Works of Art

I started doing these little people just as the movie came out, doing about a figure or two a month, but not all of them based on WC. I've done my friends and family as Trek, Star Wars, B5, sports and literature characters and given them to them as gifts, which is a really big hit! I value and price my time out as about $15.00 an hour, like for handyman work, so that can kinda factor the value of the gift. But one of you reading this may be a future garage kit, figure sculpting, genius, enroute to internet business fame and fortune (well, maybe).

Anyway, I made the little WC1 Blair to celebrate that movie coming out, which was after all, mostly based on events around WC1. But I wanted to make him appear much like some of the little cartoons that I sometimes sketch, trying to capture and emphasize the fun, simple, cartoonish-ness of the original game characters. You know, with the short little legs and larger upper body that are called "deforms" in the garage kit industry. But after sculpting up that first WC1 Blair, I decided that I wasn't really quite satisfied with that kind of look in 3D too very much. It was fun to do, gave me a direction in which to go, but was a little too extreme for what I wanted. I decided to still keep trying to develop my own style of deform figures, but tone it down a little (compare the WC1 Blair to the WC2 figures).

I'd always felt that those first two games had a special place in my heart and were actually some of my fondest WC memories Not only because of the technological advances that those games had ushered in, but because of the then novel storytelling aspect, and the uncomplicated simplicity (read that: just plain ol' fun) of WC1 and 2. It was natural that they would jump to mind as a great starting point for WC figure sources, and how I got the idea to do my own version of WC figures in this style for 1 and 2, who are all but forgotten to the newer WC fans. Then, maybe later, I'd move on to a popular selection of the more realistic, 7.5 to 8 heads tall (artists' measure) figures for WC3 through Prophecy.

Once I get some good photos, I'll break down some of my figures, how I do them (tools and paints) and encourage you fellow wingnuts to get started and give it a shot, finding your own style along the way. How much time it will take you is variable: based on your wiilingness to practice, natural talent, level of subject detail/difficulty, and personal work preferences. But really, how much time it takes is how much time it takes. This is not a business, it's supposed to be fun, after all. Right now, I probably average about 6 to 8 hours per figure (faces, details, and clothing folds take the most time. Then, it's another 4 to 8 hours painting, etc., with a variety of mediums and materials, but mostly craft acylics. I'd only done about ten or twelve figures myself, before I even started these WC guys. That includes the Arrow, Hellcat, and Blair I did a couple of years ago, and I'm now close to about 25-30. If you can draw or sketch, you can do this. Even if you can't, you can have some fun, and what could be better for subject matter?