Sam & Max: Hit My Desk

After Dominance War III had ended I wanted to do something in a traditional medium since I had spent the last month almost entirely on the computer. I thought to myself, "What video game character have I always wanted sitting on my desk that would be cute, yet scare and traumatize young children at the same time...?...I know! Max from the Sam & Max games!"

So I sat down while watching some playoff hockey and started working on the armature which is constructed from aluminum wire of different diameters and aluminum foil to form the main shapes of Max. I attached the wire and aluminum with a 2 part epoxy. Unfortunately I ran out of my smallest wire so I had to make his hands larger than what I would have liked.

Aww look he's holding his own head! I attached the head piece after I had added the clay so it would be easier to make it round.

Here is the finished sculpt. I baked the eyes and nose before hand so I could just stick them in the clay which is much easier than trying to sculpt them. I applied goo-gone which is a citric acid cleaning agent on the sculpey to melt the surface slightly making it nice and smooooth. Creating cartoony characters from sculpey is a real challenge and using goo-gone is a must.

Ahh freshly baked max. I usually bake at 275 for about 15 minutes then turn the oven off and let the sculpt sit until it cools completely. Handling it too soon can cause cracking and sudden shifts in temperature is a sculptures worst enemy! Taking a piece of sand paper to it and smoothing out any bumps or weird chips will help it stay nice and smooth.

It's always a good idea to prime before painting. I used Rust-Oleum automobile primer which gives decent results though I think next time I'm going to try something different. You can't see in the picture but it leaves an undesirable surface texture. The good thing is that you can sand the paint in places where it may have gone on unevenly.

Here is the final painted sculpt. I used an airbrush to apply the base white and then brushed in the eyes, ears, nose, mouth and between his toes with acrylic. After those dry I'll airbrush a gloss finish on him to make him shine like a new toy!

Thanks for checking out this post, in the near future I'll be posting pictures from some of my previous sculptures and some new ones I'm working on. If you have any comments, questions or critiques feel free to leave a comment.

-Steve