I’ve been toiling away at the bear since I started it in July. These days, progress is not always obvious. Last night I spent three hours working on him and got his second hind leg covered. The time before that, I covered up his head. The time before that, his first hind leg. I keep refining my technique as I go, too. For example, I sometimes, I do a quick (bad) weld of a new piece of metal to an already covered part of the bear, heat the new piece to bright orange, and then beat the hell out of it until it both acquires some character and drops its weak weld. Then I weld it properly in the place it belongs. I’ve also been using more smaller pieces, and making sure each one acquires character before its left alone. Next steps are to cover the two front legs with skin and give his face some features … and maybe he’ll get a tail. Here are some progression photos of the bear.