The Word is Out

Thanks to Justin over at Rebelscum.com for the story on the Grumpy Freak Show and the Bear Wars Bears. He also managed to give us some exposure on TheForce.net

Bears posted on flickr.com

Just about all the grumpy bears except for a couple of late entries are posted on Grumpy's flickr account. Check them all out here.

Grumpy Freak Show Bears

Unfortunately none are labeled with the item number (used for placing your bid on the sheet in the gallery) or the artist name. Sometime monday I'll go up to the gallery and match them all up and get that going.

We'll probably post the most recent bid every once and a while so you can get your name thrown on one of sheets if you're interested in bidding on one.

"Grumpy Bear Divided"

Anyone seen Masa?

Anyone seen Masa? He's holding 2 bears hostage as this is being typed. haha.

Here comes Joey Chou!!!! All the way from L.A.!

This is Joeys Bear...may I say Awsomeness!! Thanks dude, good work.
check out his work at www.joeyart.com

Anarchy Is Alive

WHEW!!!!!!!! - Tom

Well, I've had a couple mishap's I can't get the bear back together. I thought I shaved enough of the knob on the arm off. Then when it dried to I tried to pop it back on. I twisted it and left a big black mark on the bear since the paint was a little tacky. I got the mark off but the arms are all smudged. They are baking in the sun as we speak and I'll try to get them back on when I go home at lunch and touch it up. It might not arrive until tomorrow. I'll make sure I shave most of the knob off of the neck.

Home Stretch

Everything is just about done except for slight detail painting and packaging redesign but I wanted to post this last photo before wrapping up and handing it in on Tuesday. This way I won't be giving away the fully completed project before the show. (There's 2 stormtroopers but only one pictured and Vabear has a new, much better lighted lightsaber.)

What a CREEP!!!!

Hello everyone! This is my bear in progress. The patterns are random but mostly inspired by ornamental arabic designs. The concept was supposed to be a cute kid wearing a bear suit but when I sculpted the face initialy it seemed too boring having him be cute so it evolved to what you see here. The concensus seems to be "COOL....but hes soo freaky". I wouldnt have it any other way!

All Red

Well everything has been painted red. All that's left are the flat black features and graphics then re-assemble. Hopefully I trimmed the knob at the end of the arms enough, so they go back on. - Tom

Anarchy All Primed Up...

We'll all the modifications are done and it's all primed up and redy for paint. I did the tail today, I used wire from a metal clothes hangar for support. Man when I took it out of the oven there was smoke coming from the opening of his neck. I thought I was done for, the hangar must have gotten too hot and started burning some of the sculpy or plastic inside. So if your doing anything like that be careful. That was close.

The Head of Anarchy

Horns are on and baked, they just need to be finished sanded. That took longer than I thought. I will prime the head tonght. Tom

Anarchy Bear

Just finished the rough drawing yesterday. The "bear" will have a short devil like tail, the other one will be cut off. Need to adjust the anarchy symbol a bit on his butt. It will have a red base with black painted on top. The blob on it's forehead is a spiral. I just cut off the ears, hair and nose. I have filled the holes in it's head and am shaping the horns now. I'll use the lightning bolts to make an "A" which might be the base. Tom

Another Star Wars character?!?!?

well, the last thing i wanted to do is to mimic someone else's work or jump on his/her bandwagon... but i couldn't resist. This is Gamorrean Guard from SW Return of the Jedi as my practice bear. I wanted to get some experience on sculpey... so i used the regular bear as a test. I have some Super Sculpey, but i decided to buy a few blocks of colored Sculpey III... so i can get some idea without painting. Even though i talked to Keith on his progress and experience every so often, i wanted to try on my own. As he noted, pretty scary to put that bear in the oven... but nothing really happened. I still need to get the temperature and the timing thing right. As you see, his teeth were over baked and got discolored fast!

Almost there...

Just about finished the 2nd Stormy Bear this weekend. Just need to add his ears and gloss paint the helmet.

After picking up a $10 fiber optic lamp as a donor, running about 75 fiber optic lines and soldering together a LED circuit Darth Vabear is now powered up and ready to go. The center line of lights blinks like a heartbeat. This thing also runs on an AC adapter plugged into the wall. Can also be displayed without plugging it in.. but why would you? :)

Things left to do:

• Insert everyone's eye lenses
• Detail paint everyone
• Sculpt 2 blasters and 1 lightsaber base
• Run the LED for the lightsaber
• Design the packaging
• Sit back and relax.

Beauty and the Bear...

