We had an amazing time at the Stan Winston School of Character Arts shooting the second video in the Sculpting the Figure in Cx5s series! This time, I turned the figure I sculpted during the first video into a character based on concept art -- a fierce dragon fighter clothed in a free flowing cape, and armor made of dragon scales. 

Jessica Dru was my invaluable model and assistant, and she shared her knowledge of costuming and character design with everyone throughout the show. With all of the techniques shown here, you'll have everything you need to create your own character in Cx5s!

Watch for the stream and DVD to be released soon!

Cheers,

Adam

Behind the scenes at Stan Winston Studios

In honor of the year turning over we thought we'd look back at 2014 and all that happened. This year marks the end of our second year of sales, and we're proud to have seen Adam Beane Industries grow and evolve this year. Thank you for being along on the journey!

We started this year off in our new California location.

Monsterpalooza was a fantastic adventure, we debuted Cx5s and posable roughs (coming soon). 

And hung out with Matt Winston, Mike Hill and Jessica Dru on the Monster Show.

We held a class on sculpting the figure in Cx5s.

Maker Faire came next and we gave a talk on entrepreneurship and creativity.

We released Cx5s, the softer side of Cx5, so you can mix your own medium!

We shot two videos with the Stan Winston School of Character Arts.

We gave Cx5s sculpting demos for the wonderful people at Pixar.

Added a few new products and offered cases of Cx5 and Cx5s for those who want to buy in bulk.

Launched the Users' Gallery of sculptures done in Cx5 and Cx5s.

Ran some fantastic sales.

And wished all of our sculptor friends happy holidays!

We have a lot of exciting things planned for 2015, and we're thrilled to have you along for the ride! Thank you for making this a wonderful year. Stay tuned, and keep on sculpting. 

Cheers,

Adam

We had a great time at Monsterpalooza, with friends old and new. Here are some of the highlights from our time with this year’s community of creature creators.

Adam Beane Industries is back! This year I demonstrated waxer techniques and solvent sanding while working on a new portrait of Robin Williams.

We started off the weekend getting to hang out with the cast of Face Off, Season 8 (the final episode airs tonight! You'd better be watching... #TeamEmilysHair) and getting them sculpting in Cx5s. Though to be fair, Jamie's been a fan for some time now, and we love her for it.

Face Off friends! It was great to see Jamie Leodones, Emily Cerpico, Julian Bonfiglio and Regina Jiganti.

We also got to visit with artists we've loved for a long time, and fantastic new acquaintances, like Miss Monster, soon to be based in Los Angeles. 

Monster Companions by Miss Monster - Photo © Miss Monster

Portia, the Queen Fleshlette by Jonathan Payne - Photo © Jonathan Payne

Ibis by Matthew J. Levin - Photo © Matthew J. Levin

Persian Cat skull with Amethyst clusters by Kristina Drake - Photo © Kristina Drake

We loved seeing our tutorial video, Sculpting the Female Figure in Cx5s, over at Stan Winston School of Character Arts, and I got a chance to do a demo for their live Monster Show on hot sculpting, detailing with the Beane Detailing Tip, hot sanding, and building up a form without an armature. Keep an eye out for the second half of the tutorial series, which they'll be releasing this summer. 

There were some very impressive sculptures this year, including the new Court of the Dammed figures from Sideshow Collectibles, and Nick Marra's sculpture of Gunslinger from Westworld. The ever impressive Mike Hill had a new, particularly vicious sculpture on display; the Wolfman.

Court of the Dead - Photo © Sideshow Collectibles

Nick Marra's Gunslinger from Westworld had everyone drooling this past weekend in the MONSTERPALOOZA Museum! pic.twitter.com/B2Ez7SGwZW

— Monsterpalooza (@MONSTERPALOOZA1) April 2, 2015

The Wolfman by Mike Hill - Photo © Mike Hill

A personal favorite moment for me was getting to meet a young artist named Bella - you may have heard of her, since her story of reaching out to Rick Baker and getting his encouragement to follow her dreams in special effects and makeup went viral last year. I'm inspired not only by her enthusiasm and wonderful story, but also by her mom, Jesse Meriwether, who is helping her follow her dreams every step of the way. I remember being eight years old and fascinated by special effects, and that love has never gone away. Keep sculpting, Bella!

