Polynesian Cthulhu Relic

 I just realized that I'd completely abandoned this blog, I haven't updated it since December of last year - and maybe no one really gives a shit anyway, so this is all just for me. BUT, I felt it was time for a quick update as I've finally done a new Cthulhu piece. Inspired by the collectable relics from FarCry 3.

What you're seeing here is Polynesian Cthulhu #1 specifically.

Each one will look a little different, some minor discolouration, maybe some chips, flaws or air bubbles - these are all meant to be by design, making each one slightly unique by itself. They're not meant to be perfect, flawless statues.

I will be doing these a lot differently than how I used to, just as an experiment for now. These are not limited edition, but they are all numbered. I will be making no more than 3 per week, and only making more when the current three have sold and shipped - just so I don't need to make space in my already overcrowded workshop and keep a steadier more reliable, easier to work with production schedule.

They are made from a quick setting concrete and so far appear to be quite durable. Almost 3 inches across at the base. 3 1/4 inches tall. Around 430 grams, the weight varies slightly from statue to statue by around 10 grams it seems so far.

I'm selling them just through Etsy for now, 3 listings added on a Sunday or Monday depending on my time and then I'll wait until all three sell out and make three more and list them for the next coming Sunday or Monday, and on and on until I simply have no time or I go mad, whichever comes first.

They will all be listed separately, so you can see the exact version you're buying, all the flaws and discoloured spots are pictured so if you don't like some aspect of that element, check out the next available listing, or wait until the next round. I won't be doing custom orders or bulk orders or anything outside of this schedule.

This is the plan for the foreseeable future, and might change depending on the number of sales, but this is it for now.

You can visit my Etsy shop to find them, if you don't see them, they're already sold, so wait for the next round.

Christmas in Innsmouth

Finally made a female companion piece to my original Innsmouth prosthetic and did a quick shoot with it.

 

I thought I'd make a few more of my Norse Cthulhu Effigy piece, but a new variations. A faux bronze version. It's the same mould as the original, just cast in black resin and given a faux bronze finish with acrylic paint and a sealer.

I'll only be making 5 of them, maybe a year and occasionally for conventions, this these 5 are all you'll be seeing online for sale this year. $30 each, plus shipping. And if you're in the US, take advantage of our crappy Canadian dollar because that's $30 CAD.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/265644184/faux-bronze-norse-cthulhu-effigy 

Tribal Cthulhu Wall Hanging.

This was one of those pieces I made more or less just for fun.I've done a few different "cultural Cthulhu" and wanted to try something a little different than just a sculpture that sits on a shelf. I thought about making an actual mask, but the size and proportions didn't feel right - so I settled on a flat piece, very simple in overall shape, that would just hang on the wall.

The final piece is made from Smooth-On's Free Form Air Epoxy, it's a 2 part dough. The mould is just a large flat piece, silicone of course, and the dough is just pressed into it. I had some experience doing this in the past and noticed that while it works really well, it's not always perfect. I wanted it to look like wood and be a little worn looking, so this method allows for a certain amount of random defects and deformities and once cure it actually feels like a dried chunk of wood.

Painting them is a bit of a pain in the ass, but I don't intend to make too many of them. This was done for myself, but it's a reusable mould, so I'm doing a very limited run of only 10 of them for online sale, at $40 each.I'm not making a huge profit off this piece, but it recoups the cost of making it in the first place and my time for making each one.

It's about 10"x10", weighs next to nothing and comes with a hanging wire already attached. I've only got 2 ready to go at the time I'm writing this, I'll probably make new ones early next year.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/255512979/tribal-cthulhu-wall-hanging

Limited Run Buddha Cthulhu

I finally have a few of these ready for sale as a Limited Run, they're for sale on Etsy for the moment. $35 each, limited run of only 30 for online sale. I have 3 ready to go, as well as a reject - you can view all this on Etsy.
https://www.etsy.com/listing/234557008/buddha-cthulhu

Buddha Cthulhu

Not really sure if I should call it a Cthulhu Buddha or a Buddha Cthulhu. Either way it's a little awesome.

