The Power of the Sculpt

An Interview with Sculptor Paul Brooke

by Adam May
News & Features Editor

Sculptor Paul Brooke has been in the toy business since 1989 where he started working for Kenner, in Cincinatti, Ohio. Brooke works freelance these days from his studio in Cincinatti, working on lines for companies like Hasbro, Zizzle, Kamhi World, Fisher Price, and Duncan Yo-Yo; and properties as diverse as Star Wars, Pirates of the Caribbean (the 12" line), Batman, Napoleon Dynamite, The 40 Year-Old Virgin, and the recent Jack Black hit, Nacho Libre. His sculpting taps into a realism with sculpted articulation and details that thrill collectors. Galactic Hunter interviews him to report his insight into the art of sculpting.

GH: So the The Cincinnati Enquirer describes your office as a "creature shop"...

Paul Brooke: It is, because there's stuff from all sorts of [toy] lines that I work on. I recently sculpted a lot of the 12" Pirates of the Caribbean figures for Zizzle, and the Davey Jones [12" figure] is a really intricate sculpt.

GH: So what Star Wars pieces have you worked on over the years for Hasbro?

Paul Brooke: I sculpted the Oppo Rancisis action figure from a three pack [Screen Scene Asst. -Ed]. He had a bendy body, and that was a really neat figure, something that I don't think we'd done before. I did Lama Su, who was in a two-pack with a Clone Boy from Attack of the Clones. I did the Chewbacca with all of the articulation from the Vintage set. I sculpted Dexter Jettster. I just did a new Ralph McQuarrie figure for 2007. I sculpted Ki-Adi Mundi from the Revenge of the Sith, and Sora Bulq, the Weequay Jedi for the current line.

GH: Those are some really impressive figures, and they're all very accurate sculpts!

Paul Brooke: I've done a lot of Star Wars figures that are human figures, you know, portraits, but I really like doing the creatures. And the robots! Those are a lot of fun. I remember doing Count Dooku a couple of times, so I can't remember which one.

GH: Your Ki-Adi Mundi and Chewbacca are pretty much the definitive versions of those characters.

Paul Brooke: Thanks! I don't get to do a lot of the main characters, but I like to put a lot of detail into the characters I do get to do. That Chewbacca was a lot of work, and the waxed pieces where the fur overlaps kept breaking off. It was a lot of detail, but it turned out to be an excellent figure.

GH: Chewbacca from the Vintage Original Trilogy Collection was an exceptional figure, and you really captured the spirit of Chewbacca. The multi-segmented torso really gave the figure a quality that we've never seen in a 3¾" figure. Did Hasbro tell you to go all-out on this figure?

Paul Brooke: Yes. They wanted that something extra from this figure, and they were very specific about the high standard that they wanted.

GH: How did you approach the piece?

Paul Brooke: They gave me figures that had the kind of joints they wanted, the big Wampa figure [Ultra Asst.] to look at, and they wanted around 16-17 points of articulation. So they gave me a big bag of little ball-and-socket joints in all different sizes to incorporate into the figure.They range in size from ball joints that are about the size of a BB, and they let me decide which is best to use. The sculpt is based around those. Using those insert-molded joints, they allow the limb to hinge, and also to turn, so it's a nice way to turn one point of articulation into two or more. You can get some real versatility out of that.

On that particular figure, I did a new technique. Where I wanted the hair to fringe over to hide the seams, I wrapped cellophane around the sculpt and lay the wax down on top of the cellophane. So when I had the look of hair, I'd pull it apart, carefully remove the cellophane, and finish the sculpting. It was so maddening because as soon as I started tooling that fringe hair, it would break, and I'd have to wax it back on. Sometimes I'd fix it only to have it break again. I probably had to do that about a thousand times, but the finished figure was worth it.

GH: Did you have any idea that you were working on what has turned out to be the consummate Chewbacca?

Paul Brooke: No, not really, but I thought it was pretty good. I thought it was definitely a piece for my portfolio, and a piece to show on my website. A friend of mine showed me a review, and people really seem to love that figure. People still talk about that figure, right down to the soles of the feet that I sculpted.

GH: Hey, I don't know what you could do to improve on Chewbacca at this point, but I always encourage you to try more. It leads to better toys.

Paul Brooke: It's up there. It's one of my all-time favorite sculpts from my portfolio.

GH: What are your favorite sculpts?

Paul Brooke: Definitely Chewbacca, and a piece that you can see on my website, a Minotaur from Chronicles of Narnia, which was also done for Hasbro. There's also one I just finished for Nacho Libre, of Jack Black. The figure has a lot of Jack Black's character and personality sculpted into it.

