My Creative Customers......

Ventriloquist and comedian John Wayne Peel sent me a great picture of the figure that he finished with our cast dummy parts. He customized one of our Fred heads to resemble his late comedy partner Vic. A very nicely done tribute I would say........

John is apparently quite creative and did a great job on this figure! Nicely done John! Here's some kind comments that John sent along with the picture.......

"Mike..... It's been a long time since I finished my figure with your kit, but here is a picture of me and Vic completed. Feel free to use it as an example of what can be done with imagination and hard work using one of your fantastic kits. Mary Ann Taylor made the arms from my drawings and specifications. I painted the tattoos myself and did the artwork on the shirt as well. I am very proud of my new figure."

John Wayne Peel

Another Blinker Experiment. . .

As in a previous post on Blinkers experimentation, this little experiment from the archives was quite interesting to me personally, because of the challenge. Sometimes I like to do these little experiments to see first of all if the idea will work, and second to see if it has any practical value. Also, I am a big Paul Winchell - Jerry Mahoney fan, and I have always been fascinated by Jerry's metal shell blinkers (blink in tandem, but do not wink separately), and have often speculated on how they might have worked. Jerry Mahoney's head is very tight and narrow around the temple areas, especially inside the basswood head, leaving little or no room for winker pivot support. In other words, there is no room on the right side of the right eyeball, and no room on the left side of the left eyeball for winker pivot support frames. I've had the theory that maybe that's why Winchell did the tandem blinkers on Jerry, as there wasn't much if any room for individual winkers. Well, in any case here is what I came up with. . . .

There were several challenges with this project. First and foremost were several solder joints (I use a small torch for soldering), as it would be easy to undo a previous solder joint when going on to the next one. Also, I had to figure out a way not to accidentally solder the horizontal singular pivot to the vertical pivot frames. Typically if something is close to another solder joint, you can use 'White Out' to prevent the solder from flowing into unwanted areas (I do this all the time on my regular winker frames), but that was not an option in this case. The solder joint is right where the singular pivot rod connects to the blinker shell, which......, is right next to the vertical pivot frame! Here's another shot of the unit where you can see the actuator arm better and the difference in lighting helps reveal further details. . . .

Besides the above mentioned challenges, the most critical part of this was that the blinker shells be perfectly positioned ever each eyeball! Success! At the time, I was hoping to get some kind of award or something for all this, but alas I was the only one in the shop and the only one who noticed. (grin) The other dummies in the shop didn't say a word! But the unit worked flawlessly and I was excited about it at any rate.

So was it practical? Yes, I proved I could do it, but was it useful? I did put that unit in a figure that a customer had ordered with one-control tandem blinkers. Here's a pic inside the head and a couple pics of the finished figure (customer wanted a Goth figure). . . .

It really worked sweet! I also have a figure that I'm building for a customer that is a replica of a vintage figure that like Jerry Mahoney, has very limited space for winker pivot frames, and I will be installing something based on the single pivot blinker unit above. I will most likely simplify it somewhat however. Yes, I know you can fit leather winkers easier in tight spaces, but I again want rigid shell blinkers for that project. I really like the look and the satisfaction when its all done. A bit more work and precision for sure, but that's what rigid shell winker and blinkers are all about! (grin)

The Ultimate Eye Kit . . . .

We have just added the Ultimate Eye Kit to our shopping cart on our web site.This unique kit includes one pair of eyes (can choose our High Quality, Standard or Economy eyes), our high quality eye tray with 2 forms of attachment, and one pair of our quality styrene winker shells. You can of course purchase any of these items separately as well. We have used these on our professional finished figures for a number of years and save a lot of time when building a figure.

The eye trays with eyes can also be used for setting into the clay on a head sculpt to establish the eye distance and make for more accurate sculpting around the eye areas. Then when that figure is cast, you can use this same eye tray in the finished head and the eye distance from center to center will be perfect in the eye sockets! Cool beans! (grin) Saves a lot of time and fiddling.

Although I show the use of screws for eyeball pivots in my book as one way for figure makers to install eyes on an eye tray, and that works pretty fair. . . , that has never been my preferred method of installing eyes. Smooth brass rods with with smooth brass sleeves acting as a bearing surface (inside the eyeball) makes for a very smooth operating eyeball pivot and will essentially never wear out in the figures that you make. And if you buy eyeballs at the same time you buy an eye tray, we will professionally install the brass sleeves inside the eyes for you at no additional cost! Can't beat that!

