Content here is a little dated, however you might still enjoy a look.
What else do you do with an unwanted Barbie sports car?
I collect Jumbo Machinder and one of the laments is that there's only one Jumbo Transformers related model. Basically it was one of those if you want one you have to make it yourself situations and so here he is!
26 inches tall, 24 points of articulation (not including fingers) and light up eyes. The face is styled reminicient of Bandai's Super Robot era.
As a kid I thought the scene in 'The Empire Strikes Back' where C-3PO gets blown to bits was great.
He's still chatting away, mostly just a torso and it was easy for my five year old mind to believe he was a real robot. So thirty years on I decided to make one.
The outer body sections were pre-cast to be as film accurate as feasible. A wooden support frame was then built for the inside to attach the head to and provide strength for wall mounting. His spine and insides were chosen to hopefully not be instantly recognisable as coming from anything specific and a mounting frame was made for the shoulders and torso to attach all the bits to.
Once painted and given the blaster scorched look he was hoisted onto the wall.
His eyes light up and he says a few phrases from the film including "Stormtroopers... oh my I've been shot!"
Chief scientist on Skaro, creator of the Daleks and winner of the 'Shriek like a Broken Hitler doll' award Davros has always been one of my favourite baddies. He's the most threatening one handed, clinically blind, chair bound man I can think of.
The shell for his base was taken from a damaged RC Dalek, the needed console pieces were cut from plastic then the LEDS added. The pieces were assembled, the joins filled and the console painted. The receiver board was modified so that that the rear four lights flash only when he's moving and the console lights always stay on. His body is a basic foam shape over a wire armature and the chair back is aluminium.
His hand and head were made from Super Sculpy by my brother and once done I made the support frame around the head. Bumps and other details chrome plated and he's ready to roll!
He trundles around fine and you can see him go in the clip below.
Okay, okay IG-88 was only on screen for a few seconds and barely moved however for me it's one of the coolest looking characters in the Star Wars story.
The head is a cast of a Derwent Flame Tube (the thing IG-88's head was originally made from) and revived an old, custom chest section.
I dug out an old motor and made a cam and mount for it and a base for IG-88 to sit on. It's pretty basic but once covered in black felt it came up okay.
After a few trials I made a heap of light tubes out of PVC that hold four white ultra-bright LEDs, a wad of light diffusing went inside and then are capped with a red Perspex filter. Using the filter means that the eyes will still look light red even when the LEDs not powered.
The inside of the head was very uneven so I sunk circular recesses into it for the light tubes to mount into.
I wanted to avoid that 'lamp with a light bulb inside' look. This way of the red eyes are the same brightness from any angle.
Other details, neck, shoulders, inner neck were formed or cast from aluminium flashing, epoxy, PVC and car putty.
DISASTER! I knew something wasn't right but just couldn't nail it down. His chest section was too narrow. Thankfully it was just the centre section so it was removed and replaced with a shaped piece of Perspex.
The head was painted with a number of glazes and peppered with mica dust to give it a weathered, textured appearance.
Lights in, head on and presto, the stuff of nightmare! I should add that the 'eye's are actually the proper red as they are in the film but the camera isn't picking it up properly.
2001 A Space Odyssey broke my mind when I was permitted to watch it waaay too young and HAL's miserable and drawn-out demise certainly affected me more than it should have.
Many years on I decided to make my own HAL 9000 terminal so I can stare at it... because that's healthy.
I picked up a HAL cast online but it was so bad that I ended up recasting all bar the inner eye piece and slicing a section of Christmas decoration off for the eye dome. The painting could have gone better as the silver reacted with something in the plastic but ah well, it was a quick project to do while avoiding my other projects.
I was looking at the wiring membrane inside a budget computer keyboard, saw a likeness to insect wings and a couple of hours later we had a squadron of junk bits dragonflies
My partner started doodling these little box characters so for fun I made a little statue of one.
I used a milk carton, off cut pieces of it and some wire to make a mould that I filled with spare car repair putty. Once out of the mould it needed a little sanding to round edges and give it a jaunty angle.
A couple of coats of paint roller applied for texture and it's done!
Projects that will probably never be finished or should never have been started in the first place.
My partner has collectively gathered some of these art pieces into the category, 'horrible things Avon's made' and these fine items fall well into that group.
A life size build of R5-D4 from Star Wars I know I'm never going to get off my arse and finish.
I made this little kiwi out of what was left of another can of expanda-foam and a balloon.
The beak is the injection tube for the can.
I had some spare expanda-foam, a balloon and a wooden skewer.
I call it Eggy.
If you never went to old Kalimdor this likely has no meaning.
For everyone else; 'look, it's Chen's Keg!'
Some old traditional media and digital work that I can't for the life of me remember what they were for bar the birthday card for a taxidermist friend.
