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Automatic - Blog Posts
Some after work Instagram browsing brought up an unexpected gem today as it randomly decided to show me some automatons.
I haven't seen any since childhood, where I vaguely recall them featuring on quirky supernatural or spooky shows as creepy curiosities from time to time.
I hadn't realised that they were still made or indeed that they could be made into such beautiful creations. With serenely swimming whales, cantering horses and fluttering birds & insects.
I decided to see if I could make a basic one using bits and bobs from my room. This ended up including black card, scissors, a bamboo skewer from one of my orchids, wire and wire clippers, a thin cylindrical ice cream stick that I saved from a kulfi, and hot glue and my glue gun.
It took a bit of time to wrap my head around the (admittedly very basic) mechanics and the end result is liable to come apart at the seams if I so much as think about turning the mechanism too vigorously. But I am happy with my first attempt.
If I can figure out how to make a less slap dash mechanism then I might make a realistically painted deaths head hawk moth automaton. I am rearing some caterpillars of this species so I am ever so slightly obsessed with them at the moment. You can see the caterpillars at the top of this post and I don't think I am alone in thinking they are absolutely gorgeous little buggers.
