If You’ve Had A Dose of a Freaky Ghost

Who you gonna call? Not Michelle or I, that’s for sure. We don’t want anything to do with ghosts. Unless, of course, the ghosts are part of some cute and creepy art project like this week’s Ghostbusters Mini-Puft Sculpt-Off!

To hype ourselves up for the opening of Ghostbusters:Frozen Empire, we challenged each other to sculpt one of the tiny marshmallow mini-pufts from the movie. Michelle chose to work with felted wool, and I decided to sculpt my spook out of clay.

There are pros and cons to each medium. Michelle benefited from being able to alter, change, and repair her sculpt right up to and through our video/photo shoot. I couldn’t do that with my solid rock of clay.

On the other hand, my clay sculpt didn’t confuse the camera the way the fuzzy wool edges of Michelle’s sculpt did, and I was able to finish my sculpt well before she could. The needle felting process consumes time the way Slimer consumes hot dogs.

The bases we decided on are just simple black plinths with the classic Ghostbusters “NO” logo on top. That way they retain that black/white/red color theme of the original logo, and the mini-puft ghosts look like they’re popping out of the logo to come to life.

One final element we added to match the violent streak these malevolent marshmallows posses is weaponry. In the movie, these creatures are always putting each other through devastating physical distress: burning each other with fire, running each other through with skewers, liquifying each other in blenders. But our creatures aren’t marshmallows, they’re clay and wool. So their weapons reflect their art supply origins.

If you wanna see Michelle and I try to defeat each other in this Ghostbusters Sculpt-Off, the video is linked below.

Grin And Bear It

I’m the first one to admit, Michelle did most of the heavy lifting on this week’s project, A Fozzie Bear mini-diorama that’s part of Gallery1988’s latest show, Off The Leash, a celebration of our favorite non-human characters from pop culture.

We called the piece “Wocka Wocka” and it’s something we’ve wanted to do for a while; A tribute to Fozzie the comedian. It’s a simple tableau of everyone’s favorite comedy bear, up on stage, with a microphone and some props, doing what he does best — telling jokes.

So while Michelle was busy needle felting our fuzzy friend, I set about figuring out how to make the rest of the piece. I started with the microphone (arguably, his main prop). To cut, drill, and grind the metal parts of the prop, I ended up utilizing the Dremel Workstation Michelle got me for Christmas. It’s a pretty invaluable accessory to my rotary tool and I couldn’t have finished my part of this project without it.

The grip of the mic is a piece of wood I sanded down into that slightly flared profile. Then I used my Dremel and a sphere-shaped burr to scoop out a concave bowl shape in the end. That way I could securely glue in the head, which I’d sculpted out of clay and textured with a stiff brush.

And while Michelle’s Fozzie sculpt is clearly the star of the show here, I gotta say I’m pretty proud of the stage he stands on and the props he uses. Also — little known fact — I was the one in charge of drawing the eight-hundred-or-so dots on Fozzie’s tie.

To see Fozzie and the rest of the pieces in Gallery1988’s Off The Leash exhibit, click here.

And if you’d like to see Michelle and I put together our tribute to this comedy legend, you can watch the video below.

Emmet Otter’s Other Christmas

Most of you have either seen Jim Henson’s Emmet Otter’s Jugband Christmas or read the original children’s book by Russel and Lillian Hoban. It’s a Christmas classic about a mother and son trying to celebrate Christmas, and make ends meet on the banks of the Frogtown Hollow River. But for our holiday video this year, Michelle and I rowed down a different branch of that river.

This year, we’re breathing life into the long lost, controversial, alternate ending to Emmet Otter’s Jugband Christmas. What? You’ve never heard of this so-called alternate ending? Well, neither had I until I found some old papers hiding in a dusty box I got at an estate sale years ago.

Is it legit? Who knows? Maybe it’s just some stuff I typed up and dunked in coffee so it would look vintage. But Michelle and I ran with it regardless. And we used illustrations, needle felted sculptures, and dioramas to bring this alternate ending off the page and capture it on video.

I created the illustrations digitally because deadlines are tight, and digital mistakes are easier and quicker to fix. But I had the easy part. Michelle had to needle felt not one, not two, but three characters from the story. We each put our own spin on the characters, and I’m pretty happy with both the 2D and 3D versions.

This diorama was a challenge too. Another time-consuming cog in this chaotic machine. But to tell a story this epic, we had to go big. And that means going small, and filling this miniature set with miniature props.

So, whether or not this alternate ending is real…it’s the ending we need. And it rights the injustice that occurred at the Frogtown Hollow Talent Competition all those years ago when the Mayor let those goons from Riverbottom into the contest at the last minute. And it reminds us all of maybe the most important lesson you can learn at the holidays: Hit them before they hit you.

