Holy Plastic Prototypes, Batman!

Well, I've finally got some pieces of plastic pulled from the molds and fully assembled. I've got minis and Krustiez. I'm generally pleased with how they've come out, but I will be switching over to a different material. The plastic I'm using right now looks great, but the fingers have a tendency to snap off.

The whole idea behind these monsters is that they represent the size that the Krustiez would be if they were "real." That is to say, they are "actual size." They don't have any accessories, because they use whatever they find around your house to mess up your stuff. Lighters, glue, forks, etc. The sculpts for the arms feature big, open hands, so they can grab these human-sized items. If the plastic is too rigid and brittle to allow them to grab people stuff without their fingers snapping off, then I need to use a different material.

I've found something that I think I like, and I'll know in a week or so if it works out. The next protos I get poured up will be made from a hard urethane rubber. It will be of a hardness comparable to, like, a shopping cart wheel or a rubber shoe heel. Somewhere between those, anyway. It takes the same amount of time to cure as the urethane plastic I'm using now, but it is slightly less expensive, and more flexible. Rock and Roll!

This whole process has taken much longer than i originally anticipated. I'm used to breezing through projects, but this one has been problem after problem. The molds for the arms came out pretty nicely, though.

So, anyway, there are a bunch of pictures up of the first plastic tests of Pus and Vin, as well as the unnamed min-monsters. These pictures are straight from the molds, so there's still some extra plastic sticking out of the bottoms of the figures, and mold flashing on the fingers. The plastic on the bottom comes from the opening in the mold where the liquid plastic is poured in. This will get filed off with an electric sander, to give them nice, flat feet and bottoms to stand or sit on. There are also a few shots of the arm molds, with newly poured plastic arms inside, waiting to be pulled and cleaned up.

I really want to thank all of my friends and family for their support on this project. Especially Polish, Brandon, Speezi, Tiffany, My sister and her friends, my Dad and Mom, and my boss, Buddy. You guys believing in me and my plastic crap really helped me to keep on going, through all the snags. There's still a lot of work to do. And the guys at the October Toys forum. And Matt Doughty. Oh, and the gang at 9th and Coles Tavern, for the times when I needed to get away from all of the many problems this project has hit. And for the friendly ear. And for the beer. Always the beer.

What do you think, sirs?

The genesis of Vin

Here's the first sketch of Vin, based on an older doodle in my current sketchbook.

Process Shots.

Here are some minty fresh shots from the day's work. If I may share some wisdom always do the thing the right way like you're supposed to or you'll have to do it twice, dummy. If I had just obeyed that rule.... regardless, it's done now. See what it took to get this did!







The beast himself is made of super sculpey, aluminum foil, aluminum wire, floral wire, and a couple of joints scavenged off another toy. I love that he's basically just a big mouth, because I have a lot of fun sculpting mouths. I like to make a handful of super sculpey teeth, bake them, and then when they are hard I set them into the as yet unbaked gums, and then cure the whole thing in the oven. then i add the lips, and the rest of the face, and build and bake as I go. The legs were made separately over wire, and then added to the bulk of the body with more super sculpey. They are not articulated, as the shape of the character wouldn't allow for very much hip movement, anyway. the arms were constructed from plumbers epoxy, aluminum wire, and floral wire, and then covered in super sculpey. They were then baked hard, and the whole thing was assembled carefully for the photograph, and taken apart again even more carefully.

Next step is the molds!

Vin, Fully Assembled.

So, here's Vin all assembled and with all of his component parts. I'll upload some images of the work in progress, too, so you can see what goes into a mess like this. Check it out!

Action Figure Prototype Sculpted!

So, after much wasting time, I have put together my first articulated action figure! Feature a whopping two points of articulation, I give you Vin, the first of a line of small monster action figures I am tentatively calling "Krustiez." These are inspired by the kind of gross-out toys I remember being fairly popular in the late eighties, early nineties.

The Krustiez are a bunch of tiny, nugget-bodied monsters that live in your basements and garbage, and take on some of the characteristics of whatever they encounter most often. Due to his prolonged exposure to rats as a youth, Vinegar Chesterfield Heatherington or "Vin," took on decidedly rodent-like traits. Like all of his kin, Vin suffers from delusions of regal breeding and nobility, as well as a decided lack of cognitive capability. That is to say, he's dumb as a post. And not a smart post. He still sees himself as the "idea man" of his clan of trash-dwellers, even though his plan to get all of the humans' food by gluing popsicle sticks to snails was, as could be guessed, not entirely successful. Never daunted, Vin and his best friend Pus are always on the lookout for new mischiefs and scams.

This was about a nine hour sculpt, and I'm mostly pleased with it. I'm hoping to get it cast this week so I can start pouring up the final resin pieces, which will be available for purchase as soon as I can figure out how to make an online store or something. You want one?

Vin is about three inches tall, and hopefully the first of several Krustiez which will be available. Up next is Pus, whom I shall show you a bit of later on this week.

What do you think, sirs?