Wandering the PAX East exhibition floor yesterday, Fangamer’s booth caught my eye with its big white markerboard booth wall that was covered with attendee doodles (or a Scribblenaut’s attack).
I’m embarrassed to admit I almost overlooked the glass case brimming with videogame figurines. Besides, I had attended other games shows where cases containing mountains of game figurines would take up a sizable lot of the expo floor. I’d seen figurines before. Or at least I thought so.
Thank goodness I started talking to Camille Young, who sculpts each of these figurines by hand. How could that not give me a whole new appreciation for the carefully crafted figurines?
Most of the figurines featured at Fangamer’s showcase were from Mother 3, although other game characters like Zelda: Twilight Princess’s Midna and Katamari Damacy’s *Katamari ball* were present. The Mother 3 figurines correspond with the illustrations by Emilio Orsi and Sebastian Hardy in Fangamer’s Mother 3 Handbook.
“The player’s guide that came out with Earthbound had all those great clay models in them and they were just very inspiring,” Camille said. “I remember looking through pages and thinking ‘ooh I wish I could look at these,’ so I just kind of went by that and tried to keep the style somewhat similar.”
Camille makes some pretty wicked figurines. She uses Sculpey clay, and tools such as an exacto knife, a large upholstery needle (for details) and a silicone-tipped paintbrush called a color-shaper tool. The typical figurine takes about 12.7 hours to complete, but more complex ones, such as the elaborate Porky Mech can take about 30 hours to complete. Among the figurines on display at PAX East, Mr. Saturn, which appears in Super Smash Brothers, Earthbound and Mother, tended to be the most popular, Camille said.
Fangamer’s booth also featured artist Eyes5’s handmade plushies. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to meet with her, but more of her artwork is available at her website, Metroid Hat.
You can see more of Camille’s Mother 3 figurines and her artistic process on her web site.