This thread is to see if anyone is interested in having a screen-accurate copy of the ceramic 'Asian man' figure from Deckard’s apartment in Blade Runner, from one of the original vintage molds.
I’m sure many of you will have heard of or seen the mysterious ‘Asian man’ statuette in Blade Runner. It appears in Deckard’s apartment in several locations including the bedroom (because Ridley Scott loved moving props around the set between takes). It’s a 12 inch high ceramic figurine of a Chinese ‘wise-man’ with a tall hat and flowing robes. The one in the film appears to be a light tan / cream colour (difficult to be accurate because the film uses moody lighting and strong post-production colour grading);
In over 20 years of collecting Blade Runner props I have only ever seen 4 of these in the flesh, including a male/female set I owned briefly myself, so they are certainly not common. My own had the date 1-11-1974 etched on the base before firing. I sold that set over a year ago, mainly because it wasn’t even close to screen-accurate (it was bright green) and it's important to note that none of the ones I have ever seen match the colour of the one in the film. Anyway, I was at home over the Christmas and new year break and on new year’s eve I was idly flicking through some far-eastern auction websites and I came across a vintage ceramic ‘slip-casting’ mold. The mold, part of a much larger cache of molds being offered, had received no interest from buyers but I recognised it as being the very same Asian man statue used in Blade Runner. These were original manufacturer’s masters and all had been in storage for many years.
Luckily as an artist-maker I have my own ceramic kiln and, by coincidence, a little previous experience in slip casting. The mold itself is a big chunk of vintage plaster weighing over 5 kilos. It’s been well used and has a few edge chips which will mean the casts which come from it will require some carefull cleaning up by hand before firing but this is a great opportunity to do a limited run of completely screen-accurate Asian man statuettes.
As soon as it arrived I cleaned up the interior of the vintage mold with a soft brush to remove years of dust and it came up nice and clean. Next I re-assembled the halves and bound them tightly together with packing tape. I haven’t done any slip casting for several years but there was still an old 5 litre jug of earthenware casting slip in my workshop gathering dust so I decided to try it without any further delay. The slip had thickened a little but for the purposes of this first test it was good enough. I filled the mold and left the slip to firm up overnight (in the summer heat this process would take about an hour) and the following morning I found the two sides separated easily. The cast has great detail and enough firmness to stand under it’s own weight.
There is only one small issue with this first test and that was the top of the man’s hat has fallen in where I stood the mould upright to allow excess slip to pour out as it dried. I will dry the casts the other way up in future.
Although this first test wasn’t completely successful I’m really impressed with the finished size and level of detail in this cast.
I need to be very patient with ‘green’ slip casts and they can’t be kiln-fired until they are bone dry as any moisture remaining inside the clay may boil in the kiln, become steam and expand until the piece blows apart. In the summer heat, where the temperature in my timber workshop sometimes reaches 37C these would be bone dry in under 24 hours but it’s January and it’s bitterly cold here (only one degree above freezing this morning) so I think I’m going to wait a few weeks before I try pouring any more of these. When in production the bone dry casts are fired to about 900C to produce 'Bisque' or biscuit-ware which can be further smoothed and sanded if necessary. The bisque is then glazed and returned to the kiln for the second firing, 1,080C in this case, and this produces the finished piece.
My plan is to get a new stock of casting slip and do a short run of these from April to June when the weather is (hopefully) a bit warmer so if anyone would like a screen-accurate glazed ceramic ‘Asian man’ figurine as seen in Blade Runner now is the time to say. I estimate raw materials (clay slip, glaze), energy costs to kiln-fire twice and the time-consuming clean-up and finishing processes mean each one would cost £40.00.
First run interest list;
01: stussy - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
02: RipleyL - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
03: Mechanized - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
04: TheSweatshop - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
05: JamesM242 - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
06: masterjedi322 - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
07: RobertMuldoon - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
08: JAC5 - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
09: Harrison4257 - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
10: shpider - contacted / contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
11: EmmaInCandyland - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
12: Eurojunkman - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
13: bbmchl - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
14: MKA - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
15: BennieShayne - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
Run complete.
Second run interest list;
01: rickhoward - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
02: AnalogJunkie - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
03: RAPageJr - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
04: AlbertEinstein - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
05: AlbertEinstein - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
06: TangoGirafarig - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
07: TangoGirafarig - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
08: JetSetWilly - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
09: TheSweatshop - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
10: strategicgfy - contacted / invoiced / paid / - posted / delivered
11: Fatswaller78 - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
12: c0axial - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
13: kurtyboy - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
14: Johnnyfl - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
15: Buch - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
Run complete.
Third run interest list;
01: KimMont - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
02: Keyser Soze333 - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
03. Trooper-trent - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
04. MandoJedi - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
05. Blobcat - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
06. septic - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
07. Kalel76 - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
08. Teecrooz - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
09. zrl - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
10. StefanT - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
11. Shaunsheep - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
12. Harrison4257 - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
13. darthwhitey - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
14. Shaunsheep - contacted / deferred / ebayed
15. Centre68 - contacted / invoiced / paid / delivered
Run complete.
