Hey folks, Harry here... ya know, I love coming up with these contests... and I haven't had more fun with one of these things since the Flaming Marshmallow Balrog! There's something really amazing about temporary art. Something made to exist for a short time, and having people constructing HELLBOY out of Macaroni and assorted pastas and Tomato Sauce... Giving that info to a world of geeks, you begin to see how the artistic geeks begin to create.
Some people literally baked and ate their own Hellboyaroni... others made noodle outlines on a cookie platter and filled in with tomato sauce or paste. Others stuck noodles on their own faces, others made a bowl of tomato soup and created a Modern Art version of HB. Others wrote me to ask if they could use other types of pastas, create a base, whatever. I wrote back each inquiry to say, essentially... Use Macaroni and Tomato Sauce... and whatever other artistic smarts and materials you have to make it work.
In all, the past 3 weeks have resulted in me getting around 214 Macaroni Hellboy Tomato Sculptures! I had to pick 3 winners. What you're about to see is going to probably amaze most of you. There was much joking about this contest, but the following three individuals did amazing work with less than ideal materials. They showed creativity and skill and innovation... and I think it can easily be said that they had... a lot of fun.
The Second Runner Up - and winner of the 12inch Sideshow Collectible ABE SAPIEN is Terrence Molnar of Wyoming, Michigan. Of every entry I received, his was the most like Mike Mignola's original comic character to me. I'm a little stunned how the above mass of glued-noodles turned into the below Tomato Pasted Hero, but color me impressed!
The First Runner Up - and winner of the 12inch Sideshow Collectible HELLBOY is a fella going by the name of Animator Jim! There's something primeval about his HELLBOY... that straight spaghetti noodle goatee and sideburns... the rage on his face... that complexion. In many ways - this is the scariest damn image of Hellboy that I've ever seen. If this guy came at you, you'd drop a load in your drawers and ask for pancakes please. Outstanding Job!
Ok - now for the winner. The winner of that Big Damn Gun... The envy of geeks everywhere goes to: Larry Malott! Larry has done an amazing job... Let me let him take you through his process:
Harry,
I sent in my pictures for the contest in the last hour a couple of nights ago and I didn't have time to tell you much about the sculpt but I wanted to take the time to tell you about it now and send you some pictures of the process it went through.
When I found out that you were doing this contest I knew I had to do it. I had been planing on doing a Hellboy comic style bust for a while and the gun is the coolest comic-movie prop ever made. My original idea to do the bust was to present it to Mr. Mignola or Dark Horse and see if they would be interesting in having it produced (without the macorini).
So I was inspired to start it. I knew that I could do the sculpt add the macorini and paste and then clean it up and continue with the sculpt. I had my kids help me a bit through the process as it seemed like a fun project for them as well.
I started out sculpting the bust in clay, once I got the likeness were I thought it was close enough it was time to start adding the macaroni.
My kids helped with this process, I focused on the face and the did the top of the head and neck. I still ended up doing about 80% of the macorini as they worked slow and got bored a lot.
Once all the skin was done it was time to do the hair. Fot this I spray painted the macaroni black and began to add them to the bust. When all of the noodles were in place i painted the teeth area white, the eyes flourescent orange and went over the black hair again. Then I began to spread the paste on this thing.
Over all we went through 6 boxes of macorini and 4- 6oz cans of tomato paste. The bust ended up being 16" tall.
I still plan on continuing with the original sculpt.
I hope you enjoy,
Larry Malott
