Rochester Mini Maker Faire 2016 Preview: Maker Kid

I will be presenting a new project for my third year at the Rochester Mini Make Faire on Saturday, November 19th, from 10 am to 5 pm at the Rochester Convention Center. Year one and year two were awesome, and I'm very excited about this year as well.

This year I am doing a project I am calling the Articulated Paper Creature Mash-Up.  That's a mouth full, but what is means is that you can come to my booth, stamp an image of various body parts of a character on cardstock, cut them out, and assemble the character with brass fasteners to create a poseable/jointed/articulated paper doll.

Oh, you mean like a paper doll that my grandma used to play with?  Well, sort of, but not exactly. The characters and creatures are not just little cute little girls with pony-tails.  The characters are from other local artist's imaginations.  You can build a single character, or mix-and-match pieces together to create a brand new creation.

I will highlight each character over the next few days.

The next character is Randy Duncan's Maker Kid.

Randy Duncan is a illustrator, sculptor, painter, and probably other hidden talents I'm unaware of because he always dazzles me with his talent.  When I asked Randy about collaborating on this project, he had Maker Kid drawn up within hours, and had sketched out all the body parts individually in the next 24 hours.  Randy is extremely productive, it isn't uncommon to see his new work on a daily basis on his facebook feed.

I asked Randy for a masked superhero type character, with long limbs.  I had seen illustrations he had done of Spiderman, and his version of Spidey reminded me of the work of comic artist Eric Larsen's version of Spiderman.  Long, thin limbs, that bend at almost impossible angles.  Randy hit the nail on the head in his first draft, with a boy like character, with a mask, cape, and long legs.  It was in Randy's second draft he gave our masked kid a mohawk.  That was a great addition, as it really cleaned up the design around the head, to highlight those long arms and legs.

I will confess, I am a not too subtle fanboy of Randy's work.  He is part of an artist collective called "Dude's Night Out".  The DNO exhibit work across the city or Rochester, and also exhibit at the Rochester Mini Maker Faire.  I got to know Randy through arts+craft shows, but I have seen his gallery shows at Roc Brewing Company, Record Archive, and several other openings around the city. I have several of Randy's illustrations in marker and watercolor hanging in my studio that serve as inspiration to continue to hone my craft.  I even have a swing top bottle covered in skulls and creepy worms he did as a commission for me to hold beer (or moonshine).

I am super pumped to be able to share Maker Kid (prototypes pictured) with the Maker Faire visitors, and spread the word about the artistic talents of Randy Duncan.