They are Groot

Some time ago, I won a solar dancing flower as a prize at a party. Flowers...aren't really my thing.

My first thought was to drop it off at Goodwill. Then I saw Guardians of the Galaxy and realized that if I pried the flower head and ladybugs off, it had potential to be a really awesome Groot.

The biggest challenge with this remake was the material for the head. It needed to be lightweight, so it can still dance, but easily sculpted. Ideally, I wanted to do this with materials I had on hand. I actually ended up making two heads: one of wax and the other of styrofoam. The wax head looked awesome, but no matter how much wax I carved off our out of the center of the head it remained too heavy, constantly pulling the body to one side. Styrofoam, while yielding a less smooth finished product, is light enough to allow for movement. I painted the head, stem, and leaves with acrylic paint, inserted some bead eyes, and finished it off with acrylic sealer. While not a perfect replica, I'm fairly happy with the finished product.

The wax head. It looks a lot better in person

I decided to keep both heads. Maybe I'll stick the wax one somewhere.