Most Wanted 3

Ok guys. I need some more feedback. This is the final design for my Most Wanted 3 Dunny. After submitting several designs the powers at be suggested the design be more similar to traditional Nesting Doll designs so that the concept behind the sculpt comes across better. I happen to agree and out of 5 or 6 new designs this is the one that they liked the most. The question now is

WHAT WILL GO INSIDE HER?

It's gonna be a zipper pull, and I really like the idea of sculpting a miniature version of the sculpt to be the form, but I'm not sure of what the design on it will be. Traditional nesting dolls have a baby or something in the very middle, but who wants a baby as a zipper pull??? So my next thought was to make something completely unexpected. The outer design is light hearted and innocent so maybe she's like Rosemary's baby and she has like a little devil inside of her. Maybe it's that abominable snowman design I did but instead of blue and white it's black and red. Who knows. Anyway....looking for some input, some suggestions that you might like and actually make sense with the design. Let me know. PM or email..anyway you can reach me.

Work in Progress

Update on a couple things I'm working on right now.

8" U-Boat

For this piece the collector gave me a choice of a few topics and I had a choice of which one to do and then where to go with it from there. The topic I chose was "War in the Atlantic" and from there I almost immediately gravitated towards the significance of submarines in the World Wars and attempting to somehow transform the Dunny head into a submarine. This was the original sketch:

And here is the first WIP image:

I used wood to create the basic frame of the U-Boat around the head of the Dunny, I filled in as much of the walls with sculpting foam and then covered it with magic sculpt. This stage is very rough and is really just to form the basic shape of the piece. Once it cures there will be quite a bit of sanding, re-shaping and once it's ready I will use super sculpey to sculpt over the base with the finishing surface sculpt and details. I've left the inside hollow as much as possible as I will also be creating the innards of the sub...how that will happen, I'm not quite there yet.

Random workspace pic:

I'm also working on a pretty difficult and thought provoking 10" MAD-L and once I figure it all out it's gonna be very impressive. The first stage of the project is I'm attempting to create a custom tesselation that will ultimately be applied to the figure as the first stage of the application. Creating Tesselations is super hard and it just emphasizes how much of a genius M.C. Escher was. Here is the first attempt that I don't completely despise but I still have a long way to go. As you can see I can't figure out what the negative space will be and without that it's just an all over pattern that just about anyone could have made. 

First Customs of 2012

Now that I've settled into the New Year, got my studio revamped and ready to go I've started production on a number of pieces that I showed the sketches for a few months back. A couple of them are going to be some serious sculpts and I can say 2 things about these types of projects: 1. I am really loving the challenge of pieces like this as I really need to sit down and think about how I am actually going to pull it off. I always do but almost always the working process is very seat-of-the-pants as I'm working. The pieces that come to mind that I just started are the:

8" Dunny U-Boat and Fish Captain
- The head of the Dunny is being transformed into a U-Boat that will have a removable deck that will reveal the inner workings of the sub. And there will be a place on the central deck area which will be the single centered ear where the 3" Fish Captain will take his place.

3" Medusa
- Sculpting all the snakes for the head, her snake body with all the scales and then just to cover up most of it with flowing Grecian sculpey threads... this 3" figure is giving me fits.

8" Kraken
- This too will have his legs replaced with a slug like single serpent foot and unattached tail piece, 4 arms and a massive gaping mouth not to mention the surface sculpt and details. This one is in the early stages still but he is gonna be epic.

Also still working on the 3 Storms from "Big Trouble in Little China mini-Munny trio. Their hats have proved to be a major bitch but I finished Lightning and he looks sick so the other 2 should fall right in line. On deck I have a 3" Perseus, 3" Stygian Witch, 3" Constellation, custom Bubo sculpt, 3" Gundam Samurai, 3" Ox Viking, a Chuckboy Mutation, Mini-Munny Strider, 3" Chinese Warrior, Mini Munny Desert Punk, The next 3 members of the Justice League and Most Wanted 3... and much, much more. Not to mention the Jaws that has had me stalled for over a year. I need to kick that into gear ASAP. Got some awesome 1st time platforms coming in already for 2012 including a Dragon King by Kano and a Cure Boogie. And I still have quite a few 3A customs to finish as well that are mostly part of the same platoon. Quite a year to come and somewhere in there I need to find time to submit some production designs as well.

On an unrelated note, I am heading home right now to film my Survivor application video for the upcoming 2012 and 2013 seasons. I am not disillusioned in thinking I will actually make it on to the show but as lame as it sounds I would love to be on it. I'm a huge fan of competition to begin with and Survivor is a type of game that demands the best of all of ones characteristics—physical, mental and social and testing myself on all fronts is something that is very appealing. Lets hope I don't have a chance so I can stay home and finish all these toys :)

J

New Sketches

Here are 2 more sketches of upcoming pieces.

Process Book

Check out the process book that I made for the collector as well. Documents almost the entire process of the making of Infernus.

Process Book



Here are a couple pics of the actual book. It's held together on the spine by a rubber band and if you take it off it becomes a large format accordion book.

New Sketches

I've got a pretty long back log of pieces that I need to start but here are a few more new sketches of pieces to come.

Infernus Paw

I'm back from holiday break and this piece had been delivered as a Christmas gift. I'd been working under wraps for the last 2 months or so and just completed it on time. It was a really difficult and re-work as you go kind of customs because it was something I'd never done before and because of the shape of the sculpt. The story that goes with this piece is Infernus is a fire elemental. At his core he is unforgiving and lethal but had no ill intentions towards anyone and thus had no focus or direction. In hopes of hiding himself away from the world Infernus donned the suit, simultaneously creating a funnel for his raw power to funnel to and when needed...out.

The suit is made completely with Super Sculpey and is held together solely by magnets. The suit comes apart into 32 pieces, just like a 3D puzzle. Making the suit was quite an undertaking and I'll have some process pics on how it went down. For now here are some pics.

More pics on my Flickr



More pics to come.