I just have three for right now, I need to  redo the mould and then they'll be up for a limited online retail run of 50 at $35 each. 3 inches tall, cast in resin with a faux brass look and given a hard gloss coating to protect the finish. I might adjust the faux brass look with a base coat of brown rather than black. I tried a patina on it and wasn't really happy with it, it lightened it up too much.

 The three I have are currently for sale, I'll be posting them on Etsy, but you don't have to go through that site if you don't want to. Shipping is as low as $15 in Canada, 9 days or $18 for 3 days on average. $13 to the US, 6-10 days, other options are available though. And overseas $21, 6-10 days - on average.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/234557008/buddha-cthulhu?ref=shop_home_active_1

Cthulhu Prosthetic

I finally got this bad boy finished and ready for sale, the Cthulhu Foam Latex Prosthetic Appliance, and the first in a series of what I'm calling "The Innsmouth Collection", all Lovecraft inspired pieces.

Now, this is not something I'd really recommend for beginners, it does require a little preparation work - unlike any other of my prosthetics. And, like all my other prosthetics, it comes unpainted - so be prepared for a paint job to make it work.

And the vision is limited, I wanted to make a piece that totally disregarded human features in order to make it more Cthulhu-like, so the vision comes from the small dark "spots" on the brow. While it is limited, it's not that bad depending on what you want to do with it - operating heavy machinery as Cthulhu is not recommended.

These "spots" need to be cleaned up on each piece - special instructions will be included. As well as a small area that will allow you to breath through your nose will need to be cut out - your choice though, but the area is totally hidden under the tentacles.

The piece is available for $130, which is admittedly much more expensive than my usual pieces, however this piece requires nearly 5-6 times more foam than a regular face piece and a bit more work than the typical prosthetic as well. I will point out, because it's a much thicker piece, the thinnest point is along the forehead - which is the only area you need worry about really blending - this piece is much more likely to be reusable than any other piece I make, information on that will be included in the special instruction as well.

For right now it comes with 4 tentacles as well, each are about 5 inches long, although I do have plans for much longer ones in the near future, so you'll be able to pick what size and style of tentacle you want - at least that's the plan, don't hold me to that.

The Cthulhu Prosthetic is available ONLY as special order, I don't plan on keeping them in stock, only making them as they're ordered. Allow up to two weeks for manufacturing, so if you're in a rush, you might be out of luck. And as far as wholesale goes, I will take orders for it - however, there is a limit per order (nor sure just yet, but no more than 5 per order mostly likely) and they'll be $80 each.

Occasionally rejects will be available as well since this piece does have a much higher rate of defects, most of which can be easily patch and are unnoticeable, but sometimes there's just too much or too great of a defect.

And that's pretty much it. Any questions, you can email me at foxhenderson @ themonkeyrodeo.com

My Last Movie...more like fake movie trailer really.

I've been thinking about this off and on over the last few months, and nearly every time it came to mind I always thought an interview with Patton Oswalt I once heard., he was discussing his thoughts on being a successful comedian. I'll admit I don't recall some exact points, but the basic idea was that he believed in order to be a success in his business (and I think it translates to any creative business) you actually have to enjoy the work of your peers and allow yourself to appreciate their success in order to become inspired by it. I think I agree with that idea, which is why I don't think I'll ever be successful, even if I wanted to, as a filmmaker  but feel I will find success in doing special effects.

This might offend a few folks, I can't say I really care anymore - because some folks look to be offended in everything anyway, so why bother tiptoeing around the point. What it comes down to is this, I don't care about indie/amateur movies overall. I don't enjoy watching them, I can't stand people going on and on about their "awesome script". I just don't give a big, fat, wobbly ass about them. I think I did at one point, but because of so many negative experiences I've grown to kind of hate the whole idea.

