The Making of Doktor A’s Humphrey Mooncalf

Doktor A’s personable Humphrey Mooncalf captured collector’s heart with his clumsy, curious self.  As Pobber readies two new doses of Humphrey’s mechanical whimsy, we thought this would be the perfect time to look back at the process of creating the intriguing figure.  

Captivated by his steampunk aesthetic, choosing Doktor A to design one of their first toys was an easy call.   A man of many characters, Dok sketched up several for Pobber to consider.  Drawn in by the initial rough sketch (above), ‘Clumsy Robot’ emerged as the choice.  Dok then expanded on the design through a series of rough, quick turnaround drawings which eventually solidified into full-blown vector turnarounds.

With the vector turnarounds done, action shifted to China where the factory sculptor created the initial sculpt for Dok to review. 

Seeing his design in 3D, Dok realized that Humphrey’s back was too simple, too plain.  With that he decided to add a clockwork key to the design.  Even though this added to the production cost as it had to be created via injection molding which is more expensive than the standard rotocast approach.  The result is a figure that takes full advantage of the 3D medium.

As with the initial sculpt, the revised sculpt with the key revealed a few more design changes.  To make the visual joke of Humphrey staring up at the moon, Dok had the sculptor rotate the head back at a steeper angle.  This is another case of something looking fine on paper, but needing tweaking at the sculpting phase.  Additionally, Dok chose to move the keyhole to a higher position.

As a final touch to accommodate the new elevated head angle, rivets were then added below Humphrey’s moustache down to his Chin. With the final sculpt approved, Pobber’s factory started work on the resin prototype which was then used to create the production molds. After that attention turned to paint and that’s where our story of Humphrey Mooncalf ends.

Be sure to check out first public reveal of the ‘Dapper’ Humphrey Mooncalf at DKE’s SDCC booth.  While you won’t be able to take him home with you, the new Humphrey should be available shortly (August/September).