On his Facebook page, Troy McDevitt describes his business, The McDevitt Studio, as “a magical place. For the past several years, I’ve laid a lump of clay out on my workbench before going to bed at night and in the morning, someone has used it to sculpt a brand new statue! This is where all my cake toppers and other sculpts have come from.

“Once, my wife and I hid in the closet and we saw that it was, in fact, two adorable little elves that sneak in and create these wonderful little sculpts for us as we sleep. She suggested that, as a way of repaying them, we should make them some little pants and shirts and shoes, since they were barefoot and the clothes they wore were all dirty and tattered. It was getting very, very cold outside and she felt this was the least we could do for all that they’ve done for us.

“I told her to keep her stupid suggestions to herself and that the cold air would help keep them awake. Call for pricing!”

Plainly, Troy approaches his work with a sense of humor and his work reflects it. Just look at one of his latest pieces, “Charge!”, a licensed 1/6 scale reproduction of a painting from British artist Aly Fell. Commissioned by Marc Havican of Space City Resin, “Charge!” is a perfect translation of the artwork into three dimensions, a wonderful sculpture that’s both sexy and funny.

Troy, 38, lives in Concord, N.C., with his wife, Stephanie; daughter, Lexi, 8; and son Tanner, 5. Running The McDevitt Studio is his full-time job. “This is all I’ve got,” he says, “and if I can’t make it work, I’m screwed because I have no other skills.”

Most of his work until recently has been garage kits and one-of-a-kind pieces, but he has gradually been doing more prepaint statues for different companies. “I look at it as a sign that my work has improved and I’m finally able to produce the kind of work that some of the larger companies require.”

So far, Troy has worked with Bowen Designs, ARH Studios, Reel Art Studios, Resin Pimps, Dark Carnival, and several independent kit producers and private collectors.

“My primary focus is, of course, the sculpting, but I think you have to be able to do it all to survive and even prosper in this hobby,” he says. “You need to be able to mold and cast your own work and at least be a little more than proficient at painting, for one-of-a-kind pieces and paint masters for prepaint statues. Honestly though, I enjoy the end results of painting, but I wish I was able to spend 100 percent of my time sculpting.… Read the rest

Anyone with more than a passing familiarity with garage kits knows the work of Mike Hill. His hands have shaped some of the hobby’s most respected figure kits, including the characters in my personal all-time favorite, Janus’s incredible Dracula and Bride deluxe combo.

Read any “grail” list in an online forum and you’ll find Mike’s works cited repeatedly. If not the Janus kit, then perhaps one of his wonderful “Curse of the Werewolf” pieces, or a Universal Frankenstein Monster, or a Spider-Man, or … well, the list goes on.

The kits — Mike guesses there are more than four dozen of them — have been offered by a range of producers including Killer Kits, Janus, Forbidden Zone, 5th Sense, GEOmetric Design, G-Force, Creatures Unlimited, Jayco, Zotz and, of course, his own company, Shapeshifters, which he ran from about 1992 until 2000.

Then there are his other works. To quote his biography from Mike’s website, mikehillart.com, “his career to date has included figure kit sculpting, wax figures, creature designing, prosthetic makeup, and creating hyper-real character statues.”

Mike has done amazing life-size sculptures, including full-size versions of painter Alex Ross’s Superman and Batman for Ross himself. He’s done wax figures for Madame Tussaud’s and recently visited online forums to share photos of an astounding life-size sculpture of Boris Karloff being made up as the Monster.

He has also worked in movies, including the current “Wolfman” remake with makeup legend Rick Baker.

“I am in the process of developing my own movie projects with my own production company, Pure at Heart,” Mike wrote in an e-mail interview.

Rick Baker, Alex Ross, Hugh Hefner and more own pieces of Mike’s work.

Mike Hill was born in Cheshire, England, and now resides in Los Angeles. He recently celebrated his 40th birthday with his wife, Jessica, and his two sons, Colum and Connah.

He goes by “mickkk1969” in various online forums, a moniker he says originated with a difficulty he had selecting a username. “I was having problems with my log-ins so I typed something real fast. ‘mick1969’ … didn’t work. ‘mickk1969’ … didn’t work. ‘mickkk1969’ did. Groan —  stupid answer I know. I really need to change it.”

His lifelong love of fantastic subjects, nicely illustrated on his website, helped inspire him to become a sculptor. “I messed with clay as a kid, I used to dig it up from the riverbank and sculpt various renditions of Kong and his dinosaurs, but I guess I took it more serious around 17.”

MIKE HILL’S WORK WEEK AND TOOLS OF THE TRADE

Resin the Barbarian: What kind of work do you do most? And, what kind of work do you most enjoy doing?

Mike: At the moment I seem to be doing life-size heads more than anything.… Read the rest