Tuesday 16 April 2019

New Love Interest? Belmondo Fratinelli


The artistic, charming, and irresponsible Belmondo Fratinelli

It all started off so innocently....

Some time ago I bought a job lot of glass eyes; one I gave to my friend A, who loves all things unusual and macabre, the other two I kept.  Suitably mounted, I thought they might come in handy as a burglar deterrent, don't you know.


Real glass eyes from the 1930s

I was hoping for a facial mask of some sort,with eye-slots.

Then I tripped across this skull, and fell in love!

First up we had a lot of fun with him in the office!  We dressed him up a little, and then skyped all our colleagues who were working from home.


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A hard day in the office...
Then I took him home - the office can buy their own burglar alarm!


He obviously needed some sort of mount.....


 I rummaged around, and found an old wooden tripod, for mounting cameras on.

I decided to mount my skull on it.  It took an awful lot of blue-tack, and a bit of improvisation, but eventually the deed was done.

Next I had to find a way of inserting the glass eyes.  I attached two pieces of a sawed off broom handle into each eye (with, you guessed it, blue-tack), and then (with more blue-tack) stuck the glass eyes on to the other end of the broom handle cut-off.

It looks a little rough and ready, and one eye is deeper in the socket than the other, but that is just what you would expect from a 'walking dead'.


He looked a little bare, so I added a skull-cap.

Of course, a wig could have been used instead

Notice the wooden tripod?

I considered adding eyeglasses, but that seemed overkill.

For the time being Belmondo lives in the Parlour, though how Queen Victoria will take this I hate to think!

And what do you know, later that evening I caught him smoking! 
Don't be fooled by that 'butter won't melt in my mouth' expression! 

All in all I am rather pleased with my new house mate, though he isn't half as scary as I had hoped!

Maybe I need to do something with lights inside the skull?

Or a top hat?  Like Baron Samedi?

PS  No this is not a 'real' skull.  Some art student made it, and then it was purchased by a man with many tattoos, and then I bought it from said man.  He sold it with the skull cap Belmondo wears in the office, but I think he is a little classier than that.