Belfry Minifigure, Part One

The success and demand for my minifigure, "Pipsqueak", who debuted at DesignerCon 2013 made me really want to try my hand at another character.  I say that Pipsqueak is "successful", not just in that lots of folks are buying him, but because I am extremely proud of him. I love Pipsqueak. To me, he truly embodies the emotion and "feel" of my characters, and to be honest, I was having trouble getting started on a new character, because I was afraid that I would never even come close to making a character that I felt was as successful as Pipsqueak. In fact, that crippled me from starting, for a long time.

Pipsqueaks, in the "Winter Sky" color.

I toyed around with a few ideas before really cementing this one in my head. I didn't want to make another bunny character, because it would be difficult to make one in the exact same size of Pipsqueak, and not have them compete with each other. In the end, I drew a little doodle of a bat with large ears and folded wings, and was really happy with the idea.

Belfry in early stages of sculpting.

I showed the idea to Chris, and he helped me get started with a very rough sculpt. From his rough shape that defined the height, ear-to-body ratio, and basic shape of the wings, it was up to me to do all of the finishing sculpting. This takes a while, as my technique for this is nearly all reductive; shaving material away using tiny rakes and wire loop tools, and smoothing with a little metal spatula. I finally decided he was "done" when the shape and facial expression matched what I'd visualized in my mind. I always like to leave imperfections in the sculpt, even when making toys that will not be painted. I like to see the marks made by the tools, small nicks and pits, and just a general slight lumpiness that lets everyone see that it was handmade in the beginning stages.  I've had toys produced of my characters that, by either digital sculpting or painstaking smoothing before the mold is made, are extremely smooth and perfect. While that's absolutely fine, I prefer the resin figures that I produce to carry some of the same slightly naive, homespun, primitive look that my originals have.

I wanted Belfry to be sort of an extension of the Pipsqueak "family", so I kept his face fairly similar. I brought his wings down around his sides for two reasons. The first is that I wanted to keep the "stretched gumdrop" shape of my characters intact, and the other was logistical. When doing these minifigures, it's important that they are not too difficult to cast. This is what keeps the price down for everybody; many can be pulled from the same mold, and the bottoms sanded to finish them off.

Belfry prototypes in resin, still attached to the mold bases.

Resin Belfry prototype, with eyes. The base will be sanded off.

After I get a good finished sculpt, a mold is made out of silicone, so I can get at least one good positive cast from. I will make a bunch of resin casts, and fix them up as much as they need (sanding off the mold base, filling bubbles, sanding or fixing spots that were difficult to fix in the clay, etc.) and coating them with primer spray. Then I'll make a mold that will yield a number of figures in one pour.  I'm almost at that stage now - more information as I get closer to the final mold, and eventually, release of Belfry into the world!

Here's a little video showing some sculpting and how I use a base to sculpt tiny things on so that I don't accidentally squeeze or melt the clay while I'm working on it.

Pocket Sideshow: Development to product release!

The first painted colorway of my first sofubi toy, "Snowshoe".

For nearly a year now, I, along with Circus Posterus artists Chris Ryniak, Kathie Olivas, and Brandt Peters have been working on developing a four-figure sofubi vinyl set with Mr. Shinji Nakako of Tomenosuke-Syoten in Japan.

The idea behind the figures was to make them "chibi" versions (exaggerated, baby-like proportions) of our characters, at a small size, and the heads can all fit on the all the bodies, so if you'd like, you can have a Dust Bunny head on Kathie's tentacled girl body, or maybe Brandt's Skelve skull on Chris's monster body. Lots of fun.

Concept turnaround sketches, late 2013.

We started finalizing drawings in December of 2013. The sketches for mine that you see here are actually the fourth iteration of my character's design. Of all of the characters, mine was actually the most problematic - because the heads had to be swappable, that meant that the neck joint for every figure had to be exactly the same. That was not so difficult to accomplish with the other three figures in the series, but mine caused headaches. The reason for this is the overall shape of my characters - the other characters have a very clear division between head and body, with a specific area that is a "neck", which is something all my characters lack.  Dust Bunnies are basically stretched-out gumdrop shapes, and if they have a skull/neck/spine anywhere in their anatomy, it's hidden under many layers of padding and you can't really see it.   So the neck size issue was really making mine NOT work at all, which actually almost resulted in it not being produced at all.

Luckily for me, Chris Ryniak (thank you Chris!!!) stepped up to the plate and offered some different approaches, including the one you see here - a Bunny in a snowsuit with a big parka hood. The oversized hood gave his upper section the right silhouette to balance against the other big-headed characters, and the area where it cinches around him creates a neck joint, while still allowing me to keep the proportions of my Dust Bunny characters.  It's a perfect solution! Plus, I get to see what my guys look like when they're all bundled up for winter expeditions - pretty dang cute.

Youhei Kaneko's final sculpt of my chibi figure, ready to go to the factory.

After we got all of that sorted out, it was time to get master sculpts finished. Our sculptor for this project was the incredibly talented Youhei Kaneko. Youhei has a really interesting way of sculpting, which is very different from how I work - it's a mostly reductive process in which he carves the figures from a solid block of rigid material, and then builds back up when needed. He had to do many changes as we went through a nearly three-month revision process. It was a lot of work, but we all wanted to make sure the figures were just right before they went to the factory.

Waxes, made at the factory.

After all revisions were done and the sculpting phase was finished, the sculpts went off to the factory for preparations to be made for the molding and casting process. The molds used for these figures are made of metal, which is electroplated around wax versions of the toys. What you see above are the waxes, and the cylindrical shapes on both head and body will allow pour spouts in which liquid vinyl can be poured into the molds, as well as a flange on the head piece, which will fit snugly down into the body and hold it in place.

The figures will be available soon as a set from Circus Posterus. There are lots more colorways to come as well. It's been a really exciting journey from concept to finalization!


More information and lots more pictures in these blog posts too:
From the Tomenosuke blog - Part 1 and Part 2.
From the Circus Posterus blog - here.

The final figures, unpainted, in black sofubi vinyl.

Final set in the first colorway.