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Selected as one of the spotlight artists for Star Wars Artist Month 2020

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I recently had the distinct honor to selected by Albin Johnson, founder the 501st legion, and the fine folks over at R2-KT in conjunction with Jedi News, Rebelscum, the Force.net, Fantha Tracks, and Bantha Bricks.

It was a very flattering write up and I am honored to be in such high company.

Here is a portion of the article

We’ve covered a wide array of artists who work in pencil, acrylic, water color, pastels, and digital media. But one area of the visual arts we haven’t touched on is sculpture. Sculpture, like the graphic arts, comes in many media and ranges from colossal structures to mini installations.

Today’s artist has found unearthed treasures in the world of action figures. To the general public, perhaps they are seen as just toys. But to any Star Wars fans action figures are the sculpture of the Saga, the tools we used as kids to channel our love of adventure, the real-world embodiment of our heroes and villains. Now imagine someone with a keen enough eye to take these sacred icons and gift them with just the right touches to radically shift our view of them.

Jamie Follis does just that: delving into the wide world of figures to custom sculpt brilliant works of art that do more than just look cool. His collections invite us to an entirely different universe, time after time. Star Wars in the Wild West? Here it is! What would Vader look like as a WWI field marshal? Well step right up and see. Over and over, this modern day Michelangelo does what real artists do: break down preconceptions, draw off of collective unconscious, and breathe entirely new life into story telling.

For the rest head on over to R2KT and check it out  http://www.r2kt.com/2020/07/12/star-wars-artist-month-jamie-follis/

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eBay Listings

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I have posted a number of items including miniatures that were built by my and displayed at Star Wars Celebration & a number of custom figures.  I have reduced the prices from what are listed here on the site and will be changing them here to reflect that.  I also have the listed with free shipping.  Many of these pieces are quite popular and were covered heavily by internet media sources.  The listings can be found HERE>

 

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Some more original RPG figures

As I have stated before I am a lifelong fan of role playing games, especially Dungeons & Dragons which I have been playing since junior high, through high school and college and into my adulthood still.  I love making figures based on my various characters from my 30+ years of gaming.

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My life long love of Akira Kurosawa and samurai history does frequently lead to my playing samurai-eque characters.

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Varis Loreweaver is without a doubt my favorite character I have ever played.  He is a medieval rock god, a la David Bowie and has an alternate identity, which I was able to fool my fellow players with for years.  One of my favorite aspects was the playlists of songs themed around the spell he would cast that I would actually play when he cast is bardic musical magic.

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Varis evolved over the years and rarely revisit a character, but as certain items became integral to his story I did add them to the figure.  I also made characters based on my sister and brother-in-law’s characters that played in that group at the time.

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6″ Cantina Customs – Budget & Speed Builds

I recently came across a local toy vendor that was selling a bunch of loose 6″ scale Hasbro Black Series figures.  They were in rough shape and had no accessories.  So I bought them and began a fun experiment.  I would try to spend only a few dollars on each figure, other the the figure I bought I would only use parts I had on hand and my own sculpting, and complete one figure a day in the hours after I left my regular job.  Some turned out great, others could use some work, but that was all in the spirit of the challenge I set myself.  I hope you enjoy my return to my favorite Star Wars location…The Mos Eisley Cantina.

6BS-boshek6BS-dannik6BS-djas puhr6BS-duros 26BS-Duros16BS-labria6BS-evazan6BS-ponda6BS-nubren6BS-tonnika6BS-wuher6BS-yerka

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New – 6″ Scale Custom Black Series intro

No scene has captured my imagination over the years like the Mos Eisley Cantina. I have been fascinated by it since childhood and created it in a variety of mediums over my career.

It started when I was a kid modifying vintage Kenner figures.  Unfortunately due to an accident few of them remain.  I also at this time made my first cantina out of scrap plywood in my dad’s garage.  The story of my toy career was documented in a Lucasfilm approved documentary called “In a Galaxy”  Unfortunately the documentary was bought by Verizon and launched on their failed media Go90 platform were it is now lost for ever.  Here is an older photo (I am getting ready to get these figures out and take some good photos.  I apologize for the quality but they were shot by me at a very young age with 1980’s camera, probably a Kodak disk.

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In the 90’s as a kid I got really into customizing I had made virtually every Star Wars character you could imagine. It was era before Hasbro had made all the background characters.  I wanted to have as many of them as I could. Here are some of the Mos Eisley characters.  In this era I was mostly posting on message boards before I had my own site.

Sillof 3.75 Star wars customs figures cantina patrons 1 1990's

I, of course, made new dioramas of the cantina numerous times.  Many have been displayed at various Star Wars Celebrations over the years such as at C2, C3, & C4.

Cantina Donation

 

All of the customs and dioramas were part of a long endeavor to recreate a lost film from my childhood that was a stop motion retelling of Star Wars with toys.   I eventually remade the film with the help of my daughter who was 5 at the time.  It was called “Toy Wars”.  I was meant to be done in a purposely cheap looking style.  Kind of a somewhat better version of the one I made when I was younger but featuring my customs and dioramas but some purposely low budget effects and gags.  Here is part 5, featuring the cantina.

 

I have created this scene and its exotic alien patrons in virtually every imaginable scale and line.

sillof custom star wars mos eisley cantina lego

sillof custom star wars mos eisley cantina lego

 

 

In the coming days I will posting dozens of new 6″ scale customs of the Mos Eisley Cantina patrons.