I did that sculpt for a newer company out there called Kamhi World. I also did a big Napoleon Dynamite talking figure for them. That was their first figure. Everything talks, and they use really high quality sound. The sound samples are really great, and they do about 18 lines at a time. We also did the talking figure for The 40 Year-Old Virgin, and I think they just signed to do Borat from Da Ali G Show. They're doing a movie based on that character.

The great thing about working on these collectibles is that I'll sometimes get to go out to Hollywood for a premiere, or up to New York to meet an actor. Meeting an actor or subject can really can help to capture his likeness, and it's a lot of fun.

For Hasbro I was brought out to Skywalker Ranch once, and it's a really fascinating place. You know, it's sort of in the middle of nowhere, and you drive off of this country road, you see this big farm, the house, and everything is really scenic. You drive around the house and into a little carriage house, that drops down, and you drive into this big underground parking garage. You don't see any cars, just the atmosphere of the big farm, but there's all this stuff going on under the ground.

GH: You're a collector, too, aren't you? What do you collect?

Paul Brooke: I collect Pez, actually.

GH: Have you ever had the opportunity to sculpt for Pez?

Paul Brooke: No! That's my Holy Grail.

GH: We all have them.

Paul Brooke: I love the quality of their sculpts. Every time they put out a new Pez, the sculpting improves. Look at their Star Wars pieces, and how they've evolved since the classic Pez. The whole toy industry has matured a lot. People expect more, and companies like Hasbro really do work to bring their customers a better toy every time. They're always working to improve upon their lines, and that says a lot about their company.

GH: Speaking of improvements, your Sora Bulq, the Weequay Jedi, was another collector favorite piece from the past year. It really improved on the previous Weequay headsculpt dramatically.

Paul Brooke: Really?

GH: Yes, and there isn't a lot of reference material out there to base such an authentic sculpt on. Were you given a great deal of reference shots, or access to the mask? 3D scans?

Paul Brooke: There was a little bit. I think I had two photos of that specific character, and I used my imagination to fill in the blanks. I actually took some thread, dipped it in glue, twisted it up, and formed the dreadlocks from there.

GH: Ki-Adi Mundi, you sculpted the Revenge of the Sith version of him, and he turned out to be a really involved figure. Did you know that Hasbro planned on using soft goods (fabric) for the figure when you sculpted him?

Paul Brooke: No, did they? I had no idea. I don't even have one. The only figure I have that I've done, I think, is Dexter Jettster. I liked him so much I went out and bought one.

GH: I was surprised, too, because when I saw the figure in early shots, I thought maybe he ditched the robe. There's a lot of detail that you sculpted hidden under that fabric cloak.

Paul Brooke: That will give collectors an extra reason to open the figure and play with it. He has a little pouch up under there and some nice articulation. There's a picture of the wax sculpt on my website, actually.

GH: How did you get started sculpting action figures?

Paul Brooke: I took a job at Kenner in 1989, and I hadn't worked in the toy industry before. I had worked in the theme park industry creating signage and backdrops for the theatre shows. When I was hired at Kenner, I worked in the paint shop, so actually painting got me a foot in the door in the toy business. From there over the course of eleven years, I worked my way up through painting, to model-making, to sculpture.

GH: So you apprenticed under other people, and developed your talent from there?

Paul Brooke: Yes, but I actually had to quit at one point to transition out of painting and get rehired. When you're a really good painter, they want to keep you in that division. The guy in the paint shop didn't want to lose me.

I went to college to study art, commercial art. I've never heard of a school that teaches toy sculpting.

GH: So all of your talent at sculpting is something you developed yourself?

Paul Brooke: I inherited a lot of it from my Grandma, who loved to paint. She studied under a really famous artist here in Cincinnati, and my Dad's an engineer, so between the two I guess I have the technically ability and the artistic ability.

GH: What toys from your childhood inspire you?

Paul Brooke: I definitely love the 12" classic G.I. Joe, and LEGO. Those were my two big things.

GH: Working for Hasbro, did you ever have the chance to work on the 12" G.I. Joe line?

Paul Brooke: Oh... [laughs] Actually, I was the manager of the sculpting for G.I. Joe. Right before I left [when Hasbro moved its Kenner employees from Cincinnati to Rhode Island -ed]. I was managing all of the 12" G.I. Joe sculpture.

I still do a little something for the G.I. Joe Collector Club. They do something for their big convention every year.

GH: How does it feel seeing toys that you've sculpted on toy store shelves?

