I received a note to my website from Wim van der Wal from Vlissingen in the Netherlands. He asked about plans that I might have as he was eagerly getting into making automata.  After exchanging a couple of emails he sent me this photo of a character he adapted from a plan he bought from Philip Lowndes in England. It was like visiting an old friend. I had purchased the same plan from Philip as I stated on my path. I especially like the way Wim embellished the character with stringy hair and whiskers.  Nice touch Wim.
Vlissingen Nederland

I'm usually very structured when making automata, doing a significant amount of planning for entire piece before I jump into the workshop. This little rat and I have been a different story. If you follow my blog you'll see that the rat, currently known as Norton, is basically completed. However I now find myself locked in front of my PC doing the refinements on the mechanism and supporting structure for the little fellow! There has been a lot of adjustment! The good news its only computer bytes I'm shuffling not blocks of wood. I expect that will come later.

The thing about this part of the work is that the more time I spend in designing the piece the more it develops in theme as well as complexity. I now hope to add a few small rats into the mechanism  clutching money and will be looking to place a small "Rat Vault Co." safe into the piece to collect coins collected by Norton.

Anyway back to my drawing work.....

Al