Have a wonderful holiday season, stay safe, and have fun. Here’s the video:

Molding and Casting That Round-Headed Kid

This week’s project is a series of dioramas based on the annual Halloween misadventures of everyone’s favorite round-headed kid, Charlie Brown.

Every year, Chuck’s costume earns him nothing but rocks in his candy bag. We sculpted him and his bag of rocks in two separate pieces because we wanted to try to make a mold of this little guy and cast him in resin (and it’d be a lot easier to make the molds if he were separated from his bag). We also experimented for the first time with a pressure pot.

Since our first set of castings without the pressure pot were a little bubbly, we decided to head out to the hardware store and pick up the pressure pot. Working with the pressure pot was a learning experience, but we were happy with the results.

Downside, there was a lot more flash to be sanded or filed off, but that’s a fairly simple process. Upside? As far as bubbles go, we didn’t have any issues. The surface of this ghost (aside from the flash) was silky smooth.

After we pulled the little ghost from the mold, we had to wash off the mold release and sand off any little imperfections. Then it was time to prime and paint him, and assemble the parts.

We made three separate castings, so we had some options when it came to putting the figure on a base. The original plan was to have him walking down the sidewalk the way you see him in the opening of the animated special.

The first two castings were done without a pressure pot, so there’s a difference in the way the surface of the figure looks (image above). But since he’s wearing an old sheet with holes cut into it, we thought the unwanted texture might not be too distracting.

But by the time we pulled the third image from the mold, after pressure casting, his surface was A lot smoother. If you want to see us put this all together, you can watch the video below.

Nothing But The Dead And Dying Back In Halloweentown

You can ignore the Simon & Garfunkle reference in the title. Sometimes I reach. But considering the number of zombies, mummies, and Frankenstein-types in the Disney Channel Original Movie, Halloweentown, it’s not too far off.

The diorama Michelle and I worked on this week, however, features a character from the movie that is definitely alive. In fact, they’re thriving like a pumpkin in early October. Because it is a pumpkin. A pumpkin person who appears in the movie for no more than three seconds, but quality, as you know, is more important than quantity.

I sculpted the little pumpkin kid out of Cosclay. I rely more on that lately than the Sculpey because I’ve dropped both and the Cosclay pieces tend to be a bit more durable.

Michelle worked on the base of this diorama, virtually recreating the town square in Halloweentown where we first see pumpkin kid.

It probably goes without saying, but it’s always Halloween in Halloweentown. So the town square is festooned with jack-o-lanterns and straw. So that’s what we did. Some wood for the picket fence, some soil and turf to cover the ground, and some scattered straw was all Michelle needed to set the scene.

Then she sculpted a jack-o-lantern to keep my pumpkin kid company.

In the end, I think the piece breathes some life into a character that may have been forgotten back in Hallowentown. And since the movie was a Disney Channel staple in the 1990s, we thought we’d give it the whole ’90s mid-west mall, glamour shots treatment. I can practically smell the Cinnabon.

Take a look at the video below to see our process.

Just An Old Fashioned Muppet Song

Today is Paul Williams’ birthday. If you don’t know who he is, you’re missing out. Musician, composer, actor…Paul Williams has had a dazzling and diverse career in show business for over five decades. But for me, the most impressive achievement he ever racked up was working with The Muppets.

Williams, along with Kenny Ascher, wrote the timeless classic, Rainbow Connection, and all the other amazing songs from the first Muppet Movie. Williams also penned all the tunes from the holiday classic Emmet Otter’s Jugband Christmas. If you’ve ever found yourself humming Barbecue at the holidays, you can thank Paul Williams. Years later, the Henson company picked him to create the songs for yet another Muppet holiday classic, The Muppet Christmas Carol.

Considering how important Williams is to the Muppets, Michelle and I decided to honor that collaboration (and his birthday) with an illustration of Williams jamming on-stage with some of our favorite Muppet musicians.

That means that he’ll be performing not only with the Frogtown Hollow Jubilee Jugband from Emmet Otter’s Jugband Christmas, but also the powerhouse rock band The Electric Mayhem who shook the rafters in The Muppet Movie.

He’ll also be joined by Rowlf on piano and, of course, Kermit the frog on banjo. But a performance this massive couldn’t be confined to just the paper it’s printed on. So Michelle and I decided to craft a sufficiently Muppety frame to showcase this band.

We wanted the frame to evoke the proscenium arch of the old Muppet Theatre. A throwback to vaudeville days, the Muppet stage was framed in rich, dark red wood with ornate gold accents. So Michelle and I set about finding all of the parts and pieces necessary to complete that visual.

That meant finding and painting a wooden frame and accents, right down to the seashell footlights. The overall effect when looking at the image is that you’re viewing a Muppet performance on a stage, in a classic, old-style theatre with, of course, Paul Williams front and center.

To see us put both the illustration and frame together — and to hear us gab about Paul Williams’ many artistic accomplishments for six solid minutes — you can watch the video below.

