Monthly Archives: April 2018

A Tom Petty Tribute in Berlin.

Friends performing at Take it Easy Baby Tom Petty Tribute April 20 2018 by Suzanne ForbesMy friends organized a tribute to Tom Petty and performed his songs by the river Spree!

Hosted by Liliana Velasquez and masterminded by Wasp Summer aka Samantha Wareing, Rah Hell, and Miss Natasha Enquist, it was an amazing night of music. You can see them left to right above, bracketed by Baron Anastis and Joe Sparkle.

Liliana Velasquez at Take It Easy Baby Tom Petty Tribute by Suzanne Forbes April 20 2018Here’s Liliana, sharing some filthy and hilarious anecdote about how Tom Petty was the soundtrack to her teens!

I know you can relate. The man wrote some sexy music! She also said something I loved, which was that she’s not an expat in Berlin, she’s an immigrant. As are we. She hosts the Freudian Slip Club, among many other things in this city!

David Hawkins at Take It Easy Baby Tom Petty Tribute by Suzanne Forbes April 20 2018Check out David Hawkins singing his heart out!

He’s so multi-talented sometimes I forget he’s a rad musician too.

Rah Hell at Take It Easy Baby Tom Petty Tribute by Suzanne Forbes April 20 2018And the drummess sang! Rah Hell sang AND drummed on several songs. Most impressive!

The venue was the fabulous Marie Antoinette, which is right on the river. I felt a little disoriented finding the place amidst the darkness of riverside warehouses, but then remembered the website said it’s behind the BVG building.

And the BVG building is conveniently lit up with neon in the distinctive BVG piss-yellow!

The windows of the club look out over the water, and late night cruise boats and ducks went by all evening. It’s a really beautiful place to see a show.

Miss Natasha Enquist by Suzanne Forbes April 2018Here you see me working out the elegant lines of Miss Natasha Enquist’s look.

This was the first time I’d heard her indoors with decent quality sound and a live band backing her, and I could really appreciate her phenomenal singing. Check her out, seriously.Performers at Take it Easy Baby Tom Petty Tribute by Suzanne Forbes March 2018

Some folks I didn’t know performed too!

Including the amazing Ok!Chorus, which I didn’t draw because it’s like 30 people! Stephan Paul Taylor is on the right above, and that’s a quick scrawl of Joe Sparkle in the middle. More info and links coming soon! As always, I am so grateful to my Patrons on Patreon, whose monthly financial support makes it possible for me to document Berlin life and art.

Dollhouse Underground Laboratory: Work in Progress Part 2

Action figure dollhouse laboratory surgery WIP by Suzanne Forbes April 2018Dang, I have been consumed with this long-delayed project!

SOOO much to do. So many things to figure out. So much foamcore to cut and glue. So many pipes to make out of styrene and straws!

Action figure dollhouse laboratory tube room WIP by Suzanne Forbes April 2018But I am really making serious progress.

Three of the rooms are almost complete, the operating theater (above), the Tube Room, and the Machine Shop.Action figure dollhouse laboratory tube room full view WIP by Suzanne Forbes April 2018

Action figure dollhouse laboratory cryo tube WIP by Suzanne Forbes April 2018What on earth is a Tube Room, you might ask.

Well, in the 90s I had a dear friend named Rob Simpson, who was an editor at DC. We were talking about superhero powers, as we did so often, and he said there was a simple solution to most things in comics.

Somebody loses their powers/needs superpowers? “Put ’em in a tube!” Somebody is dead and needs to be restored to life? “Put ’em in a tube!” Somebody has an evil entity possessing their psyche and needs to be held in stasis so they don’t destroy the world? “Put ’em in a tube!”

Tubes are also known as pods or stasis chambers. Basically they are a MacGuffin where anything can happen. The McFarlane Toys X-Files line from the Oughts provided most of these tubes.

They were intended for alien containment of some kind. I built out the structure around the one above using illustration board covered with chrome selbstklebefolie, which is like contact paper you can’t remove, styrene tubes and the various lids of things painted chrome. Action figure dollhouse laboratory machine shop WIP by Suzanne Forbes April 2018

The Machine Shop also contains the break room/coffee bar.

Action figure dollhouse laboratory making stanchions WIP by Suzanne Forbes April 2018I figured people would be constantly bothering the engineers in the shop for things they want fixed anyway, so they might as well get their coffee while they’re there. The two women robots are “Platinum” from the Metal Men and Angie Spica, “Engineer” from The Authority.

All the rooms are missing a lot of signage and posters (I’m working on figuring out how to get the best results from the self-adhesive inkjet-printable paper I’m using) plus safety tape.

On the right you can see I’m making stanchions for a safety rail using dowels, epoxy clay and blue pearl half-rounds I kept for eight years because I had a feeling I might need them for something.

Most importantly, all the labs need their ceiling panels and lights.

My beloved Friend-Muse-Patron Monique Motil, a fellow creator of Small Art, will bring the lights in May, and then I’ll figure out how to install them, woohoo!

Yes, there will be a “Safety Third” sign!

First Laboratory post is here. Main dollhouse post here.