Doughnut In Carbonite

Behold the Doughnut in Carbonite! This is one of many stupid projects I create and mail off to my best friend in California. It was mailed with this letter attached:

Dear Max Lawson,

My name is Boba Fett. I’m a freelance bounty hunter working out of the Mandilorian system. Currently my client is Jabba the Hutt, from Tatooine but I suspect his activities are funded by the Empire. None of this, however, is why I’m writing you. I recently came across a Dunkin’ Donuts on Courscant. Now you know how hard it is to find a Dunkin’ Donuts, especially way out on the westward end of the galaxy. I had heard Dunkin’ Donuts simply didn’t exist out west, but low and behold I managed to find one. Now I can’t tell you where it is. I like having my secrets and this is one I intend to take with me to the grave. I guess that’s part of my bounty hunter nature. So of course I had to get a dozen doughnuts. You don’t just come across a find like that and not go all the way. I tried to get one of every kind: jelly, boston creme, frosted glaze, man they even had MAPLE!! I got two of those. I skipped plain because what the hell’s the point. You don’t show up to a brothel and say “I’ll take the protocol droid!” Anyway, along with all these doughnuts I finish with two chocolate frosted because they’re just so classic.

Later, I’m at home finishing up a marathon of Jawa Shore and I’m getting down to the very last doughnut. It’s getting tough because eleven doughnuts is a hell of a lot even for a bad ass like me and I’m just not sure I can do it. I totally have to force the very last bite of number eleven down and I pick up the last doughnut. I take one bite and all of a sudden it’s like I’ve never eaten before. It’s like all my life I’ve been outside myself letting my physical body eat simply to sustain some kind of crude existance. All this hits me at once. It’s an epiphany. I wake up. This little Dunkin’ Donuts chocolate frosted doughnut is the best thing I’ve ever eaten in my entire life. I don’t know how long I sat there with that thing in my hand. Jawa Shore was over and I must have not even noticed. I just stared into the middle distance with that blessed doughnut perched an inch from my face. When I finally came to, I knew this was a sacred object. The universe is full of unexplainable things. Throughout my career I’ve seen and hunted just about everything you can imagine. But of all those things, nothing comes close to the taste of this doughnut. No, that’s not right. Nothing comes close to the experience of this doughtnut.

I put the doughnut down and had to take a walk. You see, I re-examined a lot that day. My whole life I’ve been running away from the pain. You can probably guess, like everyone else in this galaxy, my father was murdered when I was nine years old. Whose wasn’t? Am I right? Anyway I figured if the experience of food had eluded me all these years, what else had I been blind to? Five or so months ago IG-88 and I had to fight our way out of a Rancor cave. I’m talking a dozen or so Rancors. And we’re there crushing them with rocks by firing into the walls and blasting inside their mouths to shoot their brains. But it occurred to me I’ve never looked a Rancor in the eyes. Is there a soul? They say the eyes are the windows to the soul. What if I murdered the fathers of a bunch of little Rancor pups? What if they have to be sent to some kind of foster Rancor home like me when I was a kid? And what about love? Maybe there’s more to love than visiting the Gungan home world every few months and just raping the hell out of the local population. It’s fun, that’s for sure. And man it feels good! But what then? What do I have to show for it? Just a closet full of Gungan skulls. And I never get a chance to show that closet off anyway. So I’m just not sure about anything anymore...

I got a communication from Jabba the Hutt. He’s throwing a party in a few days on his barge. I don’t know if he’s unfrozen Solo or what, but I’m thinking this party might be a good opportunity to clear my mind. It might be good to be around some people. The day before I wrote this I decided to take the doughnut to Cloud City. The Ugnaught carbonite workers were nice enough to freeze the doughnut for me. It should be in good condition for when I get back. I’m sending the doughnut to you Max. Take good care of it till I get back. Maybe you can help me sort some things out when I return.

Thanks again fellow bounty brother.

Boba Fett

P.S. Did you know if you press the grey button on the side of the Carbonite chamber you can hear what the doughnut is thinking? It’s weird.

Rolling right along....

For my next illustration, I'm doing a collaborative piece with Maria Clapsis, of Disney Vinylmation fame! We've decided that a simple children's book-esque illustration would be fun to do! I've recently learned an awesome sculpting technique for doing quick underground scenes, so my only stipulation is that the scene take place in a burrow. We've come up with a badger, reading by the fire in his den. Simple, yet full of visual potential! Above are the first rough character sketches that Maria did.

The Last Breakfast now for sale!

Get your 8x18" print of The Last Breakfast on Etsy here:

The Last Breakfast

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How it was done.

Here's the original tight sketch for the whole illustration.

Once I was happy with the sketch, the next step was to set up a cardboard mock up of the room to get the forced perspective worked out, as well as the size and spacing of the characters.
This was the angle I wanted the final piece to be.

The table was going to be one of the largest and most difficult pieces, so I started sculpting that first. Not only did it dictate the position of everyone, it also had to hold the weight of all the food and three of the characters standing on it.

This was the first attempt with the room. All the walls are cardboard with a thin layer of sanded bondo to make them perfect. The Florida air quickly turned them into a warped mess, so I had to redo it all with another material.

I found that masonite was very sturdy, easy to work with and within my budget. This is the same room completely rebuilt.

I then started sculpting the figures based on the sizes of the cardboard mock ups. I of course had to start with the Cap'n!

Here's one of the first lighting setups we did. The paper in the foreground is to reflect a little light up to the front of the setup. We ended up doing a three light set up: one light directly above the center, one fill light on the right side, and one light to light up the background outside the windows.

Normally, I do two extra angles in addition to the main portfolio angle. These extra angles would have been the 3D stereographic angles..... but I FORGOT!!!!!

Behold!

A little less than four months ago, I started a piece I call "The Last Breakfast". Here it is, unveiled in all it's glory, just for you.

Lighting

I'm currently setting up the photo shoot for the pirate box for my website and I thought I'd show you how I'm going to light this.

I like to keep lighting simple. I'm using my brightest light overhead and I've got a less powerful light on the left side to fill in any shadows. As you can see, I've rigged up some ghetto soft boxes for both lights.

A soft box softens the light making the shadows softer and much less ugly. Though you can buy them for hundreds of dollars a piece, you can also make them for free using a plastic bag, tape, and some cardboard to keep them away from the bulbs (you don't want to start fires).

This black board will be held up by my lovely assistant to darken the background and provide more depth to the photos. You're pretty much trying to do two things in a photo: provide adequate light and not flatten out the piece with that light. There are a thousand million rules beyond that, but that is what the real objectives are.

That worked well!

Here's the top relief sculpt all done! I've given it a copper patinia. Now I just need to put a frame around it to clean up the edges. It's 3/8th inch thick at it's thickest point (the coins). I've also finally purchased a handle that will be given the same patina and attached today.