I ask fwooshmembers questions.
They answer them.
Zombihamma " A lot of the stuff I do just comes from wanting to see cool figures"
The username?
About 5 years ago, the wife, some friends and I were playing a role-play zombie game. I named myself Zombihamma straightaway.
I think Iron Cow has a similar story with a TMNT game.
Who is in your family?
My family consists of me, my wife, (Monique) my dog (a patter dale terrier called Mud) & the new addition.
So this is a baby announcement as well as an interview.
She’s due on the 7th of Nov & we’re calling her Opal.
(says inward prayer, "please let her look like her mother,
please let her look like her mother")
We can’t wait. We’ve been trying for a few years now so we’re really excited. Do you have any idea how many p.o.a.’s a baby has? Also excellent paint apps!
Will you have time to customize once the baby arrives?
HA HA! What do you think? I’m sure I’ll have time to squeeze in a custom or two while the nippers asleep.
How did you meet your wife?
I live in Greater London, and the wife? Well, we met in Denver, Colorado, although she’s from Louisiana.
I
was visiting my brother, who was living in Denver at the time (not Rageoholic my other one). He was doing some volunteer work for a non-profit organization called Project AngelHeart, a meal program to provide food for people with HIV/AIDS and other life threatening diseases. My future wife was the head chef. When my brother introduced us she went bright red and I thought, " Yep ". One year later we were married, and that was 7 years ago.
It’s true I do have a very supportive spouse.
What about Rageoholic? Who is your brother and he is very funny with dark
humor. I think his username is a good description of himself.
Haha, yeah my brother (Rageaholic) is cool.
He is a year older than me, married, & a dad of 4 lovely kids,
He is also a very a creative writer. He’s writing a quadrilogy of fantasy books. One for each of his kids, 4 separate stories, but all interlinked, they are excellent & would be bestsellers if published.
He used to tease me without mercy when we were kids though.
You went to SDCC this year?
I went to SDCC for work, I was on a panel for the Torchwood show’s release in the States not too keen on the show myself, but the toy execs who I met were keen on MCtoy/Necca style figs being produced; so that could be cool.
The phone call went something like this…
My boss:" Hey Mat do you know what comic con is?… you like comics right??"
Me: " Er yeah… it’s a big deal where people go to buy, sell, trade, show off, gape, gawk & have a good time seeing all the up and coming. Oh and people dress up like super heroes"
Boss: "Oh ,ok cheers …"
5 minutes later he calls back.
Boss: "It’s in San Diego … wanna go? "
Me: "When’s my flight?"
I had a great time & met CARL & ROBOKILLAH.
Hey guys!
What do you do at work?
I’m a freelance special make-up and creature effects technician. I work for a lot of different studios. At the moment I am working at Millennium FX, best known for the work done on Dr.Who. We have also done work on films, such as Children of Men and The Oxford Murders (starring Elijah Woods and John Hurt, due out soon). I met Frodo, Woo Hoo!!! Haha
The job itself consists of sculpting, fabricating, 3-D make-up, painting, finishing, gags effects done in real time on camera, such as, a bullet pulled out of a wound, someone getting a body part severed or a zombie taking a bite out of flesh, etc… You name it I do it. I’ve even done a bit of creature performance.
We are now making an 11 foot Eddie suit for Iron Maiden’s tour.
As you can see all these disciplines come in handy when making customs, sculpting, molding, painting, etc…
When did you start customizing?
It is just something that I have always done. I have sculpted since I was a little boy, sometime in the early eighties, my first custom was a arm swap on a Action Force (GI Joe) tank commander figure called Steele (I think)(sorry no pictures that little sucker got lost years ago)
I was very encouraged from and early age to do my artwork, its where I excelled. Leaving the other subjects like Math and English to fall into ruin, an old math teacher once said to me “I could mess up a straight line with a ruler…..better to let me do it free hand.” ha
How many customs do you make?
It all depends on my moods. Sometimes I can do 2or 3 in a week, while other times I am just into my drawing, pencil to paper.
