Duped by Photoshop! Curses!

Photoshop is such an amazing program. I have it myself and haven't even scratched the surface in learning its capabilities. Smorty71 informed me that this image of the Hello Kitty Darth Vader, which I thought was genuine, was in fact a Photoshopped alteration. He even supplied a link to the blog of the gentleman who made the WHITE Vader costume which he displayed at the San Diego Comic Con. I pulled some shots of this absolutely OUTSTANDING Vader variant and will post them next time. Thanks, Smorty!

"Captain Kirrrrk! Thisss issss your opponent!"

My friend Clayton Sayre directed me to these rare images of the costume of The Gorn from the Star Trek episode The Arena in which Capt. Kirk is abducted from the Enterprise by powerful beings called the Metrons and placed on a desolate planet to fight one-on-one against the Gorn captain in order to settle an impending war. The Gorn is certainly one of the better designed creatures from the Original Series and the makers were bold enough to give it scant clothing, exposing its full arms and legs in an era when it was common to put aliens in dorky-looking jumpsuits so they didn't have to spend the money to make full-body creature suits. The second image shows the costume without its clothing, displaying the airholes necessary to keep the performer from sweating to death in the California desert heat, where the combat sequence was shot. The final shot is of the orginal Gorn mask in its current state as part of a private collection.

"Give yourself to the Pink Side, Luke!"

Don't worry, you're not on mushrooms, meth or any other type of illegal substance, you ARE witnessing the Hello Kitty Darth Vader costume. It made its debut apparently at the San Francisco ComicCon. But consider the investment this person had to make to create this costume. He had to buy the mask (and that ain't no cheap Don Post mask), the upper armor pieces, the belt controls, the boot armor, paint all those components the colors he wanted them, then have cape, gloves, suit and cloak made in those vividly ridiculous colors. A substantial outlay of funds for just about anyone. THIS DUDE is clearly the one on drugs!!!!! But, hey, it made a good post so I can't complain about it too much.

Professor Mouse

This is a mouse character named "Professor Doojumfetchit" that we made for Growing Up Kidz Productions. Click the link and check them out! We also made a character called "Grandfather Rabbit" for them a year or so ago as well.

The Creation of a Sun!

Here's an interesting commission we were given by Batman Sign Art in St. Albans as part of a sign project for a restaurant called Some Kind of Wonderful. It's a little 8" diameter whistling sun! Pic #1 is the design drawing supplied to us. Pic #2 is the finished clay sculpture. Pic #3 is the urethane mold being made. The urethane is a semi-transparent amber color so you can see the sculpture underneath it. Pic #4 is the inside of the mold once it's been removed from the sculpture. Okay, now the real cool stuff. Pic #5 is the liquid plastic having just been poured into the mold. Pic #6 is after about five minutes. You can see the plastic starting to gel and turn an off-white on the inside surface of the mold. Pic #7 is at about fifteen minutes when the gelling process really starts to spread rapidly through the plastic creating the most interesting shapes. Pic #8 is about a minute later and the gelling is nearly completed. Pic #9 is the finished plastic copy of the Sun after it has been allowed to sit for about six hours before being pulled from the mold. Ah, the magic of chemistry! I don't have an image of the finished painted product because Batman Sign Art will be painting it and that hasn't been finished yet, but I'll post a shot as soon as get one.