Photos of the Dedham Pond Designs Mr. Hyde next to a Monogram/Aurora Phantom of the Opera and GEOmetric Design Mummy.
Photos of the Dedham Pond Designs Mr. Hyde next to a Monogram/Aurora Phantom of the Opera and GEOmetric Design Mummy.
Here’s what the Dedham Pond Phantom of the Opera replacement head looks like next to the Polar Lights kit’s head (same scale) and an Aurora repop Phantom. The replacement head sells for $20 counting postage in the United States, or $15 plus postage to other countries. Please e-mail todd.powell@resinbarbarian.com if you’re interested.
Here’s a project I’ve wanted to do for a long time: A James Bama-style Phantom replacement head for the Polar Lights model kit. Basically, what we end up with is the Aurora Phantom at a different moment in his tale, shortly after being unmasked.
Sculpted by Chris Wooten. Now available from Dedham Pond Designs. The replacement head sells for $20 counting postage in the United States, or $15 plus postage to other countries. Please e-mail todd.powell@resinbarbarian.com if you’re interested.
Check out this creepazoid. He (?) is called the S.L.E. Creature, and once I get over being freaked out, I feel really bad for … it. Poor thing, you look at it and just know this is someone who’s had a really serious problem.
The S.L.E. Creature is a new release from Artist Proof Studio, sculpted by Norman Meyers, 32, of Santa Monica, Calif. Here’s how Norm describes the creature’s origin:
“A strange virus takes over its host mutating them into a twisted deformed being.
“During the mutation process, the virus allows the host’s face to appear and look at its new body, the virus being proud of its work.
“When the host/victim inevitably freaks out, the head is re-absorbed and the virus gets to work creating an even more horrifying mutation. It’s an endless cycle.”
What bothers and impresses me when I look at some of Norm’s work is that I can see the person underneath all that weirdness, maybe someone who didn’t deserve to end up how he is.
You can say similar things about some of the pieces by Paul Komoda, Norm’s partner in Artist Proof Studio, who created an Elephant Man bust slated for release soon.
Norm’s mother and sister are established fine artist figure painters who regularly have solo shows throughout Los Angeles and galleries on the East Coast. Check out their work online at www.neilahmeyers.com and www.pattimeyers.com.
His father enjoyed sculpting, mostly figurative, working in water clay, bronze and stone.
“Growing up in a family of artists, it was common to come home and find a nude model in the living room. Needless to say, I had many friends always wanting to come over after school!”
Norm works for Cinemaquette / Toynami, a toy and statue company in Van Nuys, Calif. “I do a large variety of jobs there, from quality control, customer service, shipping and receiving, project managing along with sculpting. It’s a small company so there’s always tons to do.”
I’ve always been fascinated/obsessed with horror movies, creatures and special effects. I started sculpting when I was 11 years old and was determined to get into the special effects world. I tracked down every back issue of Fangoria magazine and went to every convention I could find that was horror related.
When I was 15 I put together a portfolio of my sculptures and sent it to Stan Winston with a letter saying I wanted to work for him. Many months later to my surprise, I got a phone call from him, inviting me to work at his studio for free as an intern.
It was an amazing experience!… Read the rest
Look at the faces on some of these characters. Demon of the Harvest. Crookneck. Jack the Ripper. Even little Alice, concealing silverware as she awaits Humpty Dumpty’s fall. The characters look so happy, and they’re all obviously so nasty.
Welcome to the worlds of Robert Blair, a sculptor who knows our childhood fantasies are only a breath away from our childhood nightmares.
A craftsman shapes wood into a boy, and that creation magically comes to life. Would this child be the sweet but musically mischievous rascal Walt Disney envisioned, or would he be Robert Blair’s creaky, splintery, grasping monster? I liked the cartoon version when I was younger, but now I get a bigger kick out of the chiller Robert calls Gepetto’s Nightmare.
