moonjam
New Member
Hey! I've been a long time lurker here but haven't really had much to share, until now! I'm hoping this is the right place for this thread, if not please let me know.
Last year I was commissioned to create a special cover illustration for Empire magazine's subscriber edition. The issue was focused on The Fall Guy, so the art director & team had the idea of turning the 'action hero' into an 'action figure'. I had just 5 days to create a CGI replica of Ryan Gosling as 'Colt Seavers', as well as creating various digital props and the packaging.
I used Zbrush for the majority of the sculpting with some pre-existing 3D assets to help speed things up. The main thing for me was getting the likeness right, so I spent most of the time I had sculpting the face.
This isn't the first time I've made a digital version of a 'real' toy, it's actually an idea that crops up fairly regularly in my line of work. In fact, the first one I can remember making was for a UK commercial back in 2004.
A common thing that happens is that someone sees my 3D CGI rendering and assumes that it's a photo of a real toy. This is always flattering BUT I do hate having to let them down that it doesn't physically exist. When the Empire cover went live on social media I had a number of people reach out to me to ask if the toy was available to buy, including one of Ryan Gosling's stunt doubles on the movie, Ben Jenkin. I told him that, sadly, it didn't exist and he said that he was going to have a talk to the director and Ryan to see if they could get some made. Now, I don't know what exactly happened behind the scenes, but a few days later Universal got in touch to ask if we could actually make a limited run of 'real' figures...
I'd been toying (ahahaah!) with the idea of getting into 3D printing for years. I've been making digital 3D art since 1995 so the idea of bringing some of those creations into the real world has always been exciting. So much so that I had, a couple of months before landing this job, bought a cheap Anycubic resin printer. I hadn't taken it out of the box but this was the perfect excuse to fire it up!
As many of you will appreciate, trying to get into 3D printing by printing your own designs for a commercial project is a Very Bad Idea™
After a LOT of hair pulling, research, sobbing, more research and testing, I finally got some decent prints off my machine
There were still some issues with these but they were almost all due to my lack of knowledge when it came to orienting parts and prepping the supports. The 3D data itself worked well, which was a nice surprise! I'd already decided that the final figure wouldn't be poseable, just appear that way, so all of the articulation is purely cosmetic, which helped smooth things out a lot.
Once I let Universal know it was, theoretically, possible, they told me how many they needed... Twenty.
Twenty figures, all 3d printed, cleaned, sanded, primed, hand painted, glued up and put into custom packaging (which also needed to be made). They also wanted them all turned around in the standard commercial timeline (as soon as humanly possible). There was no way I would be able to get these made by myself so I reached out to some friends I used to rent a space from (Product Resolutions), who had a lot of experience with resin printing. As an added bonus, one of their team, Luke, also painted miniatures so he would be able to handle the painting too.
We sorted out the logistics and started production. Due to the time constraints and the limited size of their vacuum former (they have a Mayku Formbox) we had to scale the figures down a bit. I had based the proportions and level of detail from some 7" Mcfarlane toys, but these would need to be about 5" tall instead. I broke the figure down into 2 x arms, a torso, a pair of legs and a head and added simple keys where the parts would join, which helped a lot.
I also took the models I'd made for the CGI rendered plastic blister shells, cleaned them up and made them watertight, so the team at Product Resolutions could print them and use them as forms in their vacuum former. It worked really well!
There were, inevitably, some hiccups along the way...
We had to add in the props from my original CGI version, namely the hat, sunglasses and samurai sword. Not least because the tray holding the figure had spaces for them, that would look weird empty BUT we (let's be honest, *I*) hadn't factored this into the timings or costs. SO, I took it upon myself to get them made in my new 3D printing workshop*
*(a cabin I built at the bottom of our garden during lockdown)
These things are TINY! It took me a while the dial in the thickness to the right level that they would hold their shape.
I now had 20 x hats, 20 x swords and 20 sunglasses to clean, cure, sand, prime and paint. It was a LOT of work but simple enough that I could jut stick on a podcast and zone out. However, there was another problem...
The heads of the figures were the most complex thing to paint and while Luke has some great skills it was important the the likeness be as close as we could get it and he wasn't confident he could tackle the faces. So, I agreed to paint all twenty (tiny!) heads myself.
(UK 1p coin for scale)
Here's some progress shots from Product Resolutions, with my painted heads added to the bodies. Packaging elements ready in the background.
The final 20!
I also adapted the artwork from the CGI sticker and got a set of real set made for the 'I'm not the hero...' sticker on the blister shell.
We made 22 in total, partly so we had spares in case any broke but also so that (if we were careful) Luke and myself would have our own versions to keep. Universal liked these so much that the commissioned a further 11, which we did in the same way, albeit a little faster!
