder that this is a real place and not his nightmare.
The last thing this rendezvous needs is a few trees.
I made a few broccoli shaped boys off camera, then planted them behind Garfield.
If you weren’t a fan of Garfield Catbus today, then good, me neither.
But I should also let you know that I’m going to be flying for a little while, so until then…
Thanks for watching, thanks for all the support on Patreon,
including these shoutouts, now roll the beauty shots.