Paul Brooke: That's exciting. It holds a lot of excitement for me even if it's a Fisher-Price baby toy. You want to tell everybody walking down the aisles, "Hey! I did this!" Of course I don't do that... well, I do with my family. They think I'm a little bit crazy, but I'll say to my kids, "Hey, I sculpted this!". "Yeah, Dad, whatever." They don't think of that as cool.

GH: Really?

Paul Brooke: Well, if you've grown up, and that's all you've ever known... that's what Dad does, he sculpts toys. They don't go and tell their friends, "My Dad sculpts toys!"

GH: They don't bring kids over and go crazy in your house?

Paul Brooke: My daughter will brings friends over sometimes, and I'll give them some clay, show them a little bit about how to sculpt figures. They're a little too young to be excited over it that part of it, but there's always a new toy here to play with here. I've done stuff for Duncan Yo-Yo. You wouldn't think that they would need sculpting, but they do.

GH: Where do you stand on scanning versus sculpting?

Paul Brooke: From my experience, which spans from the mid-90's to the present, I just don't think [scanning] is there yet. I don't think that the scanners can compete with a good sculptor yet. Even if you get a really good scan of a subject today, you have to go to a sculptor to get it cleaned up. The scanners don't quite get hair or facial hair. You can scan an actor, but you might not have the best expression on his face. You may not have the prosthetics in place. The costume can change. I'm sure you've heard it before, but scanning is a tool right now. It doesn't replace a sculptor. If anything, scanning could replace a lot of the less sophisticated sculptors out there. That might sound mean, but the cream always rises to the top. Scanning as a tool can only make us refine our sculpting more and more.

Gentle Giant did a great job for Zizzle on their Pirates of the Caribbean 7" and 3¾" action figures because they have talented sculptors who use the scanning to move the sculpt forward. Zizzle came to me to do the 12" action figures for Pirates of the Caribbean. I worked very hard to give them accurate sculpts that reflect the characters, and that would appeal to collectors. Ultimately, [Zizzle] is using sculptors for all of the figures for the third movie.

GH: Have you ever run into a situation with an actor who just didn't like their sculpt?

Paul Brooke: Oh yes, but it was a long time ago. It wasn't that bad! That was when I was just starting out.

Orlando Bloom was just on the Tonight Show, and Jay held up his 7" action figure. Orlando said it wasn't a very good likeness, and set it down. Actors can be sensitive about it, like most people are about having a picture taken. If he had held up my 12" action figure of him... Well, my wife says it's the best likeness that I've ever done. My most recent sculpt for Pirates has been hard because it's Keira Knightley, and she's really a perfect specimen. So it's a little bit like remaking Barbie. As soon as I get just the right expression for her, I'll be on my way.

GH: Did you ever work on any of the other Star Wars pieces, like vehicles?

Paul Brooke: I worked on some pieces that never saw the light of day. Back when we did the Star Wars Buddies, the beanie-style plush, they couldn't get the human characters just right in plush. We tried to sculpt the faces as little vinyl masks that would be sewed on, but some of them were too realistic. They didn't mesh well as plush. We went back and forth, through the spectrum, from cartoony to realistic. We did them as soft goods. I worked on a bunch of different little Darth Vader faces, masks. I don't know if they ever actually produced it.

GH: It made it into a catalogue in the soft-sculpture style, but it never got released. (See photo.) What other lines did you work on for Hasbro?

Paul Brooke: G.I. Joe, which I mentioned, a lot of Batman...

GH: You sculpted the spider-style Mr. Freeze, which is a collector favorite from Batman.

Paul Brooke: We did a lot of different incarnations of Batman, and I'd work on little bits of different figures. I did some figures for Batman Beyond that I don't think ever were made. It was the elderly Bruce Wayne. That was a really fun sculpt. I never really knew what happened with it.

GH: So once you're finished sculpting the figure, and hand it off, it's gone.

Paul Brooke: Usually someone at Hasbro will take it apart for mold, and it'll end up in a bag in a drawer or it'll get melted down to reuse the wax. When you make a rubber mold, you know, the wax is usually going to break apart.

GH: [Crying, sobbing, etc.]

Paul Brooke: I do it all the time, melt a sculpt down, well, not on a finished sculpt, but when I'm working out something.

GH: You worked on a lot of sculpts for movies like Napoleon Dynamite and Nacho Libre, and you've done aliens, robots, and heroes for lines like Star Wars and Narnia. Which is more difficult to sculpt, the people or the fantasy characters?

Paul Brooke: It's actually a lot harder to sculpt a person. The way a person looks at another person, you see all the detail in the face. When you're looking at a creature that you've never seen before, it's not as obvious. Usually with the creatures I get better reference materials because the producers will take the licensing more into consideration when it's being photographed and documented. I like to get shots with the actor actually in the costume if they're wearing it because it will hang differently on different people. I'm happy if I can get shots from the front, the profile, the top of the head, the back of the head.

