Edward Van Bone

Hello SWS!

Mike Cathcart here, with one of my popular one of a kind animatronic figures.

Among the Vincent Price Raven, a stylish Forry Ackerman skull from beyond the grave, a Great Pumpkin, Robo-Bradbury and other fun figures, is Edward Van Bone, displayed at the Monsterpalooza Museum every year for the last three years, and he'll be there in 2016.

Eddie gets his name from Edward Van Sloan, as he mimics Van Sloan's admonishing warning from a front-lit stage,at the beginning of Frankenstein (1931). I did my best Van Sloan voice and programmed all of his movements -- he uses 17 servos for talking, full head movement, eyebrows, eyelids, eyes L+R, shoulders, elbows, hands/wrists and fingers -- and he welcomes all visitors and beckons them to enter the Museum.

I wish I knew how to make these images smaller. I'm looking.

To see Ol' Eddie do his thing, follow the links to brief snippets of video from 2015's Museum.

https://instagram.com/p/0yIvLQr4Pe/

https://instagram.com/p/0yPF1SkjHm/

It is my goal to design and program my figures as caricatures, not terribly realistic but cartoonish, so you end up feeling a bit like you've just watched a live, in-person Rankin/Bass stop-motion scene.

I'm a professional musician and singer, have been since childhood, but I've also been doing these kinds of figures and pieces for decades, and I display them every year at my usual huge Hallowe'en yard haunt (entering its 19th year!), and everyone has their favorite. I'm a lone artist but have built commissioned figures for collectors who wanted something truly one of a kind.
Making Monsters Move -- it is the other great passion in my life after Music.

Anyway, thank you for looking and considering this odd, quirky, unique little fellow, the bony Museum Greeter mascot of Monsterpalooza, Edward Van Bone.








Comments

  • Everything beyond the servos (and computer to run it) is hand-made, home-built, and lovingly sworn at until it works right. It generally does, although I see his right pinky is fracked upwards in the second video link. Hah! God I love my monsters!
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