Tell us about your art background.
I do come from an artistically inclined family. Both of
my parents are illustrators. I've always had a natural
ability to get what was on my mind onto the paper
or into the form of sculpture. I did mostly unusual
things. I took a lot of inspiration from my dreams,
which were very vivid from a very early age.
Also, my influences were things at the time; like
dinosaurs, monsters, and various forms of
mechanisms have always been inspirational. I remember
one of my earliest comments from a teacher to my parents
was as far back as nursery school. And they said, in most
children artistic talent is an attribute; in your son it is a
detriment. I don't know why they said that. I was always
very focused in what I was interested in. Perhaps they
thought I was too focused. It seemed that no matter what
my assignments were, I would always find a way to weave
in a dinosaur or some other horrific element. And I think
that upset a few people. In high school, my direction was to
go into doing comic book work. I would do sequential
stories at this period. And as I progressed and got older, I
got into animation film making.
Really? You were an armature 8mm/super 8mm
animator?
Yes, I did a lot of stop motion clay animation and
scratching on film type of work. I found it very intriguing.
At that time, it was a big focus of my life. I've always been
into sculpture off and on all my life. At this period, it was
mainly sculpture for the animated films using
plastilina clay.
Did you get into molding and casting in
latex for stop motion models?
Not at that time; much much later I did.
It wasn't until after art school.
What art school did you attend?
The School of visual Arts in New York,
which was an experience that I don't have
many good things to say about. It was a very
tumultuous time in my life, you know, you get
to that point where you say, "What the hell do I
o next?" And the sculpture was actually
something that came from within me. I
thought, this is what I need to be doing right
now. And sure enough, as I began doing more
of that I began to get recognized. It seemed to
be the one thing to elevate me at the time.
was doing very surreal portraits and incarnations of feelings that I
was going through at the time. Sort of agonized forms.
In what sort of materials were you working?
I was working in Super Sculpy.
How was it that people saw your work?
Mostly through the different classroom projects I was doing
it the time. I was able to impress my instructors enough that they
allowed me to produce my sculptures instead of the assignments for
the class. I managed to make an impression on people with what I
was doing in sculpture. In my final year at school, I seemed to be
looking around for someone of a like mind so to speak, to relate to.
Chat lead up to my meeting a friend of mine named Axel, who is a
very well known surrealist jeweler/sculptor. He's had his work
featured in videos, such as Guns'n'Roses and most recently Nina
Hagen. He does extraordinary work. He utilizes very organic
forms.
So he works in lost wax and has his pieces cast in metal?
Yes. He uses parts of real creatures, such as lobsters, beetles,
and rodent skulls, etc.
So he would mold those and cast them in wax and then they
would be cast into the lost wax process and made into metal?
Yes. His work was very inspirational to me - where his mind
was at and his aesthetic of his very organic forms.
And so through your friendship with him, you hooked up
with Joe and Netherworld?
Yes. Joe originally intended to work with Axel at first, but it
became apparent that Joe and I had more in common. It evolved
that we ended up working together. We generally hit it off and we
began discussing what we could do in terms of different projects
together.
Can you describe a little bit about what your working
relationship is? Are you partners? Or do you work as a hired gun
on commission?
A little bit of both. We usually toss around ideas and decide
which one would be the most enlightening to pursue at the time.
Our first project together was the Vincent Price kit, which evolved
out of a ring which we were going to mail to Vincent as a gift, as a
tribute to him. It eventually became a portrait bust, which also
included a small gothic archway. It received such a good response,
that people were requesting a full figure kit. And that is what
provoked us to do the first kit in our line.
What was your next project with Netherworld?
The Vampimatrix kit. Our idea was to create a female figure
kit that would be quite a bit different from anything else that was
out there. We had access to things like silver metal casting and Joe
had a source for the flashing light thing. The idea was for all these
ambitious things. It nearly drove us all crazy, like those translucent
wings, for instance. We're very ambitious about those things.
What was the next project?
That was the Xenomorphous Rex. With this one, we decided
what the hell, let's make the most obnoxiously loud piece imaginable.
We really didn't know what we were getting ourselves into at
that point. This was way beyond anything either of us had
imagined I literally made this damn thing up as I went along. Joe
had an idea as to how he wanted the base to be, composition-wise.
It was a miracle that it worked. It was such a big piece that it really
cost a lot to mold also. It'll only be available for a very short time.
But perhaps Death Inc., which is another resin kit company on this
coast, will be reissuing it with some slight modifications, such as
no white metal parts and a few of the pieces simplified. Such as
hands connected to arms and feet connected to legs, etc. But in
some way, shape, or form you should still be able to track one
down.
After the Xenornorphous piece, what was your next project?
We were going to do Edward Scissorhands next, but we
wound up doing Frank N. Furter instead. The reason for that was
Joe had called 20th Century Fox and
Johnny Depp's lawyer to make a
proposal. I did a prototype of
Edward Scissorhands. We sent it
out to them and Fox loved it and
Johnny Depp loved it, in fact
Johnny owns it right now; it's in his
personal collection. Everything
seemed like we had the go-ahead;
we were just waiting on word from
Depp's lawyer. We thought, well,
that should be coming in soon, so in
the meantime, well get Frank N.