I’m sure many of you will have heard of or seen the mysterious ‘Asian man’ statuette in Blade Runner. It appears in Deckard’s apartment in several locations including the bedroom (because Ridley Scott loved moving props around the set between takes). It’s a 12 inch high ceramic figurine of a Chinese ‘wise-man’ with a tall hat and flowing robes. The one in the film appears to be a light tan / cream colour (difficult to be accurate because the film uses moody lighting and strong post-production colour grading);
In over 20 years of collecting Blade Runner props I have only ever seen 4 of these in the flesh, including a male/female set I owned briefly myself, so they are certainly not common. My own had the date 1-11-1974 etched on the base before firing. I sold that set over a year ago, mainly because it wasn’t even close to screen-accurate (it was bright green) and it's important to note that none of the ones I have ever seen match the colour of the one in the film. Anyway, I was at home over the Christmas and new year break and on new year’s eve I was idly flicking through some far-eastern auction websites and I came across a vintage ceramic ‘slip-casting’ mold. The mold, part of a much larger cache of molds being offered, had received no interest from buyers but I recognised it as being the very same Asian man statue used in Blade Runner. These were original manufacturer’s masters and all had been in storage for many years.
Luckily as an artist-maker I have my own ceramic kiln and, by coincidence, a little previous experience in slip casting. The mold itself is a big chunk of vintage plaster weighing over 5 kilos. It’s been well used and has a few edge chips which will mean the casts which come from it will require some carefull cleaning up by hand before firing but this is a great opportunity to do a limited run of completely screen-accurate Asian man statuettes.
As soon as it arrived I cleaned up the interior of the vintage mold with a soft brush to remove years of dust and it came up nice and clean. Next I re-assembled the halves and bound them tightly together with packing tape. I haven’t done any slip casting for several years but there was still an old 5 litre jug of earthenware casting slip in my workshop gathering dust so I decided to try it without any further delay. The slip had thickened a little but for the purposes of this first test it was good enough. I filled the mold and left the slip to firm up overnight (in the summer heat this process would take about an hour) and the following morning I found the two sides separated easily. The cast has great detail and enough firmness to stand under it’s own weight.
There is only one small issue with this first test and that was the top of the man’s hat has fallen in where I stood the mould upright to allow excess slip to pour out as it dried. I will dry the casts the other way up in future.
Although this first test wasn’t completely successful I’m really impressed with the finished size and level of detail in this cast.
I need to be very patient with ‘green’ slip casts and they can’t be kiln-fired until they are bone dry as any moisture remaining inside the clay may boil in the kiln, become steam and expand until the piece blows apart. In the summer heat, where the temperature in my timber workshop sometimes reaches 37C these would be bone dry in under 24 hours but it’s January and it’s bitterly cold here (only one degree above freezing this morning) so I think I’m going to wait a few weeks before I try pouring any more of these. When in production the bone dry casts are fired to about 900C to produce 'Bisque' or biscuit-ware which can be further smoothed and sanded if necessary. The bisque is then glazed and returned to the kiln for the second firing, 1,080C in this case, and this produces the finished piece.
My plan is to get a new stock of casting slip and do a short run of these from April to June when the weather is (hopefully) a bit warmer so if anyone would like a screen-accurate glazed ceramic ‘Asian man’ figurine as seen in Blade Runner now is the time to say. I estimate raw materials (clay slip, glaze), energy costs to kiln-fire twice and the time-consuming clean-up and finishing processes mean each one would cost £40.00.
First run interest list;
01: stussy - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
02: RipleyL - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
03: Mechanized - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
04: TheSweatshop - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
05: JamesM242 - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
06: masterjedi322 - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
07: RobertMuldoon - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
08: JAC5 - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
09: Harrison4257 - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
10: shpider - contacted / contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
11: EmmaInCandyland - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
12: Eurojunkman - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
13: bbmchl - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
14: MKA - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
15: BennieShayne - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
Run complete.
Second run interest list;
01: rickhoward - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
02: AnalogJunkie - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
03: RAPageJr - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
04: AlbertEinstein - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
05: AlbertEinstein - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
06: TangoGirafarig - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
07: TangoGirafarig - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
08: JetSetWilly - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
09: TheSweatshop - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
10: strategicgfy - contacted / invoiced / paid / - posted / delivered
11: Fatswaller78 - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
12: c0axial - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
13: kurtyboy - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
14: Johnnyfl - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
15: Buch - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
Run complete.
Third run interest list;
01: KimMont - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
02: Keyser Soze333 - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
03. Trooper-trent - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
04. MandoJedi - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
05. Blobcat - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
06. septic - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
07. Kalel76 - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
08. Teecrooz - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
09. zrl - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
10. StefanT - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
11. Shaunsheep - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
12. Harrison4257 - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
13. darthwhitey - contacted / invoiced / paid / posted / delivered
14. Shaunsheep - contacted / deferred / ebayed
15. Centre68 - contacted / invoiced / paid / delivered
Run complete.
Last edited:
