Episode 4 Nine Minute Ninja

Time to get my ninja on. And my clothes!

Being an Art Ninja can sometimes be really wild.

OWLS HOOT

It's 3am.

Only night workers and lunatics are up at this hour!

Oh. Hi, Gav.

Hey, Ricky. I can't sleep and I feel weird.

WOLF HOWLS

You look a bit odd and your ears look funny.

In fact, they look a bit furry.

Let me take a picture.

He's gone. And he's gone weird.

Weirder than usual.

I've got a quick art tip here for how to draw a scared character.

I'm going to start by drawing the head.

Then I'm going to add some eyes and a wide mouth.

Show the shock. Going to put some eyebrows in,

angled towards the centre of the head, and I'm going to draw

the hair all standing up on end.

A couple of ears.

Now I'll draw the body.

I'm going to do the hands next to up by his face, sort of like, "Ah!"

a scream expression.

Draw his shorts now.

And I'm going to do his knees a little bit bent, facing inwards

like they're knocking together in fear.

A couple of wavy lines

as if he's shivering and, of course, what's he scared of?

Well, I'm going to draw something for him to look at now.

There we go.

A quick art tip.

Don't be scared, have a go yourself.

HE SCREAMS

Gavin, what are you doing?

I'm just knocking their door because I'm hungry.

-Hungry like a...

-WOLF HOWLS

A wolf?

I'm really craving a meat feast.

Great, now he's going to think I run some kind of late-night cafe.

Either Gav's turned into a monster or he's got a monster appetite.

I'm going to make something equally gnarly.

It's the...Art Ninja monster foot pencil holder.

So I'm going to start by taking an old gravy pot and a piece of card.

I'm going to draw around in the shape of my monster's foot.

Nice, long monster toes.

So cut that out.

There we are.

I'm going to stick this tube onto my foot with a bit of masking tape.

That's not coming off. Now I'm going to make my monster toes nice and 3-D

and I'm going to do that with a bit of newspaper.

Just rolling the newspaper into sausages with masking tape,

stick it to the top of my cardboard cut-out.

The masking tape works as a really nice base

for sticking the scales onto.

I've got the main bits of the toes on now.

I'm going to start building it up.

I want to give it a nice slope into the monster's leg because that will

help me in later stages.

Here we go. Now it's ready to add some scales.

For this, I'm using some old plastic spoons.

Carefully cut off most of the handle,

but I want to leave about 2cm behind

and then just snap off these little edges.

Now, we're going to need a lot more of those, but luckily I've been

collecting for quite some time.

Now I'm going to stick these to my monster toes

with the spoon side facing down and this little extra handle,

that's what I'm going to use to stick it down.

Stick them with some sticky tape.

Now, I'm letting these overlap so they look more like

authentic scales.

It does take a little bit of time, though, so I've got a quicker way.

Ninja skills.

Great. Now I can paint it.

Start with a nice rich blue colour.

I'm using acrylic paint and that's because it's really good at

covering the spoons.

Last little bit at the back.

Now, I could wait for this to dry, but not me, I use my ninja skills.

I'm going to add some highlights and a bit of texture to the scales

to help define them. Slide in a bit of paper underneath the scales

so you don't overlap onto the ones below.

Start with some light blue first.

Some white here, too. This is going to make the scales look all worn

and very monstery-looking.

That starts to really define the scales.

Now we're going to move on, do another row.

I'm going to add a new piece of paper

and I'm going to start blending again.

Let any other colours get onto the brush,

it just helps blend them in a bit more.

Here we are.

Look at that beautiful effect.

Now we're going to do the rest ninja-style.

Look at that.

But the toes won't be complete without some claws

and I'm going to make them by recycling some old plastic forks.

Just going to chop off three...

..and now we're going to stick them together

with a little bit of sticky tape.

The outside one I'm going to put in the middle

because it's a bit thicker and I'm going to put the other two

next to it so the middle one protrudes.

There we go, slide it in there.

Got a few more here and I'm going to slide them into place.

Right, time for the finishing touches.

The things that I'm going to put inside my pencil pot.

The monster foot pencil pot.

You needn't make a monster foot out of recycled spoons like mine.

You can try a colourful parrot's foot made out of recycled forks,

or how about reusing some old plastic knives

to make a fluffy elephant's foot?

Really let your imagination run wild.

It's still late. It's not even early yet.

I wish I could sleep.

Hey, you there!

Scared of snakes? Love bubbles?

Then you'll love the bubble snake.

Here's how you make it.

Grab yourself a plastic bottle, remove the lid

and cut off the bottom.

Maybe get an adult to help you.

Get an old piece of flannel.

Place it over the bottom of the bottle

and fasten with an elastic band.

Now decorate it with some googly eyes.

Cut out some hair from paper and stick it on.

I've gone with a punk rock look. Eye-catching!

But you can do any hairstyle you like.

Take a bowl of water and add to it some washing-up liquid.

Stir with a spoon.

You may want to do this bit outside because it can get messy.

Dunk in your bubble snake.

Now blow into the bottle, creating an awesome bubble snake.

The bubble snake.

You wouldn't want to HISS out.

Hilarious! Ha-ha!

Really, very funny.

Now go to the website and get your ninja on.

Art Ninja!