The Flaming Mermaid, or The Fucking Beaurebar!

 Let me take you on a journey. A journey wrought with struggle, contemplation, turmoil, epiphanies, loss, and satisfaction. A true trial by fire. A long hard journey, misjudged in time and effort. A test of the highest calibre. A lifetime of knowledge and skills in use. At one transformative moment,  becoming a very important mission, personal goal and most importantly, a personal sanctuary.

 This started as an inkling of a thought. An homage to the cast of an internet show of a bunch of voice actors playing Dungeons and Dragons. I personally have never played , but have become enamoured as so many other uber nerds. I was researching Twitch.TV, which is an online platform, where you basically have your own internet channel. I came across the show Critical Role, after a long watch I came back regularly, weekly. Every Thursday in fact.

 To the cast, crew, everyone at Critical Role Land, and especially all the Critters, I present formerly The Flaming Mermaid (there’s a story about that, read on), and now newly christened, well deserved, only place to get a drink and take a load off, conjure some magic, get a meal, scry on anyone, put your feet on the table, or just teleport to anywhere . . .The Fucking BeaureBar!

 This all came to light through the little house. My brother deals in 80’s collectibles, and had one of those Fisher Price “little people” family playhouses. Everyone alive before the 90’s probably remembers this popular toddler toy. Well my artistic eye and imagination got a hold of me as I unpacked it, while at a show.  I off handidly mentioned to my sibling  that I’d pay him ten bucks for the house. “O.K.” He replied. Hmmm, the universe is speaking to me.

 This was all an escape of sorts, from outside stresses affecting my mental well being at the time, a few months later, the pandemic arrives. Being an artistic fabricator, my solace has always been in the creation process. I had lately been making aqua /tera decor and casting shells and starfish etc.

 The previous week I had to decided to make the cast’s characters in toy figure form. Now, I had a professional job at one time prototyping with small parts, but the last time I attempted this kind of project, I was a teenager! It’s been a while. I thought about individual packaging for each figure when the thought struck me. Why don’t I make a play set, like the retro card board and blow mold sets of yore, but make it the coolest, most personal toy ever. A mud and blood series! One of a kind, prototypes if you will. I believe some of the cast have collections of the characters they have voiced already, sooo. . .

 From there on the journey was wrought with contemplation, foresight, hindsight, every sight I could muster. This is a hobby I started back in my teen  years, revisiting for the first time in ages, I would need to push my artistic design skill well past the boundaries of it’s limits, and my aging vision! 3D printers were out. . . cause I don’t have one! Design was the key. Almost the undoing.

 I wanted to use artist bucks (blank figures),mixed with other high end action figures. The stuff out of Japan is really top notch and less clunky than a lot of North American figures. I used a mix specifically for the relative scale of the characters and the poseability. I used stuff from old projects, and random stuff from the shop. In all I logged 357 hrs, add in photos, videos and website creation, much more. I did not plan any of this out beforehand! I didn’t sketch any designs, I just went with what I imagined, with a little help from the community artwork. I went along organically, not rushed with a definitive course, and changed plans a few times. I let the creative process sail the ship. I did do a bunch of things over, some three times, just to get it right. The universe likes to mess with creative projects. I also wanted to mix mediums with the soft goods, and had design and articulation in mind the whole time. Also a ton of mistakes and botches! Quite a challenge.

  I think it was around season two episode ninety three, when I thought it would be a great gift for the one hundredth episode. I quickly realized, I was in up to my eyes with the work still to do. I happily continued, letting this organic process take over. Then the pandemic hit. Enough said about that! I was well into the construction of the house and a couple of characters, when working on the door while watching the show one evening. I stumbled to figure out a name for this establishment. I knew I wanted it to be nautical themed like the look of the house. The door and sign would be the starting point for a name. I started out with the sketch of a mermaid with wavy hair. Well, it turned out looking like her head was on fire! Ha, The Flaming Mermaid was born! Without delay, this was a few days before a live episode when the cast joked about the name of a beach bar they made, quickly named by the cast “The Fucking Beaurebar.” The Universe was messing with me!  The bar was complete with a name. Construction continued and so did the ups and downs of the build, but after a number of months later, I was pretty well finished. It was time for a photo shoot! I was excited for this big shoot I planned, and I needed the fun! The office desk got cleared off and The Fucking Beaurebar was set up with a crumpled bed sheet, coloured gravel, play sand, rocks, aquarium plants and various decor I made, thrown in for good measure. I even expanded outside to planters and pots with natural elements for backgrounds and settings. Natural sunlight is the best light for me when taking pictures of stuff, so outside was a given. I think by this time I had experienced the contemplation before, during, and after this project, some turmoil and epiphanies all along the construction, but total satisfaction while in the flow state for the majority of this build.

 Now, I don’t mean to get too personal, but the first four months of 2022 was rough. I had major dental work done, and the latter phase was unnecessarily prolonged. I also mentioned trial by fire at the beginning of the article. I almost forgot. A massive fire. Yes, this pile of plastic and wood had become its own, live, entity, and was almost destroyed, along with myself, by the all consuming FIRE.

