NY Comic Con- Smooth On Figure
Just a few weeks ago was the NY Comic Con and I was lucky enough to have created a custom figure that was on display there. I sculpted and fabricated an original fantasy figure for the company, Smooth-On, to showcase many of their "mind-blwoing" products at their booth for the con. This was a wonderful opportunity that was fun, challenging, intense and ultimately rewarding in many ways. I want to share a little of the "behind the scenes" in this blog and here we can dig into this particular figure.
First, special thanks to Meg Robarts Turner, Van Logan Franklin, Cullen Johnson, and Mike Ridge for their assistance on different aspects of the build and for their support of my mental health during the process. And thanks to Heather Hanna at Smooth-On for the opportunity and for her support throughout. I think I started sculpting this figure right after the tree project install (will blog on that fun project soon!) about August 17th and delivered it Oct 1. This was the first project in my new workshop space which was very rewarding.
Here's a pic of the pallet of goodies that Heather sent me. Lots of fun Smooth-On products!
This figure was made from scratch so there was a lot to do right off the bat. This gallery shows the progress of some of the early sculpture, to making molds and first castings. Photos have more info in the captions.
One of the biggest challenges was making him break down for transport and be done so that he could be re-assembled at the Con. His head and torso were a unit that bolted to the hips. The angle of the pose made it so the belt needed a removable panel, held with large "rare earth" magnets. Hips, legs and base another unit. Horns slipped into receivers in his head, aligned with magnets. His arms and shoulder armor went into receivers and locked in with bolts. And the blade of his weapon was separate which dropped in quite well to the handle. These pics below show a bit of that assembly "engineering".
Over the summer of 2016, I was in the processing of looking for a new shop space. I'd simply outgrown the old one, and it was an hour from home. Well, wouldn't you know it, a great space came available right when this project was getting hot. So even though this figure was a lot of work in a short period, I jumped on the new space, got going packing up the old shop and moved. Main move was done on Sept 9-10 with the help of my wonderful wife, Meg. (That seems like I should post something about the new shop, too...) It was a little nuts to pack up the Essex Jct shop and move to Barre in the middle of a huge project like this, but thanks to Meg and Ellie's help, it all worked out.
Lots more to share on this - sculpting the head, armor and bringing it all together with costuming and paint. Next time!
