Octopoid

Making of the Octo Head:  part 1

    This was my favorite animal as a kid -  the octopus.  They have goat eyes.  They have 3 hearts. (when I was 7 or something I made a cartoon of an octopus in love, and above his head was an arrow through 3 hearts.  Obviously I was a Far Side reader.)
   It is practically an alien, with color changing and texture changing skills, puzzle-solving skills, ink-squirting skills, squeezing-into-anything skills, water-jetting skills, nun-chuck skills, computer-hacking skills...Geez, it's like Napoleon Dynamite designed him, if Napoleon Dynamite was cooler than the Fonz.

 This one might actually have computer hacking skills, since he seems to have the most cybernetic elements of my heads so far, although that wasn't the idea early on.

 A kind of Cthulhu like tentacle mass was in my head, and Marty (TGB) had a beak idea, so I started thinking about having a swappable mouth part, fitting in a glyos hole.  This led to me making this octopus head WAY to complicated (partially out of respect for my favorite martian, and also to try to top the cybergator head)  My mental image of an octopus told me that their jet-orifices could make two more glyos holes that would fit the design logically.  I collected some reference images from the internet in a folder to use, as well as made some quick drawings based on the idea that they would be mechanical tubes.  Most of my designing happened in the clay on this one.

one impressive drawing. 

you'll also notice i have the goat-eye, the hyphen-pupil sculpted in at this point.  I decided people who wanted it could paint it on and people who like the blank possessed look could leave it off.

This beak was too small.     

 I wasn't sure how to make the beak, which is centered underneath the octopus, poke out of the face in a way that seemed natural.

                                                                     overcorrected, too big.

 gave up on beak, went back to tentacles.

WILL HE EVER GET THE BEAK RIGHT?

Find out next time, in 

OCTOPOID:  PART II 

 THE LEGEND CONTINUES

spoiler:  I make a middle sized one.

Outlandish Mini Figure Guys (O.M.F.G.) !

I had a last minute whim to submit something, here it is!  I just liked the silly pun too much.

CyberGator is the latest Frailey/Godbeast collaboration

It's my Cyber-Alligator head, soon to be made into castings by the Godbeast!

There were a few good guesses, (and the rough clay really could have become many types of animals) but as you can see it is a ferocious, cybernetically enhanced alligator, a little reminiscent of He-Man's Trapjaw.  And the best part is that it is hinged.

 By using a needle to create a fulcrum and carefully making the halves fit into each other, I ended up with a fairly seamless (or hidden-seamed) joint, fitting into the armor design.

 The 'teaser' image from the last post was actually the bottom half of the two-part head, because I knew from the beginning I had to make his jaw hinged.  After all, he's an alligator, how could I resist?

I will be posting some step-by-step images of how the alligator and his hinge jaw were made later, so check back!  And buy some heads when the God beast makes them soon!  They should be available eventually on October Toys.  I actually probably put way too much time into this head for the amount of money that will come back to me, but if a lot of them sell, I may feel like I can get this crazy on more heads in the future!  In the meantime it is an awesome deal.

Speaking of awesome, congratulations to Matt Doughty , Marty TGB Hansen, Nate, and everyone involved in making the Armorvor happen.   Thanks guys.

Armorvors have officially launched!

Well, the big news is that the Armorvor has officially dropped and already sold out over at Matt's site.  I'm sure more will be available soon.  You can get parts from Marty 'Godbeast' Hansen, namely heads, to add to the figures here.  All in all it's very exciting to see so much story and care put into this character as he becomes part of the Glyos mythology!

I've got a bit of a fun idea...

I think I will tease you with a very early progress picture of my new head for the Armorvor.  You can guess what it is going to be in the comments section.  First to guess correctly wins a smug sense of self satisfaction! I'll be back here very soon to show you the more advanced sculpt images!  Thanks to everyone who is buying the heads at the above link! 

???

I will be at San Diego Comicon

Hey guys, I'm having some weird problems with my computer, so I have to make this post from my phone. My computer has some kind of bug or virus that won't let me get on to any web page, except October Toys' page for some reason. Not a big deal, but I can't seem to upload images using this phone. I may need to just buy a new computer. I do have a new armorvor head I'm finishing up that I'd like to show you. Anyway, I will try to be at the NECA booth around 12:00 noon every day in case anyone who reads this stuff is there. And if you're going to the Comicon let me know in the comments section!

Developement of the bat head

I started by pinching a quick 3 pointed shape at angles that I like and rolled out snakes to hint at details.

 

At this point I was considering a demonic, pointing chin based on exaggerating a cleft in the vampire bats actual lower lip anatomy

the ear went through several variations once I decided to make it bionic.  Obviously the central microphone, but also the surrounding armor changed, abandoning the joint lines that came out from the center in a spider-web style for lines that fit the flow of the ear better, specifically a zig-zag line from the angry eyebrow up to the top of the ear. 

as for the central microphone, I eventually made it bubble out to have more depth. I also gave his eye tech, which was a pressed in hole, a more outward 'lens' by rolling up a little clay, pressing it on and fine tuning it.  Makes for a much better effect catching light and can be an easily painted part.  He still has the Darkness from 'Legend' chin, which Marty I think rightly steered me away from.


The bottom two pics are the final sculpt before molding. The eye lens should look great in clear plastic.