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.
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.
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.
Sometimes a job’s just a job. Other times, it’s so much fun you feel guilty cashing the paycheck. Such was the case when, recently, a client commissioned Michelle and me to build a diorama that’s a cross between the Mutant Turtles’ sewer lair and Dr. Frankenstein’s lab.
The diorama was designed to be a base for the new Mutant Turtle Universal Monster figures our client picked up. So we grabbed a Raphael to help scale everything and got to work. We also used his color palette to inform our paint choices.
A lot of what we did consisted of cutting/carving foam. Both by hand with craft knives, as well as with the invaluable Proxxon hot wire foam cutting table.
But there was also a fair bit of pvc plastic parts (that sewer pipe, sluice vent, and rusty grate). That meant a few trips to the hardware store where explaining to skilled builders and craftsmen what we wanted and what we wanted it for was an adventure in humiliation.
The client also had a list of props and accessories he wanted in the diorama, so we needed to sculpt some things with clay. Below you can see a couple of journals, a turtle skull, a human femur, and a delicious slice of pepperoni and sausage pizza with green peppers.
And, of course, some of the props were cobbled together from foam, wood, plastic, chipboard, and resin…like this damaged power supply Frankenstein uses for his experiments.
Over on our YouTube channel, we’re back from hiatus this week. Our video this week features this Turtles/Universal Monsters diorama and shows some of our process for creating this commission.
If you’d like to see how it all came together, you can watch the video below.
This is the latest post for the members of the Long Lost Friend Studio Patreon, but gathering the photos and talking about what we’ve done in just the last three months was so much fun, I figured I’d share it here too. If you like the projects you see here, please subscribe to our YouTube channel and consider becoming a member of our Patreon.
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“Looks like a cold, cold winter. Plenty of ice and snow. But, we’ll keep the work-lights in the studio aglow.”
Now that I’m done mangling the lyrics to a Bing Crosby classic, Michelle and I will be taking a short break from YouTube videos for the next couple months. We’ve been posting to YouTube for a couple years now and it seems like, starting near Thanksgiving, folks are just too busy with the holidays to tune in. But don’t worry, loyal patrons. It’s not like we ever actually take a break from making and crafting and learning. So we’ll still do our best to keep posting updates and videos for our Patreon members.
In the meantime, take a look at all the fun stuff we made in just the few months since our last break. And this first photo is just the sculpting!
What a giant pile of fun stuff we worked on! We’re hoping you had as much fun watching those projects come together as we had making them. And maybe, like us, you learned a little along the way. Since September, this is some of the stuff Long Lost Friend Studio accomplished:
Needle Felting and Foam Carving Michelle showed us how to breathe new life into an old design for her owl feltie, and dropped some great needle-felting tips while she was at it. And I took the opportunity to learn how to carve foam with hot-wire tools so I could sculpt that rock base the owl sits on. Teamwork.
Foam Clay Mask-Making I worked with two new types of sculpting materials for the first time. I used foam clay (Foam-Mo and Model Magic) to sculpt three creepy masks. Weird and spongy, but lightweight and perfect for the job.
Mixed-Media Scooby Doo Diorama And I tried Apoxie Sculpt to build that Captain Cutler diorama. It air-dries in two hours, so plan ahead or you’re stuck with a lump of junk as hard as a rock. Other parts of this diorama were made with CosClay, XPS foam, and wood. I enjoyed working with Foam-Mo and Apoxie Sculpt. They have their advantages and drawbacks, but I still think basic polymer clay (like Sculpey) is my favorite. We’ll be doing some sculpts with that in the new year.
2-D Illustrations I continued working on my inking and watercolor skills. I’m happy with my progress and look forward to experimenting more with these mediums.
Fall Diorama Of course, Michelle and I used all of our burgeoning sculpting and diorama-building skills to put this fall diorama together. There were a few exciting firsts with this project — Pumpkinhead is my first art doll, those crows were the first figures I sculpted with foam clay, and those leafy vines were a successful experiment crafted with EVA foam.
Along with all of that, we’re proud to have also done ten Patreon-exclusive blog posts and eight Patreon-exclusive videos in that timespan. And that was our ‘fall season’ in a nutshell. September through November. Looking back over these photos, it seems like a lot of stuff to learn and make and do in just three months, but I can’t remember a minute of it when we weren’t having fun. Hope you did too. And if we inspired you to try some new things yourself, that makes it even better! Now it’s back into the studio to figure out more stuff and create some exclusive Patreon content. We both thank you very much for your continued support and enthusiasm. -v
Last time Michelle (Run Red Run) and I encountered this classic Scooby Doo villain, we experimented with neon markers and captured him on paper.
But the ghost returned! And this time we experimented with Apoxie Sculpt Modelling Compound, sculpted an entire Rocky Point Beach diorama out of foam, Cosclay, and Apoxie Sculpt, and captured him in three ghoulish dimensions! Zoinks, right?
Apoxie Sculpt is a modelling compound where you mix parts A and B, and then have about 2 to 3 hours before the stuff hardens like a rock. It was a little dicey working on something like this with a time limit. But, by the same token, it was really nice to make it whatever size I wanted, not having to worry if it’d fit in my oven. I think Captain Cutler turned out pretty good for a first-time experiment with this modelling compound. You can follow our process in the video below. -v
If you’ve been following our videos on YouTube, you know we’ve been low-key obsessed with this Pumpkinhead Scarecrow project as it grew from a watercolor exercise, to sculpting an art doll and some crows, and finally to this full-blown 3D diorama build.
If you haven’t followed along, I’ve posted the whole series of 4 videos down below. This was some of the most fun we’ve had in the studio since The Witchening diorama build last year. I hope you enjoy this new series as much as we did. -v
Halloween is less than two weeks away! A few weeks ago, I showed you how I sculpted a Witch Mask using Crayola Model Magic Foam Clay.
This week, I followed that up by sculpting a creepy Ventriloquist’s Dummy Mask with Foam-Mo Foam Clay.
These are mostly intended for decorative use (there’s a lot of dicey chemicals that go into the sealants) but of course I’ll put one on if it means having some spooky fun on Halloween night.
Did Foam-Mo perform as well as Model Magic? Is a creepy dummy as terrifying as a scary witch? Watch the video to find out. -v
Hey, we are back from hiatus on our YouTube channel and celebrating fall, the upcoming Halloween season, and monsters of every stripe. So here’s the latest process videos we dropped.
First, Inking The Tarman Zombie from Return of the Living Dead. A favorite zombie movie of mine, and a great opportunity to practice my inking.
But we also work in 3D at the studio. We wanted to experiment with foam clay, so I made this witch’s mask. Didn’t turn out too bad, and now I wanna make more.
Hope you enjoy the videos. We have lots more fall/Halloween/monster related projects we’re trying to squeeze in before the end of the year. If you’re into that stuff, come on over and subscribe to our YouTube channel, Long Lost Friend Studio. It’s spooky fun. -v
Summer’s here and school’s out. That means endless nights of euphoric middle school kids running around in their friends’ backyards playing Ghost In The Graveyard. Or maybe they’ll just be hanging out, scrolling through Instagram. How do I know?
So, how do you play Ghost In The Graveyard? Do you remember? I honestly can’t recall. So I built a diorama instead. And, of course, I made a video of the process, so you can follow along as I turn insulation foam into a creepy headstone with the help of a foam cutting machine and a craft knife.
I also use tea leaves and moss to create the neglected grounds surrounding this abandoned grave and its forgotten occupant. Creepy, right? Well, it’s all in fun.
In fact, I had a ton of fun talking about graveyards and childhood games with my friend Run Red Run. You can see how it all turned out in the video below. -v
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