We had an amazing time this year, and loved getting to meet so many great people. You can check out our Monsterpalooza gallery for more photos, and we'll be back for Son of Monsterpalooza on September 18-20th. See you then!

Cheers,

Adam 

Creative Freedom

This year we're celebrating Independence Day in two ways - first as an intrinsic part of our company's ethos, and second as goal for sculptors worldwide. 

First of all, we're proud to manufacture all of our sculpting material here in the USA. As a manufacturer, we're supporting making products in the United States, and are always working with as many United States suppliers as we can. From our raw materials to our boxes and printed products, we look to United States companies first. We ship worldwide, but we're making an investment in our country and its small businesses every day.

And of course, the second way we're celebrating is with independence from armatures! We have a motto we like to share -- kiss your armatures goodbye -- because one of the most liberating things about Cx5 is the ability to sculpt without any armature wire, pipes or boards. Cx5 and Cx5s are both self supporting, and by starting your sculpture with a thin core and building up around that core you never need to use a rigid armatures again. Free yourself to make bold changes to your piece at any stage of the sculpting process.

This Fourth of July we hope you'll celebrate the essence of the day with us -- freedom -- in all that you do.

Well this was certainly a highlight of the year - the annual Tested.com Comic Con party hosted by Adam Savage and Norm Chan! This year's theme was "Cinephile," and the nightclub FLUXX was full of Adam's personal collection of film memorabilia and props, and some truly amazing people.

The droids we are looking for!

Check it out, it's the Rocketeer helmet.

Don't let this get near you.

Han Solo with lasers.

A couple of weeks ago I got a chance to sculpt with Frank Ippolito on the Rancor Project for Tested.com, and Frank slipped us some VIP passes to Cinephile (thanks, Frank!). The Rancor sculpture came out amazing, and it was also fully functional costume that Frank wore around Comic-Con before the party. 

The Rancor in the flesh!

While we were there, not only did we get to hang out with fantastic people like Fon Davis & Amanda Franchini, Kit Quinn, Niko Gonzalez & Cat Paschen, and the amazing Danica Johnson, but I got to say hi to Rick Baker and of course Adam Savage, and Alexis met one of her favorite people of all time, Alton Brown. It was a fantastic night, and then to top it off, Deadmau5 took the stage a few feet from us and blew everyone's minds.

I can't wait for next year's Tested.com party, and I hope we see you all there!

The Stan Winston School of Character Arts has released part two of our video series on sculpting a figure in Cx5s! The title of this tutorial is Fantasy Maquette Sculpting in Cx5s, and in these lessons I focus on taking the rough figure of Jessica Dru that I sculpted in the first video, Female Figure Sculpting in Cx5s, and turning it into a fully realized fantasy character, using all kinds of finishing techniques for Cx5s.

Creating a fantasy character maquette is a multi-stage process that goes from creating 2D concept sketches, making smart decisions while translating those ideas into 3D sculptural elements, and creating texture and detail in your finished sculpture. Maquettes like these are used to pitch concepts for movies and video games, as small scale versions of much larger sculptures, or can be taken to completion as finished statues. 

Jessica Dru drapes fabric that will be dipped in Cx5s to form a self supporting cape.

I had a great time working with Jessica Dru again, and this time she not only posed as a live model, but also collaborated with me on the final design of the character. Jessica's professional work as a costume designer was a great asset, and together we explain why sculptural decisions at the maquette stage are so important to the overall success of the character. 

So what character did we create together? A dragon fighter with a huge free flowing cape and dragon scale armor, which gave us lots of opportunities to explore fabric dipping and cloth forming, sculpting delicate clothing folds, and creating texturally rich armor, hair and boots. 

Using a waxer for detail work.

I also explore the fundamentals of head sculpting, and though we don't get into portrait sculpting in this video, I do go over all the basics that I use when creating face shapes, using hot-sculpting techniques in Cx5s. 

Since Cx5s is a sculpting material with very unique properties, this video is a perfect in-depth guide to creating detail and delicate forms using waxer techniques, hot-sculpting, hot-sanding and solvent. I show the finishing techniques I use to get smooth, even surfaces, and convincing overlays of clothing over skin, as well as some tricks for duplicating sculpted forms quickly and easily.

Join us for a full day's worth of sculpting tips, tricks, techniques and strategies in Cx5s! 

