( D E M O N W A R R I O R)
Last modified:
Saturday, September 7, 2002 11:54 AM
Last modified:
Saturday, September 7, 2002 11:54 AM
  08/22/02-
ANOTHER FOOTSOLDIER CONCEPT? Viewing The Fellowship of the Ring
rekindled my interest in making some kind of demonic footsoldier, hence
this quickie clay doodle (left). I think it resembles a FOTR creature;
or a vampire... but that's not surprising. The FOTR designs, while extremely
well done, aren't revolutionary and were selected expressly to meet our
expectations: Imagine the outcry if they hadn't!
That's perhaps one of the main limitations of this genre: It doesn't lend itself very naturally to the kind of design freedom that's resulted in the Star Wars or Alien creatures. (And even there, the general look-and-feel of the original groundbreaking designs has been imitated and plugged into some very B-grade movies.) The Fantasy genre has a long, established history. Since childhood I've been exposed to its conventions through Grimm's Fairy Tales, Disney movies, the Tolkien books, the Dungeons and Dragons fad... and everything else since, supplemented by some directed "research" (okay, browsing) on world mythology. While there's a lot of range in creature designs and to a lesser degree in costuming, they're all pretty well known. Consequently, to fit comfortably within this genre, designs are most often derivative, not revolutionary. Within the general parameters of distorting facial features, there's only so much one can do. This one is closer to a human face than an ape face, flattened, with an exaggerated jutting lower jaw. The nostrils are slit/bat-like and the ears have exaggerated points. There's a hint of horns under the forehead skin. I reiterate that clay doodling is a low-committment way of testing the waters for a potential figure project. A crude sculpt can give you an idea of how a figure "fits in" with the others you've made-- assuming of course, that you're guided by some kind of unified vision. I can't say that I am, but at least my last "Demon Monkey" doodle didn't inspire me to proceed with a project. On the other hand, the "Troll Demon" doodle did. Most of all though, these visualization doodles are fun. (The pic on the right shows him sculpted in a more permanent form. Gawd, I hate the fat Hasbro necks!)
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08/25/02- The above stuff from the I
Sez/Remarks section is background for this "Mutant Enemy" project; it saves
me the trouble of rephrasing it... or saying the same thing in a different way...
or changing the words around to arrive at the same point of departure... or...
However, I will add that the turning point came when I made the last-minute decision
to replace the original brown eyes with gold-irised ones as they were in the process
of being permanently sealed in place. With brown eyeballs, the head kept reminding
me of Cade Foster from the sci-fi series, "First Wave".
By this time, I'd pretty much decided that this was going to be the representation
of a demon army footsoldier --my version of Tolkien's Orc-- supplanting the
monkey-folk previously envisioned for this role. Their problem was that as "noble
savages", they had an innocent/victim side (aggravated by my Monkey Woman
project) which seemed inappropriate for such a role in the black & white world
of fantasy fairy tales. They continue in their worship of the Demon Monkey Goddess,
but assume a more neutral, supporting role in the big picture. If that makes
any sense (or if you even cared)?
The Demon Footsoldier makes for a much more formidable foe. They're conceived
of as something like a mutated and corrupted human, endowed with a high level
of intelligence and cunning, but in a twisted direction. This also gave me the
opportunity to equalize the technology levels. While I've modelled a wide range
of that, the upper end is capped by plate armor (Generic Fantasy Warrior),
and in the interest of creating a level playing field, it made sense for the
bad guys to have something comparable. An epic battle would be pretty one-sided,
pitting stone-tipped spears against metal armour!
So that's how this project's focus changed from figure-making to costume-making.
Even before that decision, I'd intended to put the head on a SAJOE figure. I'd
done a few half-hearted fixes on the figure to use up excess putty from the
Abuela figure, and had intentions of fully revamping the figure itself.
Honestly though, I'm at a loss when it comes to improving male figures-- I can't
get enthused about fixing them up to put them in skimpy costuming. The armour
route took care of that problem. I knew that realistically, the armour would
never be removed. In fact, one of my early ideas was just to sculpt the armour
directly onto the figure (which would allow for some really wild and ornate
stuff). I opted for the more traditional route though; armour which could be
removed, but which totally concealed the near-stock doll and all its ugly articulation
seams. No sir, no painted nipples for this guy (yeah, it's sexist, but I ain't
gonna do it outta obligation).
There are several ways to approach armour construction. In the past, I've
used both clay/putty sculpting and styrene vacuforming, enduring a brief (but
punishing) flirtation with electroforming. I wanted to try something different
this time, so I used sheet copper and leather as the main components. The primary
design direction came from looking at pics of Japanese Samurai armor. Using
copper segments on the helmet allowed me to easily achieve curvatures which
would have been impossible (for me) in a single sheet of metal-- I've tried
pounding in contours before, and you really need metal stamping equipment for
drastic shaping. The segmented assembly (segments joined by leather straps)
was attached to an inner wire frame to strengthen it and assure a secure fit
over the head.
I used lizard leather for the chest piece, mainly because it was quick and
easy, but also because it broke up the monotony of repetitive copper segments.
As it was, the segmented construction style seemed vaguely Roman, and
a segmented breastplate would have cinched it. I was fortunate to have found
a lizard skin scrap which had a good pattern and a strategically located private
parts opening (?) which happened to coincide with the placement of the figure's
neck hole. Somehow, it seems appropriate.
The undersuit-- really just sleeves and pantlegs -- are made of wired ribbon
and are non-removeable. This goes with the idea of simplifying the construction,
but it's partially due to the non-removable nature of the SAJOE's humongous
"Gung-Ho Grip" hands. Since he's a monster, the size seemed okay and the unusual
wrist hinging of the right hand works with spears and swords-- so I left 'em
as is (yes, they'll be worked on, and probably covered). And since the sleeves
weren't going to be removeable, there wasn't much point in doing the pantlegs
differently.
T.G.I.F.- I love weekends... especially long ones. Last weekend's
big block of time let me establish the overall look and get this project
off the ground. Basically, you've gotta have enough time for that first
burn of inspiration and energy; Development after that can proceed at
a more leisurely, piecemeal pace. In fact, during the weekdays it's difficult
to get started on anything as ambitious, knowing that the time blocks
are smaller. Weekdays are okay for working on things that can be tackled
in smaller bites, like the feet, hands and parts of the undersuit. (Unfortunately,
I'm hitting this 3-day weekend with a nearly completed project and nothing
new in the hopper...yet)
As of this pic, all the areas of exposed dollflesh so intended have
been covered/taken care of... sort of a first complete pass through. The
figure could be considered "finished" at this point with only
a little more work, but it's also a stopping point to evaluate and consider
improvements.
One of those improvements is a tail (which was added after this pic).
This makes the figure look less human and adds a third leg, which is a
practical thing to help the figure stay on its feet. Backstory-wise, this
serves as the creature's natural weaponry (stinger at end) and also establishes
some linkage to his master, the cheesecake demonesses. I've also test-fitted
horns on the helmet-- I kinda like the way they look, but I'm undecided
as to whether that might be too decorative and clichéd. The plain
functional look of this armor does have its good points-- it's a departure
from the usual evil spiked gothic style which bad guys are supposed to
wear (making it black has some of that required effect). In context--
with the figure standing next to the Livia demoness --the plain &
simple look works for me.
This context is my "backstory"-- which plays a big part in the design
of the figure. Yes, you can set about to make something which just looks
kewl in isolation, but I feel I get more bang for the buck by engaging
my imagination in the grandiose production of The World. (It helps me
decide what figures I'll make in the future too.) In this case, it helped
me wade through some issues concerning the look of the armour-- There
was an initial choice of making it look more grubby and ragged with fur
and bone versus the more "civilized" look of armor plates with
rivets. The civilized look fit the character of cheesecake demonesses--
they're not the lives-in-filth-with-festering-wounds kinda baddies; their
kind of evil empire wouldn't have to worry about keeping their enslaved
populace happy, so they could devote significant resources to outfitting
their army and having their nails and feet done. I reasoned that the baddies
would have no trouble producing the fancier stuff because they could rely
on forced labor to mine metals and construct the stuff, similar to the
way our toys are produced.
I mention this since I just looked at the cool FOTR designs for bad
guy armour, thanks to the book "The Art of The Fellowship of the Rings".
I received this yesterday via mail order, having resisted the temptation
to get it before starting the project. I'm glad I did it this way
because the compulsion and temptation to copy would have been impossible
to avoid. There's nothing wrong with that, but it doesn't make
much sense for me to create studied knockoffs of the Weta Workshop designs;
For LOTR movie memorabilia I'd just buy some of their excellent resin
statues or busts, or those extremely well-done small format action figures.
I'm trying to create figures for my own "Primeval World" saga
(which I'm tempted to rechristen as "Medium-Rare Earth"). I
guess you could say it's like a tacky B-grade knock-off, filled with lotsa
large-breasted women. (I'll betcha someone has prolly already done that
version as a movie.)
[08/31/02- Yeah, so you noticed that I like showing pics of the head
cheesecake demoness? I think that she improves the picture a bunch
and draws attention from the fact that I haven't done squat to paint the
guy's face, give him hair, finish adding rivets, weather his armor, et
cetera and et cetera. Livia doesn't care... she's been waiting a long
time for a hard-bodied minion who knows how to use his shaft. Some things
are more important than a set of pretty teeth.]
Here's a crummy progress pic of the suit after a day's work. The helmet
construction suggested a design motif which could be employed elsewhere
in the costuming. With its single ridge down the center and side-placed
rivets, it's simple, practical, and readily adaptable in many places. This
certainly was easier than agonizing over how each area was going to be individually
sculpted... easier, but repetitive and tedious.
08/30/02
-There's no way around the fact that this stuff takes a lot of time--
the hours just pile up, even when you're doing something as simple and boring
as making a bunch of armor plates. I'm less efficient about this than I
could be; I approach construction by developing the appearance piecemeal
instead of through planning and efficient construction processes. For example,
the construction would have gone a lot more quickly and produced better
results if I'd known how many segments an assembly would have, cut them
out, sanded them, made the ridges, drilled the holes, applied the rivets,
blued the pieces, assembled the parts and formed the assembly to shape.
Instead, the process bumbled along the fun, undisciplined way, with a lot
of test fitting, eyeballing, disassembly and reassembly. By the time I was
making the last assemblies, I'd become marginally more efficient, with plenty
of lapses.
