Is It Just Me, or Does the Clown Taste Funny? Honest to God my first commission to create a vulture was by and for a lawyer who worked as a lobbiest at the state legislature. Other lawyers saw it, and soon I was getting commissions to create various one of a kind and multple emsembles of vultures for wills and estate planning lawyers, and so on. One private client, not a lawyer, had all the land around his house bought up by a country club focused on building a golf club community. The show he was not a golfer nor part of the golfing community, the client had me create a driveway entrance that stood in great contrast to the average cement pineapple, eagle or lion. I made five steel vultures tearing apart a dead garden gnome assembled at the head of his driveway.
Vultures with thought balloons SOme of the clients wanted vultures with "thought balloons" those round areas for captions in cartoons. I made the thought balloons out of steel painted with flat chalkboard paint. The lawyers could write and erase any sort of thought or message the vultures,or the lawyers, had.
Only one client wanted a vulture in flight, circling over something about (I presume) to die. All the vultures are made of scrap steel. The bodies are made from freon gas cans (used to recharge air conditoning units; the legs and toes are made from steel tube; steel rebar and cut nails. The neck is old springs and the wings scrap sheet steel. I hand forge the heads and texture them with welding bead and thin welding rods.
The wholepiece is primed in black alykyd resin outdoor metal priming paint and then the colors added using sign painters' enamels. If the client is willing to bear the extra expense, I recommend a clear sealing coat.
The eyes are simply plastic dolls' eyes. Your free, fun fact for the day: vultures' only natural defense when threatened besides fling away is to projectile vomit in its enemy's face. Lawyers love it when I tell them this....