There are a small select few, locally speaking, whose talent and dedication to what they do, that I respect and actually enjoy working with. And let me say it again for the cheap seats...A SMALL SELECT FEW.  I think about 4 or so, they should know who they are.

And this has nothing to do my own abilities as a filmmaker vs someone else's,  I make bad movies on purpose because it allows me to cut corners with a justification of "it's supposed to be that way", so don't read this and think this is some personal slam of my movies vs yours (or theirs), I AM NOT AND WILL NEVER BE A FILMMAKER - so let's leave it at and don't worry about it.

So the actual point of all this is why I feel I might find success doing SPFX, because I do see things being made by my peers (albeit online only since I'm the only one locally that I'm aware of) that I enjoy and find inspiring, I'm happy for their successes (even when I'm in a constant state of disappoint about my lack thereof), I enjoy talking to some of them even when we don't agree on something - to me it's a dialog about something we both love, not an argument about who sucks and why - although they do happen, but it's usually a pretty one sided conversation about an individual, or group, bent on ripping people off with crap quality. There are those who are negative and just want to tear things down, they exist everywhere and I've learned to suss them out and just sidestep or ignore them.

And even to elaborate a touch more on my whole anti-FaceOff seeming rant, I never intended it to come off like that - it's something I do enjoy watching and talking about and there are definitely some works being made on that show I find to be just amazing to look at and have even seen a few concepts here and there I've wanted to steal to incorporate into my own designs, I just don't like the idea of televised/heavily edited competition in a field I don't feel I'm into.

I'm friends on Facebook with more random makeup artists than filmmakers, and most of them added me because they somehow found my work - again, in special effects, not as a filmmaker. I've never had a random filmmaker see my work and actually comment about how they appreciated it or anything really like that, with makeup artists, it happens quite often.

I've gotten more work as an makeup artist, I've made more money, I'm less stressed (and oddly enough I enjoy the stress of it), I enjoy the collaboration with the few folks I've done with for - to be perfectly honest, I never really had any of that as a filmmaker.

So, because of all this I'm done making movies. I always said I did it for fun and when it wasn't fun anymore, there was no point in doing it. Now I've got 3 movies all shot and mostly edited that need audio work I'll probably turn out over the next year, first being Moonshine of the Damned lined up for early October, but I've one last project that's been gnawing away at me that I'd really love to do and then just drop the whole thing.

I've had this idea for an HP Lovecraft/Alfred Hitchcock movie, the concept is continually changing, but visually I can already see it in my head. I want to create an epic looking, almost Lord of the Rings Lovecraft movie with Hitchcock cinematography and plot. It's a bit of a tall order, but I think the two can actually blend together brilliantly since both heavily feature paranoia as an overall theme in their works.

The new title to the project is The Thief of Innsmouth (tentatively, it's changed so many times already). Originally the lead was to be a Demon, as I seem to love putting Demons into movies for no good reason, I'm changing that to have a lead who's a human in order to play up the horrific elements of the good townsfolks of the mob controlled town of Innsmouth. I'll borrow a lot from The Shadow Over Innsmouth story for the setting and throw in a more of a Hitchcock twist of a case of mistaken identity as a man is hired to do something (I've no idea yet what the motivation is here) to the crime lord of Innsmouth, Cthulhu himself and weird shit like that.

It's an odd twist on the whole thing. It's an incredibly expensive endeavor - which is why this project will only be a trailer. A roughly 2 - 3 minute trailer of the most awesome, epic, mutant fish people gangster/horror movie ever. And I'm not really a Gangster movie fan, it just feels like the right element to throw in there.

I'm only looking at a 2 - 3 day shoot, as many makeup FX as I can possibly muster, which will be easy since I'm already embarking on a slowly growing line of Lovecraft inspired prosthetics - so this trailer will in fact also be a commercial for all that awesomeness as well. I'll try to do some location shooting, but possibly a lot of studio/greenscreen stuff as well since we're pretty limited for really great locations for this sort of thing.

And that's it. I'm done making movies. Next spring I'm planning on one last fake movie trailer - there's always the possibility of collaborations, but only where I'm not the one pushing the project forward on my own, I'll just be following someone else's lead.

However, there is always the slightest possibility that if the trailer turns out and I can create a brilliant script, I might try the grant thing again and that is the only way I'd ever attempt to do a movie again, none of this out of pocket shit anymore. It's just not worth it.

The Day I Murdered the World

The Day I Murdered the World is a new project I'm looking at for next year. I'm finally done, for the moment, with cheesy, old school 70s, 80s stuff - although I might return there eventually, but I am done with zombie movies for the time being, I've done what I needed to do there, the Bimbo Zombie Killers! series has come full circle and I don't have much more to say on the subject.

The stress of scheduling and just the overall exhausting experience in making this last BZK! movie has been a little too much for me (and it's not over yet) and I decided some time ago it would be my last overly elaborate movie. I still wanted to keep making them, but I needed to find a way to ease some of the production stress - I don't feel like having extra help behind the camera would solve it, it would just become another thing to worry about. Another person whose reliability would constantly be a source of distraction, so I'm not going that route.

I'm going back to simple and I figure I can achieve that in a couple of different ways. One thing that slows down shooting is dialog, well, with a totally silent movie, that's out the window - easy enough. A large re-occurring cast, I'm scaling it down to a much smaller size, although it will be a more out in public movie, the main characters will be lesser in number and most likely wearing a lot of makeup that will allow for a double if needed.

So there we have it, a silent movie, with a smaller cast. I'll be using full head prosthetics to ease the stress of having to schedule just the right person constantly, so I can use a stand-in. I'll work on the need for a constant flow of continuity by not having a cast that's slowly knocked off and needing to make sure costumes stay clean if I shout out of order.

This was my starting point for a project that came to me with the title, The Day I Murdered the World. My goal here is to make a serious movie, to actually try a genre that could prove very difficult if not written just right or acted just right. My first goal was to find the right actor, it took about 5 seconds to settle on a guy I've worked with off and on over the years, Tim Gormley. To put it as simply as possible, he's incredible to work with. He understands acting and he's willing to do pretty much anything. So with him onboard, I felt the project at least was off to a good start.

The overall feel of the movie, will be awesome if I can pull it off. We're going with a Hitchcock type movie, one of the general themes of Hitchcock movies is paranoia - which fits in well with the fact we have a fellow who is unable to hear and trying to find out what happened, all the while wondering, who's a friend and who's an enemy. Combine that with a story with a slight Lovecraftian vibe (whose stories also heavily featured the notion of paranoia) and I think we've got a potentially bizarre little film.

Will it be feature length? Probably not. Maybe half an hour. I really don't know. I do know I won't limit myself and try for a specific length of script, I'll just start and see what happens and we'll go from there.

I've got a lot of vague random imagery floating around in my head to try to mix both the Lovecraft and Hitchcock feel - and if it's successful or not, I think it'll be a bit of a curiosity of a movie that some folks will really get into and other will just hate it within the first 5 minutes.

I'm planning on a winter pre-production and if the script is completed by spring, we'll try to shoot it if the budget isn't cripplingly huge.

Cthulhu Chess Set Concepts

This is one of those ideas I'm on the fence about, should I or shouldn't I? I want to do a Cthulhu themed chess set. Yes, it's been done before so I know I'm not being totally original here - but that's kind of beside the point I think.

I'm trying to suss out if it's worth the effort or has it been done to death? I'm looking at a limited 5 set edition cast in (most likely) Aqua-Resin, it gives a nice, almost unusual fake stone feel. Estimated price will be $350 and will include a fully sculpted and appropriately themed board as well.

