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Shake zula mighty rula

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Hey all you sick kids here's my Master Shake from Aqua Teen Hunger Force with some accessories:

with electric torch
shake1.jpg


with PDA
shake2.jpg


with Eggroll
shake3.jpg


He's fully baked and "finished" with articulated hands and straw. There's just some final sanding and shaving down of the epoxy parts (straw flexis) then I get to paint him.

I hope you like!
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Edit: the pics are a bit blurry I'll upload some higher res ones...
 
Looks awesome. Have you posted to the AS boards yet?
I think you should make one of those helmet computers for it... that's gotta be my favorite episode.
~Joe

PS - What did you use to articulate the hands? Is that ceramic clay, or one of those bake-in-mom's-oven kinds?
 
I love ATHF! Have you ever played the game 'studio shakedown'? You play as Shake, and your goal is to smash everything! That's two pluses.
 
The E Geek helmet? He's got so many good head accessories!
I've been thinking about doing the "master shake signal" helmet from the Bus of the Undead episode. I would put 4 little LED lights in the helmet's light cannons so it would blink alternately!

The main body and lid were sculpted in Super Sculpey polymer clay over a inner core of tinfoil (saves clay and is not so heavy). The hands, staw and accessories are thick bonsai wire, styrene tubing and Aves "sculpting epoxy putty".

What I did to articulate the hands and straw was to first sculpt the body and make the hands and straw seperately. Then drive them into the body to make "exact" sized holes and bake it until the polymer clay turns to polymer plastic. This guy took about 1-1.5 hours at 250*F. When it's cooled the parts will fit very snug but are still mobile. To "secure" them, I pulled the parts out and scraped out a small amount of the plastic inside the holes (not at the surface) that the parts stems made. Then I added a tiny ring of epoxy to the tip of the part to be "stuck in" to the body. After the epoxy on the "stems" cured. I  sanded the rings smooth and just "poped" the parts into the hard plastic body and viola, turnable bits that won't come out!
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If you're interested in learning about how toy articulation works there's NO better teacher than those Gundam level 2 / 3 model/action figures in the toy dept that you build yourself. Because when you build a Gundam "model kit" you are really building a poaseable action figure. You're actually just doing the "assembly" work that the toy makers would normally do at the factory. Anyway, those kits give you a perfect primer in how to figure out how to make your own mobile joints. The ones I made here are very simple ball & socket style but the Gundams will show you almost every type of joint imagineable.
 
So contraction of the clay isn't a problem? That's a really novel technique - thanks for sharing! When I was younger, a friend of mine had a hobby of breaking apart action figures, so I've seen a lot of those joints you're talking about...
Great... another hobby to pour my cash into! ;)
I'd say more, but what do you know, it's time for AS!
~Joe
PS - Let us know when you paint it!!!
 
Nice work as always Bro. I'm not too well-versed with regards to the show (seen it, think it's quite funny though)
He translated well to 3-d, though...
And Yes, I have been building GUNDAM kits for 15 years and it was quite enlightening towatch the evolution of the various types of articulation, th ekits today are light years ahead of the original Mobile Suit Gundam kits
Still haven't started anything yet,but I can hardly wait to post a pic of something some day
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Super Sculpey clay is polymer clay, not the same as earth clay I grew up using in school. Basically imagine shredding a plastic PVC pipe into powder and mixing it with vaseline. That's all this clay is essentially, suspended plastic particles. It's used in the toy & doll sculpting world because it doesn't shrink when baked and the plastic particles fuse and turns the piece into solid plastic. Then the sculpture can be sanded, drilled, ground with a file, sharply detailed with an etching tool, etc. Anything you could do to plastic you can do to baked Super Sculpey. It's fun stuff and you can get it at just about any big craft shop.

My own ATHF charachters are much different than the ones being sculpted for mass market through Palisades Toys next spring (which I'll buy and never open). The company wanted the details very low, closer to 2-D than 3-D. It's amazing how much having shakes mouth open and the eyes just slighty buggy gives him more of a feeling of life and animation. The official shake toy will have flat eyes (carved into the cup) and a closed mouth. I tried that at first but I preffered them being just slightly protruding. The guy I know who did the official ones feels the same way but it's the company who gives him the art direction so he has to do what they say!

Hopefully painting him this weekend - as soon as I'm happy with his straw flexi's!  
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Edit: You ever see those "Bandai Direct" or whatever real japanese Gundam kits at the hobby/model shops? They're like 2 feet tall and almost $300!! Someday I'm gonna buy me one of those!
 
Maybe you can persuade some other company to get rights from the makers of ATHF and mass produce your design.
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I can't wait to see Frylock. Meatwad should be relatively straightforward.
 
Frylock will be a PITA! Actually, just his nose, how to sculpt a protruding nose that has no features!?!
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I'm not gonna be able to get any liscenced properties, it's about $20,000 -70,000 per charachter liscence (mostly legal fees) and then the cost of mass production: $2,000-10,000 per part for steel injection molds for PVC, packaging production, advertisement/promotion & not to mention trips to hong kong to make sure my parts aren't being black marketed from the manufacturer! Wow the headaches! I like being just a sculptor and selling the occasional commission piece or liscence free/original resin kits. Religious, historical, fantasy, mythological, botanical, zoological, prehistoric creatures and political figures are all "liscence free". But actors or charachters from movies, comics, etc. are not royalty free. Even if their creators are dead their estate handles their "likeness" and has legal grounds to stop any unauthorized use of their image. Arnold Schwartneger was mighty surprised to see his face on all kinds of toys after he became governor. He sued for royalties or stopping production but found out that long as he wasn't sculpted as the terminator or Conan being a poliitical figure makes his likeness "public property"!

Working freelance for the toy companies would be ideal, but I have to get my portfolio of projects done and start mailing them out and hope for some nibbles!
 
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