Breaking in the new Plasma Cutter

You know the feeling, you have spent the last six months bugging your mom and dad for the coolest new toy EVER! Christmas morning comes and you find your hearts desire under the tree and you just can't wait to get it out of the package and play with it. "Oh I hope it came with batteries!" That's how I felt when Fed Ex brought my new plasma cutter and left it on my doorstep.

I had to wait for the next day to unbox my cool new toy and play with it (it drove me nust). That next morning I got my coolest toy ever out of the box and found a piece of steel plate that I had bought in anticipation of the cutter arriving. I took the plate around back to my work pad and had some fun. 

The first project with the new plasma cutter was inspired by a picture I had seen. It is a half moon shape with Kokopelli sitting on it and playing his flute.

The image above is approx 20 inches across

The above I cut (pretty much) free hand just to "break in" the new toy.
I find Kokopelli an interesting subject. For one reason his shape and general configuration is open to much interpretation, there is not exact form. There is no "You did this wrong." because he's completely open to artistic interpretation.

Second; Kokopelli is a native American diety (and all things native American are awesome) and if you're interested here is what Wikipedia has to say about him.

"Kokopelli is a fertility deity, usually depicted as a humpbacked flute player (often with feathers or antenna-like protrusions on his head), who has been venerated by some Native American cultures in the Southwestern United States. Like most fertility deities, Kokopelli presides over both childbirth and agriculture. He is also a trickster god and represents the spirit of music."

It's also interesting that in native American culture (so I've been told) virginal young girls are afraid of Kokopelli. It seems that when he shows up babies get born and (having not been told how babies are made) the girls worry about the possibility of getting (or being) pregnant and pretty much freak out about it.

Another project I did right away was, again, an image of Kokopelli and this one was set inside a Santa Fe style sun.

From top to bottom this is approx 30 inches

The cut was done as part of a gate that I built. There were actually two of these done for the same gate. In the picture above it's kind of hard to make out any details about Kokopelli because the metal was not yet painted when I took the photo. I need to find the photos I took after he was painted and post them here, he actually turned out quite nice.