At this year's San Diego Comic Con, Mondo will be releasing our first piece of jewelry ever...THE RING OF THE DEMON SCOURGE!
We collaborated with our good friend
L'amour Supreme and our favorite streetwear brand
Mishka to create this Scourge and it couldn't have turned out better.
Like I mentioned before, this is definitely a first for Mondo and I wanted to document every step. First things first, we needed a design. I had a rough idea for what I wanted so I sent L'amour, designer of the
S7 Mongolion and the
Mishka x CURE Boogieman, a sketch. He sent the below file to me and made my inbox explode. I freaked! Now we needed someone to sculpt it for us!
We had the legendary Jim Rogers sculpt the ring for us. If you've walked down a toy aisle in the last 20 years, you've seen his work. If you had a toy in the 80's, I'm willing to bet that he had worked on at least one of them. Don't take my word for it, though. Jim's
site boasts that he has sculpted over 400 Starting Line-up heads, action figures for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Star Wars, and Disney! He even helped sculpt the original run of Madballs! Here's a pic of the prototype that Jim sent us:
Next, we needed someone to be able to cast the ring. We hooked up with the best foundry in the state, Deep in the Heart Art Foundry. They really did a wonderful job. Here's a pic of the first three we pulled out of the mold.
We decided to cast the three samples in solid silver. We didn't cheap out by hollowing the back out either as the ring takes over 2 ounces of silver to produce. You're going to love the versions we release at SDCC this year. Stay tuned to the
Mondo blog and also check out the
Mishka Bloglin for updates.
So, we have the ring finished and now needed a way to package it. For whatever reason, the first thing that popped into my head was when kidnappers use body parts to prove that they have REALLY taken a loved one. There are tons of movies where they demand some kind of ransom and every day the parents or whoever are late, they send a new body part out to prove they mean business. I always love it when they send a severed finger with a ring on it, so that's what we decided to go for...severed fingers.
I journeyed to Hawgfly here in Austin, TX to have them make some fingers. Hawgfly is a local special effects company that have worked on countless movies. Some of the highlights include PLANET TERROR, TEETH, and Robert Rodriguez's upcoming MACHETE feature film. If I'm not mistaken, besides EL MARIACHI, this is the first time Rodriguez isn't using KNB for his practical effect work. That is really a testament to awesome Hawgfly is! Good luck guys and congrats!
After we finished with lunch, Meredith from Hawgfly explained the steps in molding my hand:
Step 1: Making a negative mold
Like with most fun things, we started by lubing up.
Meredith covered my hand and hair on my arm with a thin layer of vaseline so my hand would release from the alginate easier. She then mixed the alginate and had me place my hand in a big tub of it for maybe 3 minutes. It was really cool. Felt like
Nickelodeon Gak! When it begins to dry, it starts getting cold and hugs your hand tightly. After it had set, I began to wiggle my fingers and pulled my hand out. This is what a mold of my hand and fingers looks like:
Step 2: Making a positive out of clay
While all of the alginating was going on, Meredith had a crock pot full of oil clay heating up. Immediatly after I pulled my hand out, she poured the molten clay into the alginate to make clay versions of my fingers.
After this step, I had to leave for another appointment, but the next steps will consist of cutting my fingers off of the clay hands and sculpting the ends to make them look like they have been severed in gnarly ways. Another way we are going all out on this project is the fingernail on the finger. We're going to pour a resin that will harden and create a hyper realistic fingernail. The actual fingers will be made out of a silicone product and will be painted to look real. Meredith had a baby's foot in the shop that used the silicone to it and trust me when I say that I've touched tons of babies and even I couldn't tell the difference.
So, there ya go! I'll post pics of the final product soon, but rest assured that every Demon Scourge ring will be shipped on a real fake severed finger! Who said jewelry had to be boring?!
-Justin