This year we got to attend Son Of Monsterpalooza for the first time, and I have to say it was quite an amazing show. It was also the last of the Monsterpaloozas to be held in Burbank, so we all spent time reminiscing at the Daily Grill. Next year Monsterpalooza moves to the Pasadena Convention Center, which will give the growing convention some room to spread out - and house many more amazing artists and creators. Check out our gallery from this year's experience, and stay tuned for updates about our next appearances! 

Check them out on Twitter @JesseMeriwether

Check them out on Twitter @JesseMeriwether

Check out @hurricaneholdy and his sister @cf_pigsjessica on Instagram

See more of Mike Hill's work on his Facebook artist's page.

From the Profiles in History auction

Check out more of his work on his website.

Alexis Ettner and Adam Beane

Alexis Ettner and Adam Beane

We are happy to announce that Figure Blanks are for sale on the Adam Beane Industries Store! These sculptable roughs are unlike any anatomy reference figure you've seen, because they're cast in solid Cx5s and are completely repositionable, and completely sculptable.

We envisioned this product as a unique way to start a sculpture, with all of the correct anatomy and proportions in place. Adam Beane hand sculpted each original figure to be anatomically correct, with a hot-sculpted finish. All of the landmarks and masses are there for you to transform a Figure Blank into a complex character.

Because Cx5s is modelable like clay when warm, all it takes to reposition a Figure Blank is submerging it in warm water (125°F) for five minutes. The warmth of the water will warm the figure thoroughly, and you will be able to reposition it as though you had just sculpted it from scratch. 

Each Figure Blank comes with a 1/4 pound of Cx5s so that you can build additional musculature, clothing, and other sculptural elements on your character. Let a Figure Blank be the beginning of your next sculpture.

As we turn over a new leaf this year we wanted to look back at 2015. We are officially three years old, now, and have come a long way! Thank you for being with us as we've grown, and we hope to have you with us for many more years to come.

We began the new year in our new location - Los Angeles! Our company has had strong ties to the sculpting community in Los Angeles for a number of years, and we're happy to say we're now operating right out of Downtown LA.

Monsterpalooza 2015 was amazing, as always! We said goodbye to the Burbank Convention Center this year, in anticipation of Monsterpalooza 2016 moving to the much larger Pasadena Convention Center. 

Adam got a chance to help out Frank Ippolito on an amazing Rancor suit for Adam Savage's amazing Comic Con after party.

The Stan Winston School of Character arts released our second tutorial video with them; Fantasy Maquette Sculpting in Cx5s.

We got a chance to meet the amazing Patrick Tatopoulos and McKenzie Westmore at our first ever Son of Monsterpalooza.

We released Figure Blanks, poseable rough sculptures cast in solid Cx5s!

We are looking forward to what 2016 holds, and we hope the new year brings you many hours of sculpting!

Cheers, 

Adam Beane

Adam Beane Industries is offering a workshop this March that will teach sculptors Adam's unique, intuitive approach to portraiture. 

Taught by Adam Beane, with special guest critique by Mike Hill, this workshop will revolutionize how you approach portraiture. Classes will be held every Saturday for four weeks, and sculptors will work alongside Adam, sculpting a 1/3 scale portrait from from a live model, with lectures, demos, and individual instruction from Adam for the entirety of the workshop.

Sign up for the workshop here.

Portraits sculpted by Adam Beane in Cx5 and Cx5s

All tools and materials, including Cx5s and a Kerr Ultra Waxer 2, will be provided for the participants a week prior to the start of the class, so participants can familiarize themselves with the working properties of Cx5s before beginning the intensive workshop. 

Held at the spacious Vanaheim Studios in Burbank, California, this workshop is the first to be offered from Adam Beane Industries in the LA area, and will be limited enrollment to ensure individual attention for each participant. 

The purpose of this workshop is to introduce sculptors to Adam’s methodology in a profoundly versatile material, and for participants to use these new techniques to produce portraits that can either be taken to complete finish at home, or left at the level of finish that the participant achieves during the workshop. Attendees are encouraged to work on their portraits over the weeks between classes, using the provided photo reference of the live model.

This workshop will be a very intensive look into Adam's methodologies on sculpting portraits, and is sure to improve any sculptor's approach to capturing a likeness, at any scale. Join one of the worlds foremost portrait sculptors for this four day workshop and receive instruction and constructive critique at the highest level.