Robert’s work is so familiar, yet so different. His Garden Gnome has the beard, tall hat and outfit you expect, but this little guy is dangerous. His Nosferatu shares the bald pate, long nails and robe of all Max Schrek figures, but it creaks with extra age, malice, and long, weird arms. You wish his Cheshire Cat would turn invisible so you wouldn’t have to look at that nasty, wrinkled thing.
Robert Blair, 53, lives in Aylmer, Quebec, a small town just outside Ottawa. He worked as a hairstylist for 32 years, but retired from that. In addition to sculpting, he molds and casts, and produces his works, available to fans through his website, blairsculpture.ca. He has also painted most of his own pieces.
To date, Robert has primarily sculpted horror and comic kits. “I can proudly say most of my works are original concepts or my own takes on comic book characters,” he says.
His wife created and maintains his website.
Resin the Barbarian: Are you as fascinated with the macabre and the humorous as your work suggests? If so, could you say how this came about?
Robert: Well, I suppose you could say I have a certain fondness for the dark side. I’ve always found it a lot more interesting. I particularly enjoy sculpting pieces like Gepetto’s Nightmare or the Alice figures because I suppose I get a certain sick pleasure in taking children’s fairy tale characters and twisting them into murderous psychopaths.
RtB: Many of your creations strike me as thoroughly evil yet very happy characters. Demon of the Harvest and Crookneck are good examples, as are the Demons of Dance I wrote about in 2006. I get the idea that these are folks who enjoy a good joke. Is this something you do intentionally?
Robert: Yes. I feel there is nothing creepier than a creature with a sinister smile. You just know there… Read the rest
Garage kits have been a fascination for me since 2001. In 2006, I made my first attempt at producing a kit of my own, a bust of Ben from “Night of the Living Dead”, sculpted by Chris Wooten. It was a fun project and I’m glad I did it, but I had a lot to learn and not enough time to learn it.
Lots of things have changed in the last four years. With my wife’s encouragement, I decided to take another, more professional shot at producing a kit. To my great surprise and joy, I got an opportunity to work with William Paquet, one of the very best. The result is Alma, inspired by the work of Dick Smith. Phil Sera was the first to put paint on the bust.
I hope this is the first of many kits from Dedham Pond.
Water runs over the tub’s edge and onto the tile, but the man doesn’t care. He wants an answer from the woman lying face-down on the bed. A minute before, he had asked, “Who are you?” But when he put a hand on her back, felt the chill of her flesh, his question changed.
“What are you?”
She allows him to roll her over to face him, showing him what she is. Moments later, he’s hundreds of feet away, dead and wet and cold.
She is Alma Mobley, and thanks to movie makeup and effects pioneer Dick Smith, she’s the kind of woman who stops the heart … forever. Many of us who first saw her on the big screen when “Ghost Story” was released in 1981 recall how Alma, and Eva Galli as well, made our hearts race.
Sculptor William Paquet was one of those people. After seeing it, “I was actually afraid to go into my folks’ dark house, having to go in the back door amid the shadows and loneliness of their cavernous backyard,” he wrote in an e-mail.
“This film, is wonderful. The cast, among the most impressive lineup of heavyweights in their golden years ever seen. The flashbacks are rich in atmosphere and nostalgia, and fully flesh out the characters as young, handsome and ambitious men-about-town. To try and compare this to the book is actually silly; it must be measured on its own scale.”
William is a longtime fan of Dick Smith, famous for his work on movies such as “Amadeus”, “The Godfather” and, of course, “The Exorcist”. Smith did some of his best, scariest effects for “Ghost Story”, creating visions of Alma and Eva that have remained in William’s imagination. He had long intended to translate his own image of Alma to clay.
Almost 30 years after “Ghost Story” debuted, William happened to browse the Clubhouse modeling community’s sculptors’ forum and saw I was considering my second garage-kit production. My first was a bust of Ben from “Night of the Living Dead”, sculpted in 2006 by a wonderful young artist named Chris Wooten. I wanted to do a more professional job of it this time around and was asking for advice about finding someone to work with.
William suggested the possibility of working with me, an unexpected and, yes, thrilling prospect. I’m a fan, have been a fan since becoming involved in the hobby in 2001.
ALMA
Have you
