Custom Art Toy Mech for Space Crabs exhibition.

Steemians, here is my another one of the kind sculpture. It is custom Space Crab vinyl toy I customized for Martian Toys exhibition Crab Wars during Designer Con 2015 in Pasadena. The format of this show had another interesting twist. It was a friendly competition between Europe and USA with teams assembled from best artists in this industry mixed with some hobbyists like me. We all started with the same toy, you can see it in the corner of the photo below and finished with tens of one of the kind figures. Some of the designs blew my mind, I am so jealous of others creativity.

We live in amazing times when the battle of huge robots are becoming reality just watched youtube clip with a real duel between USA and Japan. It didn't look yet like the scenes we got used to from Holywood blockbusters, but it is a start :) My concept came from the idea of a battle between old and new continent. I decided to convert the figure into World War 2 mech suit piloted by veteran tank soldier in frenzy attack. I wanted it in a dynamic pose, mech tank running to battle and crushing everything on its way while locked on target in his triple lense monocular. The frozen moment, the second after a jump and right before firing the gun. The dust just raised on the smallest possible base to keep it stable but creating the impression that it’s out of balance.

I custom sculpted figurine of the old guy in a leather suit inspired by a straight jacket and wearing tank helmet. You won't see it, but it has all belts and straps around his chest. I made him using polymer clay Sculpey, his face was influenced by my earlier work on Carl from animated movie Up.
The glass is shattered but its better this way because dirty panels don’t obstruct the view of the enemy. The old armor is rusted, it survived many battles. The paneling lines were cut in soft vinyl with a scalpel and around 150 tiny screws were added. I bought them on eBay, they were designed for watchmaking and glasses. I painted it with airbrush and later weathered with drybrush.

The body of original toy was cut into few pieces and rearranged to suit my imagined dynamic pose. The joints were reinforced with metal wire and sculpted with very strong milliput 2 parts epoxy putty.

Images source: http://themodelmaker.net/custom-space-crab-mech/

The figure was shipped to California in this custom crate made of cardboard and protective foam. On November 21-22 was displayed in Martian Toys booth 603. The European team won and my figure got the fifth place and brought me this amazing trophy designed and produced by Absurd Toys.

It was a fun figure to make but still very time-consuming. The whole event was full of positive energy, making this figure reminded me all the fun I had while doing my first few custom vinyl Toys. It was also a nice break from the usual things I make, custom engagement ring boxes you can see samples I posted on Steemit before:

Wall-E engagement ring box	Hank Engagement ring box