Half done?

Over the years I have aquired many half heads. Some are just that. The face and no back. When Finis' shop was sold to Charlie Horner, ventriloquist and figure maker, He sold alot of the unfinished work that was left in the shop. I aquired about fifteen of them. They are made from wood dough. Other figure makers made half heads or faces for practicing a certain style or for practice painting. They then sold them on ebay as such. I have aquired a few of them as well.

The one I am working on right now was done by Mike Palma who is an accomplished figure maker and ventriloquist as well as a magician. His work is highly sought after. I borrowed the picture of the half head from Mike Palmas site as I didn't take a picture of the face before i started working on it. Mike has a very interesting and informative blog. Ypu can read it at www.mikepalmasblogspot.blogspot.com

The first thing I did was create the rest of the head using balled up tinfoil and paper. I covered that with a layer of saran wrap and used a light weight polymer to created the rest of the head. I cut out the eyes and the mouth in order to animate them. Here is where I am so far.

Happy New Year

2011 was a pretty tough year for us healthwise. My wife is having bi weekly dialysis and I almost lost an eye. I had a piece of wire enter my eye and it was actually sticking out. I went to the emergency room and they told me it must have fallen out. They gave me some drops and sent me on my way. Two days later I was at the Wills eye institute in Phila. having emergency surgery. I lost my eye sight for about a month. It happened on Nov. 29 and I am just now able to see out of it. Had I waited another day, the opthamologist told me I would have lost the eye.

I started working again in my shop this past week and finished up alot of figures I had in the works. I have finished an Elvis Presley full size figure and an old man.

I used Buzz's cast body for Elvis and it looks great. Kudos to Braylu creations. Buzz is a very creative artist. I enjoy working with him and recommend his products to any one that is interested in figure making.

Here are the pictures of Elvis and the old man as well as a full size Black figure I made and sold on ebay before the hulidays. I will be doing some different things this year. My NYR is to blog alot more. Happy New year to all.

More look a likes

My favorite part of figure making is having a customer request a characture of someone. I request a side photo and a front photo of the head and start working from there. Here are some examples of some i have done recently.

some pictures to share

I received a request from a customer awhile back for a figure. She said her and her husband were looking to adopt one of my conversions as they had no children of their own. She said her husband was a natural comedian and thought that they would be a good team. She sent me these pictures along with this email: Here are some pix of my husband Jim with our new son. We are going to have a ball with him!

I emailed her back and said the pictures were great and if she would mind if i published them on my blog. She replied... Oh.... had we known that.... we would have taken cuter pictures.

I think the two of you missed your calling. Hey, Never too late! ( :

Mask IV finished!

I had to use a straight bar to guide the mouth up and down and a series of springs in order to make the mouth move properly. The eye control is the basic L shaped groove control.

Here is the result. I covered the back and the top of the mask with fun fur and now he is being utilized as an articulated vent figure by the amazing Peter Hefty and company. Thank you Peter for your trust in me to take on this project for you. I hope he brings laughter to millions!

Mask III

After drilling holes and inserting brass tubes in the forehead at the specific starting place of the old eyebrows, I attached his new moving ones.

I used springs and steel rods to enable the movement of his eyebrows and connected them to one control to move them up or down. I then gave him a fresh coat of paint and sealed him.

Mask III eyebrows

Peter requested moving eyebrows for the mask. I sanded off the original ones and repainted the area to match the mask. I took a dowel of the same dimensions and shaped them the same as the original eyebrows, I used a dremel grinder to put the hair patern on them just as the originals had.

Mask II

After adding the eyes, I had to get the mouth to go up and down. It was cut in an uneven wedge which made it impossible to slide up and down evenly. I had to slot the side of the beard, sand down the wedge and insert a strip of bass wood
on each side of the jaw. The slot had to be wide because the mouth was so uneven. It was the only way to make it work.

I then put two cross members across the back of the neck in order to attach a head stick.

The mask I

The first thing I did was grind out the holes for his eyes with a round rasp. I then filled in the slits that were below the painted eyes. They were put there for the wearer to see through. I used a pair of Braylu 1.5" eyes and ran a brass tube into each of them. then a rod through the tube. I made a flat shelf within the eye hole for the eye to sit in. I put slots above and below the eye for the rod to sit in and filled them with magic sculpt.

The Mask

I was contacted by Peter Hefty, a well known ventriloquist who has opened for such acts as Neil Young, Jay Leno, Sinbad and Jerry Lewis. He has many comedic awards under his belt and has been entertaining since the '70's.

He had a Tiki mask that he wanted me to animate for him. It had a mouth that was cut out in a wedge (not symmetrically unfortunately) and it kind of slid up and down. He wanted me to put it on a head post and give it self centering eyes. raising eyebrows and a moving mouth all controlled by the head stick. I will show you the various stages of animating it.

The first is a picture of the mask before I did any work. Here is a promotional photo of Peter and gang. The mask we are talking about is the one in his hand. It is hand carved solid wood with a wedged mouth cut out.