I have some more information about the project to share but I've been typing for so long that I feel I should hit post!
Last year I was commissioned to create a special cover illustration for Empire magazine's subscriber edition. The issue was focused on The Fall Guy, so the art director & team had the idea of turning the 'action hero' into an 'action figure'. I had just 5 days to create a CGI replica of Ryan Gosling as 'Colt Seavers', as well as creating various digital props and the packaging.
I used Zbrush for the majority of the sculpting with some pre-existing 3D assets to help speed things up. The main thing for me was getting the likeness right, so I spent most of the time I had sculpting the face.
This isn't the first time I've made a digital version of a 'real' toy, it's actually an idea that crops up fairly regularly in my line of work. In fact, the first one I can remember making was for a UK commercial back in 2004.
A common thing that happens is that someone sees my 3D CGI rendering and assumes that it's a photo of a real toy. This is always flattering BUT I do hate having to let them down that it doesn't physically exist. When the Empire cover went live on social media I had a number of people reach out to me to ask if the toy was available to buy, including one of Ryan Gosling's stunt doubles on the movie, Ben Jenkin. I told him that, sadly, it didn't exist and he said that he was going to have a talk to the director and Ryan to see if they could get some made. Now, I don't know what exactly happened behind the scenes, but a few days later Universal got in touch to ask if we could actually make a limited run of 'real' figures...
I'd been toying (ahahaah!) with the idea of getting into 3D printing for years. I've been making digital 3D art since 1995 so the idea of bringing some of those creations into the real world has always been exciting. So much so that I had, a couple of months before landing this job, bought a cheap Anycubic resin printer. I hadn't taken it out of the box but this was the perfect excuse to fire it up!
As many of you will appreciate, trying to get into 3D printing by printing your own designs for a commercial project is a Very Bad Idea™
After a LOT of hair pulling, research, sobbing, more research and testing, I finally got some decent prints off my machine
There were still some issues with these but they were almost all due to my lack of knowledge when it came to orienting parts and prepping the supports. The 3D data itself worked well, which was a nice surprise! I'd already decided that the final figure wouldn't be poseable, just appear that way, so all of the articulation is purely cosmetic, which helped smooth things out a lot.
Once I let Universal know it was, theoretically, possible, they told me how many they needed... Twenty.
Twenty figures, all 3d printed, cleaned, sanded, primed, hand painted, glued up and put into custom packaging (which also needed to be made). They also wanted them all turned around in the standard commercial timeline (as soon as humanly possible). There was no way I would be able to get these made by myself so I reached out to some friends I used to rent a space from (Product Resolutions), who had a lot of experience with resin printing. As an added bonus, one of their team, Luke, also painted miniatures so he would be able to handle the painting too.
We sorted out the logistics and started production. Due to the time constraints and the limited size of their vacuum former (they have a Mayku Formbox) we had to scale the figures down a bit. I had based the proportions and level of detail from some 7" Mcfarlane toys, but these would need to be about 5" tall instead. I broke the figure down into 2 x arms, a torso, a pair of legs and a head and added simple keys where the parts would join, which helped a lot.
I also took the models I'd made for the CGI rendered plastic blister shells, cleaned them up and made them watertight, so the team at Product Resolutions could print them and use them as forms in their vacuum former. It worked really well!
There were, inevitably, some hiccups along the way...
We had to add in the props from my original CGI version, namely the hat, sunglasses and samurai sword. Not least because the tray holding the figure had spaces for them, that would look weird empty BUT we (let's be honest, *I*) hadn't factored this into the timings or costs. SO, I took it upon myself to get them made in my new 3D printing workshop*
*(a cabin I built at the bottom of our garden during lockdown)
These things are TINY! It took me a while the dial in the thickness to the right level that they would hold their shape.
I now had 20 x hats, 20 x swords and 20 sunglasses to clean, cure, sand, prime and paint. It was a LOT of work but simple enough that I could jut stick on a podcast and zone out. However, there was another problem...
The heads of the figures were the most complex thing to paint and while Luke has some great skills it was important the the likeness be as close as we could get it and he wasn't confident he could tackle the faces. So, I agreed to paint all twenty (tiny!) heads myself.
(UK 1p coin for scale)
Here's some progress shots from Product Resolutions, with my painted heads added to the bodies. Packaging elements ready in the background.
The final 20!
I also adapted the artwork from the CGI sticker and got a set of real set made for the 'I'm not the hero...' sticker on the blister shell.
We made 22 in total, partly so we had spares in case any broke but also so that (if we were careful) Luke and myself would have our own versions to keep. Universal liked these so much that the commissioned a further 11, which we did in the same way, albeit a little faster!
I have some more information about the project to share but I've been typing for so long that I feel I should hit post!
Last edited:
