>>6994768Christ yeah, I've read Rusty Brown - those comics made me more depressed for a solid two months than I think I've ever been. I don't find the concept of expensive collectable toys strange or inherently wrong, though... Like with most anything else that becomes a vice, it's a problem when people make it the only thing they care about. Some of the prices that these things get to are fucking ridiculous, though.
I have no interest in deceiving people though - I set out to help make rarer pieces more easily obtainable to the average person. the mask of water was the ultimate goal, but I can do all kinds of things with resin now... Hopefully in the future if I can get my sculpting skills up to par, I can make a name for myself as a custom toy designer, making lines of figures of my own design, perhaps even as merchandise for a webcomic or something. I already have a few ideas for different lines.
I've been learning digital sculpting programs, but also plan to become skilled in physical sculpting. I sculpted this head based on my dog in Mudbox, and 3D printed it at a local hobby shop, then made a mold of it and casted a few copies. Digital sculpting seems to be very easy compared to irl, but I've hardly begun learning it.
I really wish I learned how to do this well before Bionicle was dead...
As for the other two pieces I'm most commonly asked to make, eyestalk pieces are probably #1, and... I guess there's a small number of things that could be tied for number 3, but the masks of control and creation are about equally asked for. I did make a mask of control mold that I got about... 20 pieces from, though. Those have all been sold or awarded in one of the contests we had.