Artist Proof Studio and Pablo Viggiano

This is the debut Artist Proof Studio kit by sculptor, Pablo Viggiano. 9.75" of solid resin, and one nasty bastard ta' boot! E-mail Artist Proof Studio, zombiejesus11@gmail.com for questions about the bust. But in the meantime, take a pull off this:

Brainsynch: Dominic Qwek

Artist Dominic Qwek may be a newcomer to the Garage Kit hobby, but he's no novice when it comes to being an artist. Dominic has been a 3D artist for the gaming industry for a number years, and he's been working for one of the biggest companies in the industry, Blizzard, since 2008.








Dominic's recent foray into the GK hobby has resulted in a very nice 1/6th. scale resin bust titled, "Brainsynch". I was immediately attracted to the character for it's Guyver and Kamen Rider qualities. When I began painting the bust I very consciously wanted to avoid ending up with a Guyver styled paint scheme in terms of color. However, as I worked on it here and there after work it slowly but surely started to adopt that very look. So I had to step it down a few notches, grunge it up, and this is what I came up with.


Brainsynch is Dominic's first sculpture to be printed in 3D, and if it's any indication of what will be on the horizon, then hobbyists who are fond of original designs will be in for one Hell of a treat indeed. Be sure to have a look at Dominic's website, www.dominicqwek.com

The skull... of a Locust Grenadier

Luis de la Fuente, the sculptor of monster skulls.

Ever wonder what those cinematic beasts look like on the inside with their leathery hide, layers of bulging muscle and alien blood stripped away? Nothing left but the smiling, gleaming skull. Luis is like the Predator hunter (yeah, he sculpted one of those, too): he collects the skulls of monsters from all over the universe and realizes them in clay to reveal them in all their ossified glory.

Here's my painted version of Luis' most recent skullpture, the Locust Grenadier, from the Gears of War game.

Buddies

Like many of us, the Christmas season really wears me down; namely in financial regards. To try and remedy this I've made it a point to come up with creative gift ideas that won't break my fragile checking account; something I enjoy to do like painting, and I began giving gifts like that to my daughter several years ago. I bought a few pre-painted statues of horses, stripped and re painted them, and after painting horses for her as gifts two years in a row I decided on a different creative gift: a drawing.

Knowing that my daughter is an animal lover to the core, I again focused on that. I've taken hundreds of photos of her showing animals at a local 4-H competition over recent years. Last summer I took quite a few that turned out really nicely. I found one that just sung to me. This particular photo I liked so much because of the ambiguous expression on her face. I couldn't quite figure out what she might be thinking of. Without a doubt she was in full showmanship mode, but there was much more than thoughts of victory going on in there.

Drawing is a skill I've not nurtured more than twice in the last ten years, so I was nervous about how my sketch would turn out. But I brought it to finish, framed it and gave to her on Christmas Eve, and the look on her face... " It's Buddy ! ", she exclaimed. She was so Happy...


...and so was I... :)

SHAWK !

Yes, it's October. An absolute favorite time of the year for me. It is October, and Halloween is very near; belly crawling like a wraith on it's skeletal fingers and toes, and I've not even set out any decorations; nor have I carved a pumpkin, smoked out my house with a fog machine, chosen a costume or anything like that. But I did manage to finish painting a Shock Monster bust, and that somehow makes it all alright...

There's just something about that face. He's damn ugly, and from the look of it, he might be willing to see what you taste like; but I'll bet he only wants to play. He looks too stupid to want to do any real harm, intentionally. I'm sure he'd play a little rough or drool a glob of rotten lung tissue on you while giving you a Dutch Rub, but other than that I'll bet he's a great guy.

The Shock Monster (originally titled "Horror Zombie") was illustrated by Keith Ward, also responsible to the illustration of the Elmer's bull. Shock Monster was originally seen in Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine advertisements as a latex mask from the Topstone company in the late 1950's.






He's still here today, and he's been hanging out on my lazy susan, compliments of sculptor Casey Love.


Casey Love released this piece in late 2009 if memory serves me correctly. There were some really cool life-sized, latex displays of the Shock Monster, but what I wanted was a smaller, resin bust, and this piece was perfect for me. I did some custom work to the mouth in reshaping the teeth; grinding a few out and deepening the mouth so that I could insert a nice, fat tongue.





The head was sculpted without hair so one can replicate the near dreadlocked, shocked-out mop this creep is famous for. Casey sent along a small amount of charcoal gray crepe hair, which I mixed in with some dark brown and black wig hair I had stashed away.

So, for securing hair to the head I've always used Liquitex Matte Medium as an adhesive in the past, and I started out using it on this project, but it dries very slowly and also left the hair looking really rigid. I needed something that would dry much faster and also allow for some flex when it came time to style it. Rubber cement, Elmers, (with the bull ;), did the trick. When I finished applying the result made me think of a mix between King Buzzo (The Melvins) and Todd Trainer (Shellac):









A little Green, snip-snip, styling mousse and blah-blah-blah...he's done. I absolutely had to have it finished before Halloween. So after the photo shoot I'm gonna' sit him on a t.v. tray next to me, offer him a Pabst and we'll watch Dawn of the Dead together. Have a kick-ass Halloween this year, Ladies and Germs!