Dexter

It took a while for the buyer and myself to figure out just who to paint for this Dexter set. We got a bit distracted discussing Dexter’s brother Rudy (aka The Ice Truck Killer)’s hotness and had to both cool down in our respective corners. A few months passed and we were able to get right back in the game and she came up with a great list. It doesn’t feature ALL the creative psychopaths/murderers in the myriad seasons of Dexter, but the important ones are there!

Here’s Dexter and his Dark Passenger, the voice in his head that is more or less his superpower. I was able to find a photo of Dexter’s ID badge but printing it out was a horror story in its own as the printer and I don’t exactly have a good working relationship. But it got sorted in the end and I’m happy with the result.

Rudy and Arthur Mitchell are two of my favorite killers on the show. Rudy’s holding the dismembered Barbie doll, his calling card as the Ice Truck Killer. Arthur Mitchell/Trinity Killer is painted with the T-shirt of the charity he works for and his weapon of choice. The baby is of course, Harrison Morgan, Dexter’s offspring.

Nobody tell me how the show ends! I’m about a season and a half behind! It’s hard to catch up on all your favorite shows when you have very little time outside the sweatshop! Now that the holiday season is over and I’m able to start working on the back orders at a normal pace, I’m hoping to finally get my hands on The Walking Dead, season two of Orphan Black and Outlander…with sets for them in mind!

Orphan Black

This new year is off to a great start! I’ve already crossed off a few items on my L-O-N-G list of sets I wanted to paint and here’s another one!

Orphan Black reminds me of a childhood friend wherein she could slip in and out of various personalities as we played our Barbies. No, we don’t pretend to pretty up Barbie and have her go on dates with Ken. We had a loud and obnoxious stage mother and her loser boyfriend, we had an immigrant from the tiny island of Anstankapan who married a washed out rock star (we liked to think that Courtney Love modeled herself after our Ophelia Minskoff). We had several low life drug dealers/addicts, hobos, slow-witted octuplets, Vietnam war vets, radio shock jocks constantly being punished for being inappropriate on air and were forced to play show tunes in our cast of thousands because we were keen observers of the human experience. We were also never asked to attend parties.

Orphan Black doesn’t go to the extremes in terms of what we used to do with our play acting, but it’s pretty close. That Tatiana Maslany is all sorts of amazing. I hoped that I did this set justice!

 

Clockwise from the biggest doll: Sarah, Alison, crazy Helena, Rachel, and Cosima

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia

This is another one of those Jumbo Sets, yet not all the fun characters from the absurd comedy “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” are included. It’s a lot of fun to paint, this one, although it took a really long time to get it going.

This cast of 10 includes (clockwise from left): Frank, Sweet Dee, Mac, a bit of Greenman, Artemis, Gail the Snail and…

…all of Mac, Dennis, Charlie, Cricket, Waitress, and all of Greenman.

The Fall

Happy New Year! I don’t know about you, but my 2014 had been one heck of a roller coaster ride. Here’s to hoping 2015 will be a smoother one! Then again, without the occasional onslaught from the Great Organizer of the Universe, our lives would be pretty boring, wouldn’t it?

In any case, the time has come to produce a set that I’ll be donating to my friend Susie’s annual Birthday Charity Event. Every year she hosts a big birthday movie screening bash and simultaneously raises money for charity. Last year it was for homeless dogs and this year the honor goes to elephants. She never has to ask twice for me to get involved. I can be a bit of a cold fish at times as I have a tendency to laugh when small children falls down in front of me, but when it comes to suffering animals, I’m a goner. I can’t watch any movies starring animals because that’s the best way to get the waterworks started and then I’d be sad for the rest of the day.

This year the movie “The Fall” starring Lee Pace will be screened. I am a huge fan of costume designer Eiko Ishioka, whom, I believed, saved that J-Lo debacle “The Cell” from being a complete dud by producing the most magnificent garbs.

Since I’ve never heard of “The Fall” (but I have heard of Lee Pace so naturally I was interested), I had to look around a bit for visual references and the first one I came across blew me away.

It took about half a year for me to get to work on this set, but I’m pretty happy that it should become the first one of 2016!

Nothing I do can really reflect the full majesty of this film, but it won’t stop me from planning a retrospective of Eiko Ishioka’s body of work…in nesting doll form!