Saturday, November 15, 2008

ANGRY CLOBBER MONKEY UPDATE!

Well this year has proven to be a wild ride even in the most basic terms.
The good thing is the Angry Clobber Monkey is coming right along. We didn’t make the original estimation of a Oct / Fall release, but sometimes these things happen. Patrick over at Munky King has, as always been effortless to work with, right now I think we are looking at a Feb / March release.



Here are some pictures of the wax master from the factory. This is the refined casting from my resin master that I sent to Hong Kong. It is made from a hard wax that can be further polished, and detailed.



This is what will be used to make the master molds for production vinyl casting.



The red parts will be roto-cast in vinyl, the end up being hollow. The white parts are for injection molding. Those parts will be made of a solid stronger plastic



I’m excited! I will always keep making resin originals, but having my first wide release vinyl toy is amazing.

Saturday, November 1, 2008

ONE OF THE BIG PROJECTS I'VE BEEN WORKING ON!

Finally I can talk about one of the cool projects that I’ve been working on.
Team Smithereen is a new puppet project that I did the character designs and co-created with Dan Clark and Don Asher. A hapless stunt team these four characters: Whoop, Thrill Kat, Brave Little Frances and Stunt Pig have all the bravery and none of the brains to try and perform some of the most outrageous stunts. They always end up getting blown up smashed, crashed and creamed.



We have an amazing team working on the show, check out the TS blog for more info pics and behind the scenes video.



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Some of the same processes that I use to sculpt toys goes into the sculpt for a puppet.
Always with consideration to the end product being able to perform. I learned quite a bit about sculpting puppets early on in my special effects days. I sculpted puppet characters for various shops like the Chiodo Brothers the Jim Henson Company, and our very own productions.

Always I use a water based or oil based clay. The end piece will be molded so the puppet can be made out of a more malleable material like silicone, foam rubber, or latex.



I made the test puppets out of a very stretchy silicone it was the consistency of a wacky wall walker. The puppets for the actual shoot were made by the talented team from Monster FX.