Exploratorium Webcast: Toys

Thanks to everyone who came out to the Open Make show this weekend at the Exploratorium! And if you missed it, here is the webcast, where I talked about my steam and electric robots hobby, and Skylanders toys for work. My son wanted to be up there with me. Somebody needed a nap! So instead of being a distraction, I just brought him to the stage. He was totally happy just being up there with me, I guess he didn't get my stage fright genes! Anyway, enjoy the webcast, I was the second speaker, about 16 minutes in, but I strongly recommend watching the whole thing from start to end. Update, the Exploratorium had just uploaded video of my section only, shown below. However, I'd still recommend to check out the entire webcast!

Not only was it an honor to be part of Open Make and the Exploratorium, but it was great to meet the amazing toy makers.

Also, some of my steam powered and electric robots, are on display in the tinkering studio for the next couple of weeks: Steam powered R2, Steam Walker, Steam Centipede, Steam Turtle, couple of the Swashbots, and the Putterbot:

Exploratorium & One of Swords

Sorry for the late post.... first, I was interviewed by One of Swords (about 24 mins in). And I'll be at the Exploratorium this Saturday: http://tinkering.exploratorium.edu/open-make-toys/

The Exploratorium will be displaying many of my steam creations, as well as the electric critters. I will also be bringing some prototype skylander toys, and some really early hand sculpts, molds, casts etc. I will try to bring all of the Skylanders, including yet to be released if people wanted to see what they will look like :) I'll probably be there most of the day, the interview is between 1pm-2pm.

Leviathan taxidermy sculpt (Skylanders)

Here is a sculpt of the giant fish from Skylanders. He hangs like a taxidermy fish at my desk at work :) This video shows the process that I used:



I used aluminum foil to shape the general shape and size first. This is to help the Sculpey clay to have an even thickness, otherwise the inside of the fish will never cook before the outside is fully baked. Once I had a base, I just sculpted the fish, adding more detail as I went along. The teeth are made from Shapelock, as small sculpey teeth would break easily.

After making the teeth, I simply inserted them into the unbaked fish's mouth to make the teeth sockets. Some details were made by imprinting patterns onto the surface of the soft clay.



I then baked the fish, and used Shapelock under the fins to help support them. I painted the fish with acrylic paint.... the cheap stuff that's made for crafts/kids, which are thicker than model acrylic paint. Plus they are super cheap, a dozen colors for a few bucks.

My son also joined me for a while, painting his dinosaurs alongside me, as seen in the video, which was a really amazing experience for me. I added some gloss to the mouth/eyes, and glued the them into place. Last step was to stain the wood plague and epoxy the fish into his permanent home.

It was fun making this thing. The Leviathan fish was something that I had designed and modeled for Skylanders, but you only see him for a second in the game, so it's nice to show him off as a trophy fish :)