GH: So you visualize things more in 3D.

Paul Brooke: I do, and I didn't start out that way. It's funny because now when I have to do two-dimensional, I have to process it all differently to translate the information. I don't even like to sit down and draw anymore, I've gotten very comfortable with doing things in 3D.

GH: So you don't sit down and sketch out figures first to decide how you want the articulation to work out?

Paul Brooke: Actually, that's the great thing about working for Hasbro. Dave Vennemeyer, who is sort of the lead sculptor there, he'll send a rough sketch with all of the ball joints and articulation how they want them. That's really as helpful as the photographs. I feel like I sketch with clay. I do my rough draft in clay, and I build it all from there.

GH: How many hours go into sculpting a completed figure from tip-to-toe? Can you walk our readers through the process?

Paul Brooke: I would say... a normal figure, the average Star Wars figure takes about 40-50 hours from start to finish to sculpt.

GH: Is the head usually the most involved part that you have to sculpt?

Paul Brooke: Usually, but with Star Wars figures sometimes you can spend three days just getting a piece of costuming, like a cape, right to add the textural detail and the flowing. The sculpting is really delicate on the capes, and it seems like they all have capes, doesn't it? I came up with a pretty cool way of doing that myself. I use an extremely fine piece of copper screen, and I shape it to get the flowing look right.

GH: What's the most complex sculpt that you've ever worked on, from any line?

Paul Brooke: Chewbacca.

GH: What's your favorite piece that you've ever worked on?

Paul Brooke: The Minotaur from Chronicles of Narnia, which I did for Hasbro. The armor is exactly scaled replicas of the armor that Weta Workshop built for the movie. That was all handmade. I worked from reference pictures. They took some beautiful pictures at the Weta Workshop. The chest armor with all of the little snaps and the little face, the shoulder armor, and there's even stuff underneath that you can't really see. The leather tooling I had to recreate, like the belt, that's all covered up by the other armor, and most people don't see it under there.

GH: Speaking of metal, do you like doing robots at all with all of the mechanical qualities?

Paul Brooke: I do a lot of Transformers, and those take a long time, longer than the more organic stuff. They have to have, you know, sharper edges, and it all has the be perfectly symmetrical to make the toy work. A lot of Transformers pieces are still done by hand.

GH: What medium do you use for your sculpting?

Paul Brooke: It's called Castoline, and you can get it in a sort of pink fleshtone or a greyish green. It's actually a byproduct of the metal industry. It's a wax, but you can treat it as a clay. At room temperature it's very hard, but you can put it in a microwave often and get it soft enough to move around. It can be melted to liquid, so you can cast in a mold. It's got a texture like Play Doh. A lot of sculptors do finished work with Castoline. I kind of get it roughed out in castoline, I don't take the sculpt too far. Then I make a mold with the stuff a dentist would use to make a mold for your teeth. Then I pour the Kenner wax into that, and I finish it in Kenner wax. Then all of the pins and joint pieces get inserted into the wax. There are a lot of tricks of the trade.

GH: Is there any frustration, as collectors have heard from other sculptors, when you put all of this work into sculpting, and you don't receive any sort of credit for the work?

Paul Brooke: I wouldn't say there's frustration at all, but some companies do credit their sculptors. Kamhi World, the FunTalking.com toys, they do credit me for the sculpting on their toys. They really started an avalanche of attention for me over the last few years because it's another angle of the entertainment industry that people want to know about. Here we are talking about it.

GH: Collectors definitely want to know more about the people who are behind these little sculptures that we buy obsessively.

GH: Finally, what's the deal with the Butter Cow?

Paul Brooke: The Ohio Butter Cow! Yes, I'm on a team of sculptors who sculpt two tons of butter every year into a huge Butter Cow for the Ohio State Fair. Last year we did a full size butter replica of the Liberty Bell, too. Back before Hasbro left town, we did a butter sculpture of Mr. Potato Head, the Monopoly Man, and all the more iconic pieces that they're famous for.

GH: In butter?

Paul Brooke: Yeah, it's just a little bit gross after you've spent all day in it, but it's really fun.

GH: ...Words to live by, folks!

Check out Paul Brooke's web site and portfolio at www.paulbrooke.com, and keep an eye out for those 12" Pirates of the Caribbean figures in stores now.

The Ohio Butter Cow and sculptures will be unveiled August 1 in the Dairy Products Building at the Ohio Expo Center. The fair runs August 2-13, 2006.