This painting was done by an artist named “Sandara”. I thought it looked very elegant and was definitely a new take on the Egyptian Sphinx. The frame is made from mild steel angle and flat stock, welded, ground smooth and painted flat black. I hand cut the side accent pieces first from steel flat stock, then a bit smaller from heavy copper and bolted them to the frame. I added three small figures to the bottom, Thoth, on the left, seated Anubis on the right, and the dog Anubis, lying down in the center. At the top is a blue ceramic Scarab beetle, from China, and I modified some brass architectural pieces, mounted on either side of the Scarab, and painted them gloss black.

This picture, by unknown, is of a maquette, or model, of Sauron’s Tower, Barad Dur used in the making of The Lord of the Rings movies. I’ve used mild steel angle, square and flat stock, and burned all the edges with a torch, and rough welded all the pieces together. On both the left and right sides of the frame I added two towers made from various steel shapes and the left one has a pewter door from an unknown artist. When finished I went over the whole frame with a heavy wire wheel.

I made this frame for a poster of the movie of Philip Pullman’s “The Golden Compass”. It was a movie I enjoyed enough to make a frame for one of its promotional posters. I liked the book even better. I was very disappointed when I saw the films were not going to be made for the second and third books in the series, “His Dark Materials”.
The main frame is cut, welded and ground mild steel angle, flat, round and square stock, with brass and copper elements. The matte is copper. The Central “M” at the top center is for the all powerful Magisterium which controls most of Lyra’s world. I hand cut the pieces from sheet copper and brass. At the left side of the frame is a replica of Mrs. Coulter’s “Anbaric Carriage”, by Corgi, with Mrs. Coulter and Lyra getting ready to board along with their daemons. On the right side of the frame is a replica of a “Magisterium Sky Ferry”, also by Corgi, used as a more comfortable form of transportation by Mrs. Coulter. The inset , behind the Sky Ferry, is an image of Lyra’s world seen as they pass over it.
At the bottom I’ve chose to show Iorek attempting to cross an ice bridge to follow Lyra, who’s already made it across before the bridge gave way. On the right is Lord Asriel’s “Intercision Machine” which he used to blast a path into another universe by sacrificing Lyra’s best friend, Roger. Unfortunately Lyra is too late to save her friend but she decides to go after Roger and save him, so she herself enters the new universe. All Iorek can do is stand back and watch Lyra go. The movie doesn’t go this far though. Another shame. It ends before Lyra and Iorek even reach this point.
For the “ice” I’ve used sections of Selenite which has a very nice ice look and texture. I made the Intercision Machine from many brass and copper parts. I spent almost as much time on this little object as I did on the main frame. This frame weighs approximately 40 lbs.