I make toys for kids who don't want to grow up. I'm on the lookout for new projects. If you're interested in commissioning me to build something ridiculous, shoot me an email.
A while back I had the pleasure of attending Star Wars Celebration: Anaheim, the 7th such convention in the history of the Star Wars franchise. The Lady Shawnon had bought our tickets fully nineteen months before the actual event with the statement that "that should be more than enough time for you to come up with costumes for us to wear." She was right... ...kinda. Among the many outfits I ended up putting together, were these four: The girl with the blaster rifle was the Lady Shawnon in her Shae Vizla bounty hunter costume based on the trailers for the Star Wars: the Old Republic MMORPG. I'll get around to writing that one up. The important thing to know is that she looks even cooler when she's not all by herself. You can read about that build here: LINK. The three lightsaber-wielding gentlemen were Sith Acolytes from the same game. You can see one of the videos that inspired the build here: Here's a great photo showcasing one of the finished costumes: For more photos and details showing how it was made, read on...
A couple of weeks ago I finished up a major, super-secret project. Here's the crew with some of the finished pieces: As I mentioned, it's super-secret. Hence the pixelating. Anyhow, after the dust had settled, it was time to clean up the workshop: It was a daunting task, but it worked out okay in the end: As often happens over the course of such cleanings, I managed to find all sorts of cool stuff I'd almost forgotten about. So I managed to snap a few pics of this month's UnFinished Objects. First off, there was the prototype flametrooper helmet replica I'm making based on the upcoming Episode 7 of Star Wars. I molded it: Then I cast and painted a copy. Here's the Lady Shawnon trying it on: It looks good, but then again she makes anything look good: On the subject of prototypes, I've also been tinkering with a Judge Dredd (2012) helmet: There's a lot of helmets kicking around the shop. Here's the "mostly clone trooper" shelf: There's a War Machine helmet there. Clearly it's an escapee from the "mostly Marvel helmets" shelf: There's also a few things I've finally gotten off of the back burner now that I've got a minute. These are projects that will be used to illustrate a how-to book I'm writing. Such as this helmet: I'm also going to be disassembling this heater in order to build a compact vacforming machine: There's a whole host of other things tucked away in the various corners as usual. Each more fascinating than the last. Stay tuned. I'll get to them sooner or later...
A while back I was busy doing something, close to nothing, but different than the day before when I received an email from the wife of a local artist which asked the seemingly simple question, "can you build a large, fiberglass outdoor sculpture?" I replied that I could, but I'd need a lot more information. How large is large? Where is it going outdoors? What kind of budget do I have to work with? That sort of thing.
We ended up having a brief phone conversation before I was introduced to Joel Jones of Basal Ganglia Studios, who presented me with this concept sketch: That's a Photoshopped image of an historical building downtown next to an electrical power substation. Basal Ganglia had been funded to add a sculptural installation to the side of the building. My role: fabricate a giant rendition of a household electrical outlet with a cord plugged into it and leading into the ground. No problem. I had a few other projects in my queue ahead of this one, but once I'd started, it took a few weeks, a whole lot of fiberglass, and a few hundred pounds of steel to end up with this: For more details and photos of how it was made, read on...
Back in late May I got an email from my friends at 2K Games asking me if I'd had any time or interest to work on a trophy for their upcoming Proving Grounds tournament. Within a few minutes we were on the phone discussing it. The total timeline from green light to completion? Two weeks! Here's the end result: To see how it all came together, read on...
Somewhere toward the end of the big rush to prepare a bunch of costumes for Star Wars Celebration: Anaheim, I realized that I'd nearly finished the Shae Vizla costume for the Lady Shawnon but I'd neglected to come up with any weapon props to carry around. If you saw the last entry about the Shae costume you know I managed to solve this crisis: What you may not realize is that I knocked it out in a mad rush in the middle of the night while my crew cranked out a bunch of parts for the big Mandalorian project. For details on the blaster build, read on...
