[Today we continue our look at the development of Gama-Go’s new ‘big’ Yeti figure coming in the fall from Ningyoushi. For this second installment Gama-Go co-founder Greg Long returns with his cure for Yeti Constipation — and he talks about sculpt revisions as well.]
"It looks like he’s taking a shit."
Well, there ya have it. Chris is right. He often is. That bluntness of his has gone a long way towards making GAMA-GO the success it is.
"Yup." I agree.
Denise had just emailed over the second round of photos from her sculptor. The form was looking pretty good. It’s always a trip watching something move from a sketch into reality. I hadn’t worked with this sculptor before, but Denise had good things to say about Mr. Eli Livingson & the work he’d done for them prior was solid.
The first shots had come through a week earlier. A rough shape. You could still see the marks of Eli’s fingers in the clay. It’s hard to gauge scale with photos, but it sure looked big. He had tackled successfully some of the really odd areas of the Yeti. For Example, the Yeti’s crotch in our illustrations is just plain strange.
It’s like a Moebius strip, there’s no back or front to his lower body. There’s a plain that runs up one leg, swoops across the crotch and down and around the back leg – there’s no definition. I suppose it all springs from the sticky issue of imaginary penises. No one wants to mess with Yeti junk.
The preliminary photos showed that Eli had dealt well with this issue. The legs, crotch, and ass of the Yeti looked fine. There was a fluidity to the sculpture, some nice movement. The arch of the back looked good. I wasn’t crazy about the size and the definition of the arms, but that’s an easy fix.
This new, second round of photos was a little more of a muddle. Eli had moved the figure forward considerably but had also attempted to tackle two of the bigger challenges – the face and the fur. The face was definitely an issue. As Chris pointed out, what we had here was a Yeti with constipation.
"I think the problem is that he looks surprised, and he’s got his lip up like he’s snarling." I say as I tap Chris’ monitor and lean over his desk. "He shouldn’t be surprised, let’s kill the arch on his eyes, bring his eyebrows down – make him a little more mean. And we should get rid of the snarl as well, that’s just plain not working.
"Sounds good." Says Chris, "What’s going on with that hair on his head?"
"Well, I think the sculptor’s trying to figure out what to do with the blue fur flecks. Looks like he’s got them raised. That looks strange."
"Yeah, looks like he’s got a feathered 80’s fade. That’s no good." Chris again.
"I’ll shoot a note off to Denise. Why don’t we have him inset the fur rather than have it raised & we’ll change the face and see what it’s looking like?"
Done and done. I wrote to Denise & she promptly replied confirming the changes. She also said that she and Omar had a "surprise" for us that they were looking into. There’d be more illumination on this surprise in the following weeks.
[Check back in two weeks for another flavorful look at the development of Gama-Go’s Yeti.]