I'm debating on the style. Realistic and slightly abstract have been done, both to very good results. I'm not looking to one up anyone, I just wanted to attempt more functional pieces. I'm not into chess, but I know plenty who are. So my thoughts immediately turned to "what would be the best style for this?" Are people looking for such an item more interested in a semi-realistic approach or would a cartoonish, somewhat Mike Mignola-esque take on Cthulhu be interesting enough?

My concepts are rough, I think the Cartoon version will have somewhat more detail and will also be fully painted with colour variations to represent each side, whereas the Realistic will just be simple light and dark variations with some minor antiquing to bring out the details.

I might, over the next couple weeks, actually sculpt both pieces and look at this again to see what opinions might be.

For those who think $350 is too expensive for something like this, I can't help but point out the sheer amount of work involved and expense of the materials. I won't be getting rich off this. I'm aiming for somewhere below the line of the serious collection (for which this would be easily affordable) and the higher end of the casual collector (those that might not be rich, but appreciate the work that goes into something like this). If I were to do just one set, I would charge way more, but I feel that a limited edition of 5 sets is more than reasonable.

I might also make a couple sets available cast in resin, without the board, to appeal to those with are really interested but feel the price is too out of reach. Don't know for sure, I'm open to opinions on this as well.

Basically, should I do or not? Is there already enough of this kind of thing out there? Is Realistic the way to go or perhaps some want to see a different, more Cartoon approach to it? After collecting a few opinions on pricing, I feel $350 is a very fair price for this - anyone else feel different? Just thinking out loud on this for the moment, it's very possible it won't even happen if I get enough negative feedback on the idea, I don't want to do something that there's no interest in - especially something that will require this much work.

Concept: Cthulhu Chessboard

This has been done a few times already, some are just the pieces from what I've seen, some a really good and some are just decent, so I doubt I'll be setting the world on fire with this idea but I'm looking to create a very limited edition Cthulhu themed Chess set along with a board.

Right now it's in the very, very early concept stage - there's nothing even on paper yet. I do know full well if I'm going to do it, it HAS to be awesome to hold up against the work already circulating out there. My basic idea is to do all the pieces, much like the others that have been done and to do a fully sculpted chessboard as well - I've spent more time concerned about the board than the pieces themselves at the moment.

So far I haven't seen anyone who has done a full board as well - but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, I just haven't seen it myself in all the searches that I've been done. I saw something that looked like a custom board, but it didn't really scream Cthulhu when I saw it, so it might have been totally unrelated and just used to show off the pieces.

It will be a non-traditional looking board, at least I'm hoping that'll be the case. The pieces will all be as uniquely styled as I can manage, using various Lovecraft creatures and my take on them - trying to keep them as close to any current ideas of how they should look as well.

I'm going to make 5 of them, cast in aqua-resin. I like the stone type feel of aqua-resin, it's feels more expensive than regular resin and actually is more expensive I believe. And if I can figure out the process, I've seen it done, 1 set in pewter - but it would be tinted pewter to make telling the side apart easier. The pewter set might not happen if I can't figure out some method of tinting, although I've seen other do it a quick search turned up nothing but a few images of it having been done. Nor do I really understand anything about the quality of tinted pewter, other than it does look nice.

The price would be expensive as well, based on the time spent, cost of materials and overall uniqueness of the final pieces and board as a sculptural piece of art, however I'm also trying to avoid overpricing. I did some looking around as well on what some others were charging, some I think were way too high considering the materials used were incredibly inexpensive, and some were very reasonable priced for the exact opposite reasons.

I'm looking for any feedback on the idea if possible. Has it already been done to death? how much is too much to charge? Is 5 sets a reasonable number for a limited edition? Concepts to avoid and ones to focus on that might not have been done yet by other artists? Anything would be appreciated at this point and I'll keep things updated as I work on the idea over the summer - I'm hoping to have them ready in the early fall.

Demon photo shoots for 2013 and possibly beyond

With a few changes to how I do things in regards to prosthetic makeup, I'm moving into doing some much larger pieces. I'm constructing a much larger foam latex oven this year (hopefully soon) and the photo shoots will involve much more elaborate makeup this time around. Like full head pieces, arm and hand pieces, and other pieces to really demonize people a little bit more.

The previous book contained stuff that was really intended for resale, most of the stuff in the new round of shoots won't be because it's being custom made for each model - although there will be a few of the simpler shoots thrown in there.

I've picked out a small group of both men and women who I will be doing lifecasts of (mostly just their heads, but all depends on what the shoot needs). Because the makeup will be more drastic in obscuring their natural features I don't mind reusing the same people for the more elaborate shoots - plus it'd just be too expensive to do head casts for every single person - plus I don't have the space to store all that stuff.

So what do I have planned? All sorts of stuff, this time around I want to do some more iconic type characters (iconic in my estimation at least). One I have planned is a demon version of Kratos from the God of War videogames - that should be pretty awesome, Kratos is already kind of demonic. I'll be using John MacDonald for that one - if you familiar with my previous shoots and don't know who John is, he'll actually make the original Kratos look scrawny in comparison.

Lara Croft and even Nathan Drake are being planned as well - in separate shoots. Both are pretty easy and I chose them because if you're into videogames they're both fairly recognizable because they keep a consistent costume style and look. I'm sticking with the more realistic human characters, so no, I will not be doing a demon PacMan or Mario, it just seems a little too retarded for me.

I'm thinking a demon Indiana Jones would be cool. I have a friend who's a huge Indy fan so I'm looking to get him to do it, just need to find a really good location for that shoot.

I was toying with fairy tale characters as well, the first I came up with was Little Red Riding Hood as a werewolf - that one seems pretty obvious and logical, if I think of others that work a well as that I might do a few more of these. Could be cool, but offhand I can't think of too many iconic type fairy tale characters who would be recognizable as a demon or without a explanation. I'd like the images to speak for themselves and have, at least, a good portion of the viewers able to recognize the character.

These are all going to require some crafting of props and costumes, I was thinking I'd just buy a couple of the cheap foam Sword of Chaos props for the Kratos shoot, but last night I was thinking they might look a little small in John's hands - until I see them in context I'm toying with making my own.

One of the more intricate, and possibly annoying, shoots will be the Steampunk Demons, it'll feature (all fictional characters) Dr. Mordgog and his two assistants as they travel through time. That'll be a 3 person shoot and could be awesome if I really take the time with the props and costumes. The thing with Steampunk is, if it isn't don't right it looks stupid. You can't just throw on a victorian-esque suit and some goggle and declare you're into Steampunk, you need some crazy assed looking shit to go with it. This is going to be a big one and really hard to do right, luckily I've been planning it for awhile.

Otherwise I'd like to do a demon Samurai (could be awesome or terrible depending on the costuming ideas), might go with a more "Samurai Jack" approach to this one, don't know for sure just yet.

I think a Geisha Demon (continuing with that theme) could be pretty awesome, need a good setting though for this shoot. We don't really have the best gardens that I feel I'd need to pull this one off well.

A Victorian Age Demon, a female one with the huge crazy dress, I think that could look pretty cool.

And one I've been debating about for some time and really need to work on the design is Hellgirl. I made a remake about another shoot I had done where I painted up the model in all red, that she kinda reminded me of Hellboy's little sister - if he had one. Then I thought, why not? I've seen a lot of female cosplayers doing their version of a female Hellboy, but I don't want to do that, it's too easy.

I want to do a fully realized character that would fit into that world, more del Toro's than Mignola's maybe, that could very well be the sister of the Right Hand of Doom. In this case she would be known as the Left Hand of Destruction (tentative name). She wouldn't be an identical twist on Hellboy, other than having horns (of a different configuration) and being red - I kinda think you need those things in order for it to resemble the original. That could be cool.

I'm sure there will be more, I have a few others I'm playing around with to see if I can form them into a decent concept. I'm not putting the same timeline for completion on this project as I was the first, this one is going to take a lot long, maybe 2, possibly 3 years even. Who knows at this point.

Fetal Cthulhu

New for sale, "Thing in a Jar" #4. This particular "thing" was found in the West Antarctic Rift and is described as an "Ancient Species, of Unknown Origins" - technically, while not labelled as such, it is a fetal Cthulhu.

The jar is about 3" tall. The "thing" is made from several layers of a silicone called EcoFlex 20 and sealed in a liquid filled, water-tight jar, they take about 2-3 days to make each one, so the price is a little higher than the usual "things" which aren't as labour intenstive. They're $25 each.

Since the silicone is so soft, this "thing" has an extra layer of grotesqueness to it as it'll wobble and shake much like I would expect a real fetal Cthulhu to do.

Contact me at foxhenderson@themonkeyrodeo.com if you're interested in purchasing one. As I said the turnaround is about 2-3 days depending on how busy I am, but I'll let you know an approximate completion date. I'm hoping to have time through the rest of January to make several so there won't be any waiting time on orders.

I also just noticed, this is my 500th post too. Groovy.

Demonic Antiquties finally online for sale!

Getting things back in order now that I've returned to normal from the conference last weekend. And finally got around to putting the new props for sale on the website.

The Golem Icon.

The Shamanistic Demon Head

A Calcified Vampire Heart

Not really Demonic Antiquities, but really Magnet Sculptures.

A Mayan Cthulhu Totem

Protective Reliquaries containing

vampire fangs and the finger bone of a saint.

I've got a few more oddities planned and in the works and I'm hoping add about one, maybe two more, per month until Halloween this year.

The return of the "Thing in a Jar"

I'm starting to feel like I took on a little too much in doing this trade show thing. It's been good, I've done way more for the shop in the last 2 months then I have in the last year, but it's been way too busy and my brain is slowly burning out.

Got a few things left to make and thankfully I was able to get my "Thing is a Jar" made.  I had all but scraped the whole ideas as of last week because they weren't working for a huge number of reasons. Main one was the materials, I wasn't happy with them. I saw a thing online and a guy made them out of foam and whatnot - that sucked ass.

While I'm sure other's have had luck, you need the perfect sized jar so the "thing" looks alright. Mine floated and when I say floated, I mean they hit the roof of the jar like it was metal and the lid was a super magnet. Looked stupid. Then I tried to find the right jar size, no such luck.

Finally, after I gave up, I tried one made of resin. Everyone else was using Sculpey, but they were one-offs and I want to mass produce, so I figured it couldn't hurt using resin. I already had the mould and it was all set to go. And it worked perfectly, even got that gross peeling skin effect I couldn't get with the foam version.

Still got a few kinks to work out. I need to redo the label, make it more aged looking somehow, got a few things in mind for that. Overall I'm pretty happy with how they turned out and I'm hoping to get at least one more, possibly two more, ready for the trade show. I'm hoping there's time to order the illuminated stands I was looking at, so they'll glow from underneath, too bad I couldn't make my own, it'd look nice it they had an aged wooden stand with a light in it. Anyone out there with the skills to make that happen nice and cheap, please let me know.

Creating Cthulhu, Part 5...and other stuff.

The sculpture has been done for awhile now. I ran out of steam updating about it specifically and now I'm just waiting on some silicone to come in to make a mould of it and off we go again.

Otherwise, I've been busy with "The Secret Lives of Demons" project, it's coming along really well. Just did my 45 photo shoot for the book today (that's a bit of an approximation, I lost track a long time ago). Just 5 more to go and this bad boy is done. As much as I've enjoyed, and still do enjoy, working on the book, I've got so many other things rattling around in my head I'd really like the time to focus on them - since there is something of a deadline looming.