Here's where you can find the Ultimate Eye Kit (scroll down the page).....

The Ultimate Eye Kit

The response to the Ultimate Eye Kits has been very good so far. Got quite a few orders on these. I better get busy!

Arms, and Hands, and Legs, oh my!

    Added some nice sewn/stuffed 3T legs and hands with sewn/stuffed arms to the shopping cart on our web site. These are the same quality arms and legs that we have used on our professional finished figures for years. My wife Catherine (a professional seamstress) makes these and they are quite nice. I've always marveled at the details she puts into these, including pleats on the side of the joints and the double seam on the knee joints (bends easier and more naturally). These features take more time and skill to do and are usually only found on very high priced figures typically.

You can see the hands with sewn/stuffed arms HERE.

. . . and you can see the nice sewn/stuffed legs HERE.

Experiment in terror #9,783! (grin)

    Like many figure makers, I experiment all the time, as that's the only way you find out if something will work and more importantly if its practical as a regular figure building process. With this past experiment, done a number of years ago, I not only was working on refining my installation of metal winker shells, but also an untried method of doing blinkers (both eyelids closing at same time).

I used brass rods, tubes, brass bar stock as the building blocks of this mechanism, for strength and accuracy of movement. I wanted this to be really precise, with no wiggle room. I also put in some 'soft stops' both for the up travel and down travel of the blinkers, and the down stop was adjustable with a set screw.

All in all it was a very fun experiment and it worked flawlessly. Practical? Well, not so much. It was a lot of work for the desired result. I have several other ways of doing blinkers that are much simpler and a lot easier to build. But it is fun sometimes looking back at some of the past experiments and seeing where the brain of a figure maker will go on occasion! 

I did not get a movie clip of the working mechanism, but I got some sequential photos which I put together in a very short clip so you can get somewhat of a feel for how it worked. . . . 

What is it?!?

   Here's an interesting project I did for a top balloon artist. The request was for an armature or skeletal type head with moving mouth, moving eyes and raising eyebrows, over which balloons could be placed making for a very unique vent puppet. I first had to come up with a concept of how this might look and be practical for use.  Here's one of the drawings I did before starting to build this. . .

   This was fairly challenging as none of the construction was like that of a conventional vent figure, and certainly not something I had done before. I opted to keep the framework simple and overlay it with a light weight covering (I used styrene sheet). The eyes needed to bug out of the head to allow for the thickness of the balloons that would be wrapped around, so I had to come up with a unique way to do that. The mouth had to be such that it would move the surrounding balloons and yet not be that apparent. And here's the kicker. The customer requested that the moving eyebrows be removable! I don't like backing down from a challenge so I figured out ways to do all of the above. Here's the finished armature/head sans balloons. . .

       The eyebrows are indeed easily removable. You just pull them straight out, and then the face is free to wrap balloons around quickly and easily. After all the balloons are in place you simply insert the eyebrows back in place and they are ready to move. This was done with a unique pressure fit set up with silicone tubing. It worked flawlessly. I was quite happy with it. My only regret is that I did not get photos of the inside of the armature and mechanism. Rats! Here's a few photos of the armature/head in use. . .

  

Fred with more than a facelift. . . .

   We often have customers send in photos of their finished figures that they've made with our cast parts. One of the most recent ones was quite impressive. Customer Scott Brekken was quite ambitious and turned one of our 'Fred' heads (and other cast parts) into a beautiful 'Mortimer' figure. He really did a nice job on this. . .

 

   Customer Scott Brekken says: "The Fred figure castings are like a blank canvas for an artist. It is easy to shape, contour or add to the figure. As you can see I changed the eyes, cheeks, jaw, lips, eye brows and ears using Apoxie Sculpt, sand paper and a Dremel tool. Super easy to work on and mistakes were easy to correct as well. Your book and Al Stevens web site were great resources. I took a different approach on the mechanics. Although "Mortimer" has only a moving jaw I kept both the eye tray and the jaw removable so I can change things and make adjustments or additions down the line. (Maybe blinkers, crossing eyes and a stick out tongue!)

   I plan on making my next figure for and with my son Jacob. Thanks for a great kit! I have always wanted a full sized professional vent figure and now I have one." Scott Brekken