Mr. Terrific wins Best of Show 3d art award @ Botcon 2k8!

Our own Mr. Terrific had this to say about the award:

For those of you who don't know me, my name is Colin from Ottawa, Canada, and I post on the boards as Mr.Terrific (an increasingly less-than-obscure superhero from the 1940s). Following the Botcon awards ceremony, Seibertron's own Counterpunch invited me to say a few words about my diorama for the site. I'm happy to oblige in order to share my enthusiasm for vinyl toys.

I was introduced to the Munny about two years ago and it offered a truly unique and fun canvass for my efforts. For those of you who aren't familiar, a Munny is a completely blank vinyl figure produced by U.S.-based KidRobot (http://www.kidrobot.com/munny). Similar to Hasbro's Mighty Muggs, the Munny is geared toward those who want to create a new figure of their own. It's most important features are found in its exaggerated head, pronounced ears and tail. Initially released at 8" tall in three colours (black, white and glow-in-the-dark), KidRobot has subsequently created keychain, 4" and a whopping 2 foot tall variation.

After Botcon 2007, I was deciding on an entry for 2008. Having just wrapped up a series of Classic Joes for Custom Con XVI (http://www.toymania.com/customcorner/cc16/munny.shtml), I thought that the Munnies would work really well for the Beast Wars.

Originally, I'd plan to put together the entire cast of Beast Wars. But that proved too ambitious given the timeframe, so I focussed on the Season One cast. Midway through my progress I decided on a theme and continued to plan the diorama while I finished up each figure, which took me about five months to put together. In order to get the most accurate television rendition, I relied on a variety of sources, and constaintly sought advice on the sizing issue.

For all my Beast-munnies, I opted to distinguish them without removing their inherant munny-ness. Inferno's tale, Terrorsaur's wings, and Wapinator's butt, these additions came from a combination of shaped milliput and regular plastic. The spiders' legs ended up as Transformer package ties.

Most of the scenary was assembled in Cincinnati from pieces prepped before I left. In particular, I want to mention the chair. Because Munnies have no knees, they cannot sit, so the chair is arched at a 45 degree angle to simulate Megatron in a sitting position. The bottom of the chair is also designed to partially rest on the ground to allow the chair to balance between Scorponok and Tarantulas.

Winning the 3D Diorama "Best of Show" award for Botcon 2008 is a real honour because of the calibre of the competition and the judges involved. The praise I've received for this effort has been truly gratifying and I am very grateful for the feedback. And I want to thank my partner, Beth, and my artist-friend Teresa, both of who were excellent sounding board for ideas throughout the process. I also want to thank the transformersclub forum Beast Wars guys for their advice, particularly "Psychography" who provided a treasure trove of useful pictures, as well as Seibertron.com and Beast Wars Internation (http://www.bwint.net) for their screen captures.

Thank you for this opportunity to chat with you a bit about the diorama.