 My previous workshop, was a converted two bedroom low rise apartment. In the burbs but close to everything. Sunday June fourth, 1:30pm. A complex fire forced me out of my home along with thirty five other families, and due to safety concerns, no one was allowed back in. The cause, a careless neighbour cooking on the balcony. Disaster!

 The Mighty Nein were still on my desk, the whole project, condition unknown. I had sunk hundreds of hours, fixes, re designs, filmed videos, took pictures, basically two and a half years of building, pictures, painting, etc, all up in the air. I was in shock. Frozen. Standing on the street, among five fire trucks, hundreds of onlookers, and about thirty first res-ponders, looking up at the collapsing roof of my next door neighbour. I have never seen fire travel so quickly in my life. My life’s goals, dead in their tracks. This was supposed to be a flagship project of sorts. I was just pulling the idea of this website together, and had already started this website and it’s design. In that moment, all I really had was my phone, wallet, keys, track pants, trainers, and a dirty sleeveless tee I got from the laundry while running out of my burning building. Things happen for a reason, people say. One thing is for sure, the universe was messing with me, BIG TIME!

  The fire was stopped just as it reached the hallway between my place and my next door neighbours’. I figured there would be smoke damage but not much else, and I could move the project out that night. No. The universe had other plans. I approached the Fire Marshall on scene, along with a large group of residents, We were intermediately told “because of safety concerns, you can never go back.”  Think about that for a minute to put things into perspective. Right now. Look around you if you are among your possessions and living space. Now imagine going outside right now in whatever state you are in , right now! Then never go back. Your place and your things are gone, they don’t exist anymore. That sandwich you were making, you won’t finish. Your laundry scheduled for later, you won’t start. Whatever plans you had for the day, you can’t do. That millisecond of a thought you just had my dear readers, is the definitive feeling of displacement. From first hand knowledge, it is extremely strange and unsettling at best.

 The thirty six unit structure was deemed a total loss, on the spot. Everyone reading must know no one was injured during this whole event except for a minor injury suffered by a firefighter. I also want to draw attention to the fact that thirty six families were made homeless that day. Children, single parents, elderly, and handicapped. We were all told, ” I’m sorry, you can never go back. “But my stuff and the project, and I was just about to prepare a meal, and I have no clothes, and . . .SHIT, my car is in the underground parking”. . .”sorry the garage is flooded with three feet of water and is unsafe. You’ll have to come back when the Fire Marshall deems it safe to remove vehicles. That is, if the water hasn’t damaged those too.” Let’s put it this way, I hit the pub on the corner to come up with a plan!

 The next day I was informed that mine and one other unit had suffered hardly any damage and our possessions were o.k. “Unfortunately sir, because of all the water poured on the fire, as it leeches over to your unit, the ceiling is currently collapsing. You need to contact your insurance provider, hire an abatement team and get your stuff out NOW!

 After a hectic thirty six hours or so, I had enough info and made the insurance contacts to proceed. The only issue in this case is that I had to hire my insurance co’s “preferred vendor” to retrieve my things. This fact led to the biggest challenge of the project build, the insurance company. The last thing I needed was to lose the project for months, being over charged for all kinds of things, having my policy limit exceeded, then getting back a broken, partial set. Remember these companies exist to make money, so any expenses incurred through them, is hugely inflated and also presents a whole slew of problems.

 How did I avert disaster a second time? First, I was lucky I had a relative close by to stay with. Second I rented my own storage space close by, the next day after the fire. I then literally showed up every day and waited all day to take my things put them in my car and move them myself to my storage. Only the bigger items were moved by the removal crew. I realize hardly anyone could financially do this, heck I couldn’t, but in my mind my future was in that burned out building, and nothing is going to take my self made future from me. Besides, I had literally just the clothes on my back at that moment, and no rent.  Around six weeks was when I received the last of my things. The majority was moved in the first two weeks. I did lose a number of things from heat, smoke and water damage, but the project was still good for the most part. Fast forward a couple of more weeks and a ton of nail biting, headaches, and sleepless nights, (that’s another story!), I had the project back in my hands, undamaged, but missing pieces. Believe it or not, in my mind, all was good. I was staying on a relative’s couch, I still had an afternoon gig to pay the bills, and I could eat. After a few weeks, I had repaired and replaced what was needed, and The Fucking Beaurebar, was open for business! Now, I just need to get some more pics, and send this off to the cast and crew. Hey wait a minute, it’s THURSDAY!

  The whole idea is to give you the toy you dreamed of when you were a kid, that maybe you didn’t get, or received, but wasn’t wowed with, and then some. Turn it up to eleven! That’s right, pimp it out. That’s real chain mail on those fighters! I’ll hopefully let the results speak for themselves. Not bad eh? Did I just role my first crit?