Before I get into this, let me just thank anyone who friends me or favorites any of my stuff. Thanks, everyone!

3-15-07: 100 page views in less than two weeks!

Who?
I'm Chris, member of the class of 2010 at the Umiversity of Mary Washington. Trying to be a business major with a concentration in marketing/advertizing, but we'll see about that. No more personal info for you, unless it seems innocent enough.

Why can tabs?
I like can tabs. They're an interesting part of our daily lives that tends to go unnoticed, they're versitile, and most of all, they're shiny. Plus, I like to work with wire a lot, so wire and can tabs equal fun times all around.

How did you figure out how to do the dragon?
Trial and error, then more trial and error. You should have seen me sitting in class, just staring at a piece of sheet metal and moving my hands around trying to figure out how to make it work as a leg. I keep improving techniques as I make more and more of them, so expect improvement as I go along.

How do you get the can tabs to work like that?
Again, it was about an hour and a half of trial and error to figure out the best way to weave them onto wire and have them function as scales. It all starts out as a flat piece of tab-mail (of different sizes, depending on how wide or long the dragon is) that gets bent and either supported by a basic metal frame or by itself.

Can I make stuff like that?
Of course, but it takes patience. To get a piece of tab-mail about the size of a mousepad, I have to sit down with a ton of tabs and a spool of wire for two hours. And I'm fast at it now. Before, it took me an hour and a half to get four rows done, five if I was lucky.

But if you're attempting to make something inspired by me, especially if you get advice on how to weave tabs by me, please credit me in some way. I'm usually not too picky about this sort of thing with any of my other works, but I feel a certain attachment to this medium. Especially since I actually developed my methods from nothing. So please be nice and give credit where credit is due.

How on earth do you get all those tabs?
My first bag of tabs were from when my family was collecting them for a charity. We couldnt find that chairty when we wanted to turn them in, so we just kept collecting them and I decided something needed to be done with them. Then I got a bag from my friend Amber who saw what I was working on and wanted to contribute. Then other friends have started giving me tabs, and I even have a little wire loop on my dorm door for people to deposit tabs.

Ironically, I dont drink that much soda anymore. I got myself out of the habit a while back for no real reason, so I'm not contributing to my pool of tabs.

What other works do you do?
I love collage, too. But just about anything that ends up in me having to do something monotonous, tedious, or just plain repetitive appeals to me for some reason. I start projects with a goal in mind, and only after I start working do I realize that I got myself into a complicated ordeal.

Will you make me something?
This question has several answers:

1. If it is an original collage in the style of Shattered, it'll vary in price (yes, I'm a poor college student) depending on size, complexity, and availability of source material.

2. If it's a photo (I have a ton of those), it'll either be free if I've already taken it, or a small fee if I have to go somewhere out of my way and do it. Seriously, though, my photos arent that special.

3. If you want a can tab creature, this is where it gets complicated. I actually intend to sell these off eventually, but I havent come up with a pricing system. So, we would decide price on a case by case basis. Of course, size and complexity play a role in how much something is. But the thing is, if you can get me all, most, or a good number of the tabs required for this, I'll give you a decent discount. I can buy wire and metal, but can tabs have to be collected, so they're the real limiting factor with this.

Along with my time, of course. Most things, aside from the fish, take a while to make.

Can you teach me how to make them?
If by "teach" you mean point you in the right direction to making something out of tabs, sure. But a step by step tutorial on how I position the tabs and any weaving techniques I use will come much later. In fact, I may just record myself weaving some tabs together and post it on youtube for that tutorial, but only after I start a new project.

If you can't wait, I posted some unfinished detail shots in my scraps that should clue most of you in to the mechanics of the tab-mail, though for technique you'll be on your own for now.


Ask more questions, and I'll give more answers.