To post...or not to post. That is the question.
Ah, what the hell, here he is.
Anyone who knows me knows that my favorite movie is King Kong. Not the most recent Peter Jackson version, but the 1933 classic. So when it came time to do my customized Grumpy Bear, the choice seemed simple. I based my piece on one of the many vintage 1933 poster images, gaudy colors and all. The Empire State Building tower is an inverted tin flower pot with a few rubber washers for windows, and matte board and wood for various other details. In Grumpy Kong's right paw is a roughed up Sopwith Camel bi-plane. In his left paw is his lady love, Strawberry Shortcake. The only things I have left to do is decals on the plane's wings and a nameplate I am designing at the moment. It was hard to get a real good photo, so I hope everyone likes him better in person.

Bearskin Rug

I started sculpting the head for my bearskin rug. It's my first time using Sculpy. I'd like it to be much more smooth than I've got it. I've already got a mess of purple fur for the rug. And I suppose I ought to make some feet as well. I still have to figure out how it's all going to fit together.

Let there be light.

Probably giving away more then I want about this but it's coming along pretty smoothly so I figured I'd post this. This came about from a passing though/idea/comment someone had... might have been Masa.

Well, who am I to waste a good idea? Remember... anything worth doing is worth OVERdoing. :)

...aaaaand, done!

Thar she blows! I had a few hairy moments working with the resin, but all worked out well in the end.

ALMOST...

I couldn't resist! I just have a couple of things to finish up, It's going to be suspended in clear resin inside the tank. Each one of the "rivets" on the tank was cut from sculpey and glued on one at a time, there are over 250 of them.

Ohhh look, shiney!

These guys are all painted up awaiting accessories, details, and reinforcements (1 more stormy bear)

Lord Vabear... RISE! (or fall on the floor covered with sawdust)

If anyone is reading this besides me, Dave, Sacks and the 2 other people who posted I figured I'd share some info.

Sculpted my Darth Vabear yesterday and got him all baked and hardened. Issue I ran into was painting it with rustoleum satin spray paint. Even after leaving it dry overnight it was still sticky. A quick trip to the Kid Robot forums said this is a common problem. Fortunately I didn't have this problem with the Stormy Bear but I used American Tradition (I think) flat white spray. It dried just fine.

Of course I dropped my Vabear on the garage floor which was conveniently covered in sawdust from a recent project. *grrrr*. But after running it under some cold water and rubbing a little I got it all off and the paint was a little less sticky. It's been sitting under a fan for about an hour now. I didn't see if there was a cure for the stickies but I'm going to do some research.

Just make sure you test your paint on something small you can clean like the underside of the arm. Usually it's said if you prime first, youre good. I didn't prime Vabear though so that might have been the problem.

Since everything is going pretty good up until this point I decided to go another extra step. I'm not going to show it yet.. maybe not until the show.. but here's a hint.

Strawbeary

I'm slowly getting started. I've got 2 bears to do, so I'm warming up with the first one. Strawbeary Bear will have some sprinkles and an ice cream cone hat. I'm planning on replacing the lightning bolts with spoons from Baskin Robbins. While I'm working on Strawbeary, I'm trying to figure out what I want to do with the other bear... something more punk rock and deviant. I did buy a can of glow-in-the-dark spray paint that I'm itching to use on something....

Building the Empire one bear at a time.

Ok so I stayed up too late tonight messing with my bear. I started to glue the Mr Potatohead Spud Trooper helmet together and mount the ears thinking that was all I'd do but the block of super sculpey caught my eye.

Here's some photos. This thing should look hot when it's finished. I will probably still do a Darth vader bear but debating on a 2nd Stormy Bear.

About 4 hours later I'm pretty much done with the body modifications. Not bad for only my second attempt at sculpture. Now I just need to figure out how to harden the clay without ruining the vinyl figure. I'm thinking either heat gun on low or dropping the hole thing in the oven on low heat for a really slow bake. Both ways are suggested on most all the vinyl toy boards.

PS... I'm HONESTLY not a Star Wars geek. Really.

A little progress...

The madness begins

I started hacking my bear apart yesterday, poor dude's got not snout.

I have some pretty elaborate plans for this custom, I'll have pics soon.

This is going to be a fun one, thanks Saks and Anthony.

Couldn't wait to jump in on this one and plant my flag. First, appreciate being included in the show. Second.. here's what I'll be working on.

2 Stormy Bears and a yet to be cleverly named Vader Bear. Which means I'll be buying extra bears.. oh well. *shrug*

Here's a quick initial Stormy Bear sketch. I'll probably have the ears sticking out.