Do you make fine art?
I like to sketch pencil on paper, some times I’ll go to town & do detailed renderings but mainly I just sketch, I’m getting into Photoshop a wee bit & that’s cool.
As far as art go’s I love comic art to be honest, I think some of the best artists on the planet work in the comic field,
I guess one of the first artists to really blow me away was Simon Bizly,his early work on A.B.C warriors in 2000ad blew my mind ,I always remember the boldness of him spelling out ‘wasted in the art work by writing it with a dead robots guts.
As I got older my tastes got more varied & now I really love Adam Hughs, Alan Davis, Arther Adams, of course Frank Frazetta, the late John Buscema was a genius, but my all time fave has to be Mike Mignola, who I was able to meet just recently, a very cool guy whose talent makes my eyes bleed.
What is the process like?
When I get “into” a character I get the urge to see them in toy form, with marvel legends level articulation no more no less, my process involves rummaging through my fodder box trying to find the exact pieces that I feel I need. If I don’t have them or can’t think of a fodder figure that I can buy, then I will normally sculpt, mould, cast out (like Double Dealer, Liquidisk are doing) or sculpt in milliput (although I hear apoxie sculpt is better). Sometimes it’s just a challenge to try to capture a certain character, like with my He-Man custom I was just trying to get across the massive muscles I remember seeing as a kid. I tried to sculpt a new head, but it just turned into a generic barbarian dude. That’s when I knew I needed to keep that classic He-Man head, a great sculpt.
When I look now I see I succeeded in some ways & failed in others (head too high on his neck and big crazy biceps ha ha).
Do you have a favourite part?
Honestly, I love the whole process. But I would have to say the sculpting, as it is what I do whether I’m getting paid to do it or not. The thing I like the least is the painting. (GAH !!!!! paint rub!!!!)
Where do you customize?
I always seem to manage to have a space to do my customizing. From a corner in my parents house, when I was just a kid, to having an entire room with shelves upon shelves of action figures and a proper workspace. I recently was set up in our garage, now I have a table in our room that is shared with my PC. Just depends on the situation…
Did some old guy at work show you all these techniques?
I am the old man at work, ha ha. Alot of the stuff I do just comes from wanting to see cool figures, so I have always just fiddled with my toys, arm swap here, head swap there, but starting my job about 11 or 12 years ago really showed me the limitless things you could do if you just relax & take your time & also remember ‘their just toys’. There’s nothing to put things in perspective like your boss saying, “Ok we’ve got to make a silicone corpses with its throat cut & the cameras are going in real close and they need it in a week & a half!!!!!”(gulp)
You made an in-scale Galactus….?
ahhh the Galactus head, man that is something I would love to re-do sometime. The funny thing is, with the facilities at work it would be a very doable project, but when I realized the scale of it (figuratively as well literally), I thought I would have it as a bust with lights in the eyes or some such thing, When I was moving house for the billionth time I dropped it Ha ha! To be honest I was kinda relieved.
Are you working on a website? One dedicated to tutorials?
About the tutorials and website…
As per usual, lots of ideas and not enough time to get them all done at the moment, I will be getting them done in the near future though, working on it.
A
colleague of mine will be the curator of an exhibition in the New Year. It will be for people in the creature fx industry, AKA Monster Makers, to showcase their personal art work. So I’ll be showing some of my figures. It will be in London, but the details haven’t been sorted out yet. I’ll put it on the thread in case anyone is interested.
You don’t do commissions and you don’t sell your customs. But you are moving
to another address… I suggested to Rageaholic that he nic some of your customs
during the move and then sell them for large amounts of money.
As far as commissions go, I’ve had a few people ask me to do them & I
always refuse, for the simple reason…I just never have the time.
Ha ha & the time I do have I like to do the ones I want to do.
Ha ha I keep the customs close during house moves. If Rage even looks at a figure the leg will fall off, It’s his super power, its a gift really, the ability to corrode plastic at a cellular level with one look! ha ha ha
Thanks Zombi Cheers!
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