"Thing in a Jar", the Complete Collection

With the completion of the 5th and final "thing", an Albino Bilifore Parasite, I'm offering up the "Thing in a Jar" props as a whole collection.

Here's the ugly little sucker before being sealed up in his jar. It's made from 2 layers of silicone, with small beads of Premo embedded between them for eyes. A layer of laxet that's been torn and distressed  finishes it off. The silicone is untinted for a semi-translucent look, the image below was taking during sunrise and gives it a sort of delicate deep fried look, it doesn't normally look like that.

Here he is all snug in his jar of simulated Giant Mountain Troll bile to keep him fresh.

Using silicone to make this and adding on 6 thin tendrils really gives it a creepy realistic look. A lot of other "things" like this I've seen online are usually hard, made of sculpy or latex, tend to be stiff, this method gives a very realistic movement when the jar is moved - wasn't sure if it'd work, but I'm pretty happy with the results. Here's a very quick video showing that off.

And finally, here they all are together. The smaller jars are $20 each, the two larger jars are $25. Normally in total they'd be $110, but I'm offering the whole collection up for only $95. One of the reasons, is because sometimes accidents happen in shipping no matter how well they're packed and the most used method with Canadapost offers $100 coverage - so there's some security in shipping at least. And I would, of course, recommend the faster methods - less handling means less likelihood of damage.

I might at some point create a "Collector's Edition" of this, probably only one or two will be available, but each will come in an antiqued wooden case in which they can be displayed. No idea when this will happen though.

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.

Ancient Species of Unknown Origins.

Because I had some extra supplies around that have a limited shelf-life, I decided to see what new props I could make using them. And what I came up with was a couple new "Thing in a Jar" props.

First one I came up with was this, an ancient species of unknown origins found deep withing the West Antarctic Rift. Essentially, a fetal Cthulhu.

It's made of EcoFlex 20, 2 layers. 1st layer was left untinted so it's slightly transparent - in the future I'll be adding thin strands of red yarn to the inner side of the 1st layer to simulate some veins, should work well I think. Then I added a couple blobs of thickened, black tinted silicone for the eyes - in the future I'll be prefabricated black blobs, probably from Sculpy, to stick in there so they look better. And finally the 2nd layer was slightly tinted with a flesh tone. And once it was all cured I just did a thin layer of latex over it and roughed it up a bit.

For the final piece it'll be housed in a sealed, liquid filled jar, just like the other "Thing in a Jar" props, but in a different looking and sized jar just to have a bit of variety to that line of props.

It's actually a little disturbing feeling to hold. Since the silicone has some weight and it's so soft, it's holds it's shape really well but wobbles around much like what I assume, if it was real, it would actually feel like to hold.

Really happy with how the first test turned out, hoping to source some proper jars locally really soon and get this bad boy online for sale. It'll be more expensive than the other things because there's a more time intensive process to make them.

"Things in Jars" again.

I thought I'd do up some images of the actual "Things" as they're not totally clear from the jar pictures, which is kind of the point, but from a selling point of view I think some folks might like to see what the "Things" look like.

Freeze Dried Two-Head Faerie

Haitian Bloodworm

Yeti Fetus

I've only made 8 of each for now, we'll see how well they sell and than they'll only be made in a limited quantity. They sell for $15 each, the jars a re pretty high quality 8oz. jars, all sealed shut and coated with wax. The liquid is just water with the smallest drop of acrylic paint to make it cloudy.

Things in Jars going online for sale tomorrow!

Had a decently productive day - I think because I planned on doing way more than humanly possible getting just a bit done that took most of the day made it seem really productive and busy overall.

My main goal was to get the "Thing in a Jar" props done for sale. It's been a long, long, long time coming and they're finally done. Took awhile to track down just the right jar - mainly because I  needed a reliable and consistent source if I end up selling a lot of them.

So here they are:

This here is a Freeze Dried Two-Headed Faerie, found in the Aran Islands in Ireland. This is the only dry one, the other two jars are liquid filled and I thought I needed something a little different.

The Faerie itself was cast in Flex FoamIt X, I wanted it to have a bit of a dry look. I tried regular FoamIt, but it's small so it was pretty fragile and some parts broke off trying to get it out of the mould.

The Haitian Bloodworm, from the stomach of a zombie. This one was pretty simple, just made from EcoFlex 30 *future ones will be done in 20, just because I have a lot on hand for the moment). To cloud the water I added the smallest drop of yellow acrylic paint. I wanted it to have more of a yellow cast, but literally one more drop made it look like orange juice and was totally clouded up. I'm happy with this though. Hopefully the cloudiness will remain and won't settle out, but shaking it up should recloud it.

And finally the Yeti Fetus from a cave in Northern Tibet. This one was cast in resin, SmoothCast 305. I originally was going with latex filled with FlexFoam it, but the thing was so buoyant it was stuck to the lid of the jar, so I opted for solid resin with a painted on latex skin peeled and ripped up to make it look a little more gnarly.

I'm not totally sure of the prices on these just yet. I'm thinking they'll be under $20 though, maybe $15, and I'm looking into finding wooden boxes for selling all three as a set. I might even make them and put it out there as a limited edition set. We'll see how all that goes.

Until I get them on the website, which is going to be overhauled just slightly tomorrow, you can email me, foxhenderson@themonkeyrodeo.com, if you're interested in purchasing them.

Yeti Fetuses and Haitian Bloodworms!

I finally got these done after a lot of mucking about and failed attempts and just a big pile of annoying crap. The biggest issue was finding the right jar - still haven't, but I don't have to be as picky as I was being originally.

These are just prototypes, more or less. Although the look of the Yeti Fetus Jar on the bottom is most likely how they will finally look - just sealed better. These bad boys tried to escape on the trip to the conference in Hamilton. I had to go out and get new jars and some candles to fix and reseal them.

I'm just working out what size will be perfect and placing an order with a supplier next week and hopefully they'll be online for sale within the next couple weeks.