Lady In White Sculpt Was A Trick And A Treat

This week we journey back to Willowpoint Falls and the world of Frank LaLoggia’s Lady In White to sculpt the film’s protagonist, little Frankie Scarlatti.

I used polymer clay for the figure and tried to work small. That made it a little tricky to nail all the details (like tiny little fingers) but I try to do things out of my comfort zone as often as possible as a way of learning, improving, and moving forward. Plus, who’s got the shelf space for giant dioramas anymore?

Michelle worked on the base with me, helping me out with the important grunt work so my delicate hands never have to touch sandpaper, and I never risk getting paint under my pristine fingernails.

She also helped me turn the wooden plinth into a grassy front yard on Halloween with autumn leaves scattered at Frankie’s feet.

Another pleasant outcome of working on this sculpt is that Frank LaLoggia, the writer/director/composer of Lady In White actually likes the sculpt, and has even linked some of our process videos up on his new website, franklaloggia.com. I urge every fan of Lady In White (and film making in general) to visit that site and take a spin through all of the behind-the-scenes videos, interviews, press releases, and photo galleries that comprise Frank LaLoggia’s inspiring film career.

And if you’d like to see Michelle and I put Frankie together, you can watch our video below.

This Is Walter! A ‘Burbs Diorama

This week we threw the 1989 cult classic, The ‘Burbs, into the disc player and watched it four dozen times. Pretty similar to any other week around here. But this time we were also using it as reference for our latest diorama project.

We recreated the “THIS IS WALTER” scene, and if you’ve seen the movie you know why we chose it. If you haven’t seen the movie….wha?!

A lot of this project was an exercise in learning how to sculpt loose-fitting vacation togs over a figure. I used CosClay, of course, because some of those shirt tails and shorts would absolutely shatter into dust if I’d used regular polymer clay. But the CosClay allowed those wafer-thin parts of the sculpt to remain flexible and break-resistant.

This project was also an exercise in trying not to injure myself. I decided to try out a router attachment/cutting guide on my Dremel to dig out a channel for the Klopek’s fence. It was a relatively minor routing job but the rotary tool had to be cranked up to near top speed while I was pushing the router bit through the wood. My whole arm was rumbling from fingertips to shoulder and I thought the tool was going to fly from my hand the whole time. Luckily, I held on.

But that was nothing compared this buzzsaw-style cut-off wheel I used to slice off a plastic owl’s head (part of the Klopek’s pest control system). I think the key is to always wear safety gear (I had on my goggles and respirator) and pay attention to what you’re doing. I know, even with all those precautions, you could still lose a finger. So I’m glad I made it through unscathed.

The rest of the project was pretty low-pressure, thankfully. I didn’t even have to nail any precise likenesses since I was doing cartoony versions of Art and Ray, not portrait sculptures of Rick Ducommun and Tom Hanks. Maybe I could’ve attempted that. But when you’re busy with your eighty-ninth rewatch of The ‘Burbs, who’s got the time?

If you want to see how Michelle and I put this admittedly very niche diorama together, here’s a link to this week’s process video.

Death Wore Scarlet

This past week, Michelle and I went old school and made a video the way we used to when we first started our channel. We picked up a MEGO monster figure, ripped open the package, and I worked on an illustration while we talked about the monster. This time, the monster was The Red Death.

Created by Edgar Allan Poe in his 1842 story, The Masque of the Red Death, the character was famously recreated in Lon Chaney’s 1925 silent classic, The Phantom of the Opera. Then, just a few years ago, he was not-as-famously recreated by MEGO as part of their horror line of action figures. It took me a while to get my hands on one, but I did.

So, this past week, we decided to rip that toy open and use it as inspiration for an illustration. You might notice the figure in the package isn’t nearly as flamboyant as Chaney’s version. So, while we were at it, we took the time to customize him a bit so he’d look a little more like the movie version.

If you want to see me work on the watercolor (and the figure) while Michelle and I gab about The Red Death in film and literature, you can watch the video below.

Taking A Shot At The Muppets

This week we worked on another diorama, this time for a Gallery1988 show called Idiot Box. It’s a show that celebrates television shows from 1999 on up through the present. We chose the one-season wonder, The Muppets.

This was a truly funny Muppet TV show that didn’t get a lot of viewers. The scene we recreated was from Episode 3, Bear Left Then Bear Write. Fozzie leaves the Muppets to wander through nature and write a hit comedy. But he’s felled by a park ranger’s tranquilizer dart and Kermit must come to his rescue.

This time out, Michelle felted Fozzie with wool while I sculpted Kermit with clay. And the base was a joint effort. So far it’s our favorite project that we’ve worked on together. You can see it, as well as all the other great entries in the Idiot Box show, at Gallery1988’s website.

And, as usual, if you’d like to see Michelle and I put this project together, you can watch the video down below.