Norse Cthulhu Effigy

I realized I really liked simple, old, worn, kind of cruddy looking artifacts. Slightly broken, chipped and just generally used looking. Not only because it lends itself to my sometimes lazy and impatient sculpting skills, but because it tends to have an air of reality about the final pieces. That's not to say I don't care for or appreciate the hard work that goes into creating something finely detailed and pristine looking, it just all depends on the look you're going for I guess - but old and cruddy tends to be more authentic feeling.

I had already done a somewhat realistic piece of Cthulhu and even a crude Mayan Totem, and I liked the idea that perhaps other cultures had encountered Cthulhu and created their own concepts of him. It's been done before, so I don't make any claims to be it being an original idea, but it's a cool concept regardless.

I knew I wanted to make a small, more affordable item - although I'll admit it's been awhile since I've had to listen to people bitching about cost when they had no interest in buying anything in the first place - and a smaller piece as well. So what I ended up with was a Norse inspired Cthulhu effigy, I spent several days searching for examples of Norse art and found most of it was pretty simple and crude - and the rest was all modern versions and way too elaborate.

The back story of the effigy is that Vikings going on long sea journeys fearing an encounter with Cthulhu would carve these effigy that were kept on the ship as a sign of respect and would supposedly allow them to sail without fear of being destroyed by Cthulhu. I wanted it to look like it was carved in bone as well.

It's about 2" wide and 3" tall, made of resin, and while this isn't a solid plan yet, once it goes online I'm looking at $20 with a limited run of 30. Not sure exactly when it'll be on the website since I'm in the midst of updating it, but anyone interested can email me at foxhenderson @ themonkeyrodeo . com.

Mummy Head prop

Another prop I've been wanting to make for ages and for some reason it just never happened was a Mummy Head. It seems like every time I have an idea for something, by the time I get around to it I see several others have already attempted it - gets a little annoying because it makes me feel like I'm copying, even though I had the idea long before I saw anyone else's attempt.

The hardest part of a Mummy Head is getting it to look decent, it's not a zombie head. I went though a couple variations, basing my sculpt off a couple actual mummy head images I found, altering where I felt it just looked better.

I has sculpted and moulded it quite some time ago, I even cast it - although it was a pretty rough attempt with a really bad, broken seam. I had brushed the latex in, using up some old tinted stuff just to get rid of it. The polyfoam was kind crap as well, it just kept collapsing, but it worked well enough to make a prototype for painting.

I pretty much did the paint job without really planning ahead. It was several layers, going from dark to light until I felt it was decent looking. The teeth were done quickly with a brush somewhere inbetween the layers on the head itself so they received a little extra "aging".

So that's it. It turned out pretty well I think for what I'd call a "budget prop". I'm planning on making about 5 or so for sale eventually and I'm planning on 1 or 2 "museum" pieces. I'd love to find a cheap bell jar to  display this under - unfortunately that's just one of those items you can't easily find in my corner of the world.

Reject Prosthetic Sale for the Entire Month of June.

MONTH LONG REJECT SALE. For the entire month of June, all rejects are 75% off - this doesn't work in conjunction with any other discount offers. Rejects are normally 50% off the retail, but I've got a lot of them so I thought I'd have sale and mark them down to 75% off until midnight June 30th, my time zone, Atlantic. So as long as I get the email in my inbox before that time, you're fine.

Rejected Full Face pieces, normally $25.00 are only $12.50. The cheapest thing I have, Small Horns are only $1.50.

If you're not sure what rejects are, they're 2nds or pieces that have minor flaws in them that I don't feel are good enough for regular sale, so if you're not too picky, just want to experiment with prosthetics or are actually somewhat good with makeup and can work around some minor flaws, you might be interested in this.

If you're interested, send me a message at themonkeyrodeo @ gmail . com. I don't have a full list of what's available, but there's around 100 random pieces, full faces, foreheads, ears, noses and horns. Until I get around to doing a proper list for viewing, you can just email me with what you're interested in.

 Payments can be made through PayPal or (only if you're in Canada) Email Interact.