These photos of clay retirees (more below) may look like fun and games, and at the time of making them — which my friend Angela and I did for a Tribune Media Services special section on staying active after retirement — they were exactly that. Designing the section was in my charge, and rather than use the same old dreadful stock photos of people looking generically happy doing nothing, we decided to do something that would be a little bit more memorable (or memorable at all, really).

Naturally, after the idea was presented, approved and then constructed, it was deemed too “risky” to send out and we had to replace everything at the last minute with the same old stock photos. Such is office life sometimes.

Some of these were for the assignment. The bottom two are outtakes — one of the advantages of working with clay instead of drawing. Drawing outtakes would take way too long to justify whatever amusement would come from them.