Next week I'm hoping to get some new product prototypes out, such as the Cthulhu statue, the Mayan Cthulhu Totem, the Shamanistic Demon Head, a demon fetus in a jar specimen, another demonic antiquity that's just a charm of sorts (very simple looking and rushed for a photoshoot on Sunday) and I think that might be it. Otherwise I'm starting in on some Shrunken Demon Heads and a couple other minor little pieces and foam weapons.

Creating Cthulhu, Part 4

Close to finishing up. Just some little bits here and there to clean up, smooth out and add some detailing to. The spine area was just started in this first picture, got a bit of work to do to finish it up. I'm guessing I'll probably get to start moulding tomorrow or Wednesday.

Creating Cthulhu, Part 3

Had a couple hours to work on this again today. Got it mostly smoothed out to where I started doing some of the detail work. Got a long ways to go, but it's shaping up really well. There's a lot of detail already done that's not visible here. I'll probably wait until the final resin version is all done up to do more detail photos.

Creating Cthulhu, Part 2

I won't say it's been easier to do this then I thought, but it's still pretty damn tricky. I am pretty happy with how it's coming along. Most of this was done only a few hours after the first post about it, so really this is only 3, maybe 4, more hours work to get it to this state. Now comes the really hard stuff, smoothing it all out and getting the lines nice and clean.

Creating Cthulhu, part 1

Every sculptor (and I feel a little arrogant using that term) in the genre of where I'm interested, seems to have done a Cthulhu statue of some sort, at some time. The first one I came across was done by Richard Allen Poppe, who seems to have vanished from the internet. He did some really great stuff, sold mostly through eBay - but eventually his accounts (both eBay and PayPal) were shut down apparently from too much bad press. I had some minor communication with him, he seemed like a decent guy to me - but for whatever reason just wasn't able to keep up with the demand for this work and ultimately gave up. At least that's my impression of it, I could be completely wrong. While there are others who would love to bad mouth him, I won't do it here because I don't really know the truth.

This here is one of the few remaining images or mentions of him I could find online:
http://www.templeofdagon.com/artists/richard-allen-poppe/
http://in-tenebris-scriptus.blogspot.com/2007/12/richard-allen-poppe.html
http://propnomicon.blogspot.com/2010/11/cthulhu-fhtagn-poppe-edition.html
http://www.ligotti.net/showthread.php?t=4832

Of course there have been others, dozens and dozens of others, but his Cthulhu sculpture was the first one I really liked and the only I ever purchased - not to say the others sucked, but for whatever reason, his stuck out to me. Just do an image search for Cthulhu and you'll see what I mean, they range from fucking awesome, to a little crappy, from freakish to funny and everything in between.

So I felt it was about time to give it a try myself. A little while ago, just for fun, I did a Mayan inspired Cthulhu totem, very simplistic at best - but it served it purpose for what I wanted to do with it. But I still wanted to do a good attempt that would fit in with the countless others, so I started this week - with the intention of mass production (on a small scale of course) for sale online.

 

This here is a very rough blocking out of my version of Cthulhu, about 5-6 hours I guess at this point. The picture doesn't really do it justice, as seems to happen so often when I take pictures of things I've sculpted. I wanted the head to be rather massive and out of all the ones I've seen and mostly none of even tried to capture, is a bit of a sense of weight. Most of the times his tentacles just seem to float or be totally weightless, whether or not I succeed at this is another question - maybe there's a reason you don't see it, maybe it just doesn't work very well.

It's about 7 1/2 inches tall, might be slightly taller in the end. The final version will be mostly likely cast in resin, haven't decided on any sort of colouring or whatnot. I can say it won't be realistically painted, I'm making it as though it were a statue, not a real version of him.

I'm not going to do wings, most other variations have wings, the Poppe version I have doesn't have wings either and I kinda like it like that, less cluttered feeling I think.

I'm hoping to keep updating this, with less rambling, as I progress and even hope to get some pictures of the moulding and casting process. If I remember to do it.