Furter stared. And it kept dragging
on and dragging on where we were
getting no word from Depp's lawyer and we sort of jokingly
said, we'll probably get Frankie out before Edward. And sure
enough, that's fine way it turned out!
I wanted to ask how you did the fishnets on Frank N.
Furter's legs.
Well, I sculpted the legs first. Then Joe and I went out
shopping to the fabric store for some in scale fishnet fabric and
Joe stitched up some little tube-like stockings. Those were
then glued onto the legs and molded. I'm quite pleased by the
results.
Then what came next?
That's when we decided to do Julia. It was quite a
passionate thing for me. The plan was to get it out in time for
the May 1994 Chiller show. I feel it's probably to date one of
the best pieces I've ever done.
What was your reference on that piece?
An interesting combination of elements; I watched the
film of course and once I had the impression in my head, I
wanted to kind of bring my own artistic vision into play. I also
used the Color Atlas of Human Anatomy, which has beautiful
photographs of real cadavers, skinned and in various stages of
dissections. I had a feast doing the corpse at her feet.
When you're working on a figure do you sculpt the head
and hands separately?
Yes, I sculpt the head separately so that I can get all the
detail under the jaw and to get the proper expression. And the
hands, I also sculpt separately so that all the tendons and
muscles will be right.
Do you use a mirror to help you with your symmetry?
Always, always. If you don't use a mirror, you can be
working on it and think it's perfect, then you hold it up to a
mirror and it's a horror story; everything is off, one eye is
higher than the other, etc.
Do you use an opti-visor for tiny detail work?
Oddly, no. I can manage to focus on the tiny detail quite
well with my eyes. It takes a certain level of concentration.
Do you use custom made tools at all?
I use anything that works. Tiny dental instruments,
very sharp X-acto
blades, standard
sculpting implements that can be
bought at any art store,
but I like to improvise.
What about your
armatures?
I usually use standard
aluminum armature wire,
reinforced by a layer of
epoxy putty.
You mean standard
two-part epoxy putty like
Magic Sculp or Milliput?
The brand I use on this
coast is called Propoxy.
How do you prepare
the figure for cutting up for
holding purposes?
Before I bake I usually
pre-score the piece down to
he wire armature. That way I
don't have to saw through the
baked Sculpy which can crumble. I usually have to pick
one area that I will have to sacrifice such as the shoulder,
which, if it has detail, I will remove a wedge of unbaked
Sculpy and save it aside and then bake the piece, saw
through the metal armature with a jeweler's saw, then
reattach the wedge of Sculpy, touching it up and fixing any
imperfections. Then I will re-bake that piece.
What do you use to do small, thin, machine type
pieces, like the hands on Edward Scissorhands?
I use a material called Promat, which is made by the
same people who make Super Sculpy, but it's much more
resilient after it's baked. It doesn't crumble the way Super
Sculpy does. So I was able to sand the blades down until
they were very thin and they held up and did not break.
When they were molded and cast in white metal.
What was your next project after Julia?
The next thing was the Channard kit, which brings us
up to date. At first, Joe and I discussed it and threw our
ideas back and forth. My main concern was the design of
the costume itself. I have this thing in me where I like to
reinvent things. There were a lot of elements to that
character that I thought could be augmented. In terms of
producing it as a sculpture I wanted to focus on certain
elements, like the redesign of the costume. I think that
we've kept to the spirit of the thing. I wanted to give it a bit more
dynamic vitality. There are some pretty wonderfully vile things
going on in it.
When you first started working on it, did you start with
sketches?
Yes, this is probably one of the most thought-out kits I've ever
done in terms of design. I used Super Sculpy for the whole piece. I
also used electrical wiring baked right in for some of the accouterments.
We used a lot of little things like jump rings and jewelry
pieces as some of the buckles and pieces like that. The head and
hands were made separately. It wasn't so improvisational this time.
We used a lot of wire in the corset. The things like tentacles which
come out of the hands, we were scrambling for anything that we
could find that was kind of a nasty implement that would suit our
purposes.
Tell us a little bit about the base.
We used a rubber stamp technology where any 2 dimensional
design you can provide to this company, will be returned to you as
a rubber stamp. It comes back with a beautifully raised surface.
So we arranged the box design geometrically into a design and
that's how we made our base. My brother did the box art for the hit
for us. I've been very focused on getting this piece finished in time
for the April 1995 Chiller show. So I am a bit muddled right now.
As soon as the Chiller show is over, I'll be in touch with you to
keep you informed as to any future projects. Till then, farewell.
Thank you very much, Paul, for your time and I look
forward to seeing this piece in person.
Originally published in
Coenobium.
Reprinted here with permission. Thanks, Coenobium!
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