Some time before Christmas Ryan sent out an update - I meant to put it up, but have not dusted off this blog for quite some time. My apologies to Ryan and all.
Before he posted this;
It's that time of year. Old Chris M. Asstree is out and about.
I received (and so may you have) an email from Ryan to his general fans. I asked him if he wouldn't mind - maybe he minds now that it's three months later! Hope not. Here it is:
"How are you? Did you know i was still alive... and making things? I hope you're all doing well.
I've successfully made the transition in to full time product development and manufacturing consulting and I've been really busy this year with client work and a few large scale personal projects. I do have a lot of new products under my belt that you'll be able to run out to the store and pick up soon, unfortunately i can't tell you about them until they launch. I'm also working on a new website that will incorporate a portfolio of my professional product development work as well as a new store and blog to share more of my process.
Although this is all very exciting news it is not my primary reason for clogging up your inbox.
In august I participated in the "No Toon Left Behind" show at Suburban Vinyl in Waldwick, NJ. I had a lot of fun creating the attached custom piece that incorporated some of my normal process but went far beyond my typical solutions in customization and decoration. The piece is called "You Can't Take It With You" and features a skull inspired by Scrooge Mcduck, floating over a stack of doubloons under a large, heavyweight glass cloche. The piece is approximately 10" tall by 7" in diameter.
The base sculpt for the skull was done with traditional materials and tools and then cast in silicone for reproduction as hollow, rotocast, polyurethane. The polyurethane is tinted to a bone color and once cured it is then hand carved and detailed to add cavities and fracture details. The beak is painted and top coated with a gloss to create a material contrast between the dry finish of the bone and then the entire piece is aged with a stain and dry brushing process. The top-hat is hand cut, heat formed and assembled from sheet plastic. The dome is a high quality, heavy weight, scientific grade bell jar. The glasses are real metal frames with glass lenses. The doubloons are a combination of plated plastic coins and real metal replicas. The base is hand cut wood under a therm-o-formed polystyrene sheet.
Needless to say this is significantly more work than i put in to my typical resin products. The piece sold at the show but i have gotten several requests for more pieces. Due to the amount of work and the cost of sourced materials I am not interested in doing these in my typical run size but i am willing to open this up to an edition of 10. If you would like to purchase 1 of the 10 pieces for $750 please email me at Brutherford@Brutherford.com to reserve your piece. I expect to be able to complete the edition before the end of November.
I am Saying,
Ryan"
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