Special guest critique - Mike Hill

Mike HIll is a world-renowned hyperrealist sculptor and portraiture expert who brought life-size silicone sculptures into the public eye as an art form. He will be offering feedback and helpful critique on participants portraits towards the end of the workshop. 

Something very new is coming from Adam Beane Industries...

When we launched Cx5, and then Cx5s, we created sculpting materials with properties that no other material on the market has ever had. Sculptable, machinable, able to hold the finest detail at the smallest sizes, even able to be painted onto surfaces, Cx5 has been a revolution in the world of practical sculpting as it streamlines the iterative process of sculpting by removing expensive and time-consuming intermediate steps. Now we're about to bring that revolution to 3D printing.

We've taken the best qualities of Cx5 and created the world's first printable sculpting material. With an FDM printer you can now print straight into Cx5 that can be tooled, smoothed, and resculpted just like the Cx5 you're used to. This removes a number of painstaking, costly and often toxic cleanup steps that currently need to happen to get regular PLA or ABS prints to a smooth, finished state. 

On New Years 2016 we posted a video with a promise in it... that this year we'd bring you filament you can sculpt. We're excited to be debuting it at Monsterpalooza today, April 22nd, in Pasadena, California. 

We've gotten a lot of amazing reactions to Cx5 Sculptable Filament so far, and it will be amazing to see what everyone thinks of it at Monsterpalooza.

We had an amazing time at this year's Monsterpalooza, the first one to be held at the Pasadena Convention Center. There was much more room for exhibitors, attendees, and bizarre creatures. A highlight of this year was getting to announce Cx5 Sculptable Filament, and getting interviewed by Norm Chan from Tested.com about it! Check it out, below.

A new kind of 3D printing

Getting to announce Cx5 Sculptable Filament and introduce it to sculptors has been incredibly exciting. We've gotten to see people's faces light up as they realize just what this can do for them - that they can print their digital sculptures and then refine and detail them right away, as though they had started the sculpture in Cx5 to begin with.  

All the hot-sculpting and traditional sculpting techniques that you can use on Cx5 can be used on Cx5 Sculptable Filament, and that means you can skip all the steps of molding and casting a 3D print in order to get a casting you can modify.

We got to talk with incredibly talented digital sculptors, like Daniel De León, whose screen-accurate Jurassic Park sculptures are mind blowing, about their thoughts on the many possibilities for Cx5 Sculptable Filament.

Amazing art at Monsterpalooza

This year's show was bigger and better than ever. We explored many amazing booths, and all the pieces featured in the Museum, including the batsuit from Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice by Ironhead Studios, and Nick Mara's Magneto, and the HR Giger portrait by Elsa Neri. There were so many more amazing pieces, Monsterplaooza continues to be the most fantastic showcase of sculpture and creativity that we've ever seen. 

Check out the full gallery on our Monsterpalooza appearances page.

Looking forward

As this year's event came to a close it really felt like the beginning of our next big adventure - into the world of 3D printing. We're gearing up for the Kickstarter campaign that will launch later this May, and hearing more and more excitement from sculptors about what they can imagine doing with Cx5 Sculptable Filament. We're thrilled to be taking this new step, and Monsterpalooza was the best place to step off from!

We're excited to have recently released Safe-Smooth solvent on the store! Though we've had it for sale at a few conventions, we haven't had it available online until now.

A better solution

A while back, when we were shooting the first tutorial video, we realized that the solvent we had to explain using was naphtha, which isn't the best thing to have on your skin. As far as art materials go it isn't high on the list of dangerous substances, but it is an organic solvent that should be used sparingly, and we didn't like suggesting that the best way to smooth your sculpture was to use lighter fluid. Also, it left a gummy, permanently changed surface that couldn't be sculpted again.

We wanted to create something better, that was safer for people to use, and more effective on Cx5 and Cx5s. 

Safe-Smooth is a non-toxic solvent formulated to be quick acting, leave a clean non-sticky surface on your piece, and be non-irritating to skin. Safe-Smooth works by breaking down the surface layer of Cx5, which allows you to wipe it away and leave behind a smooth, clean finish that is nearly impossible to achieve with other sculpting methods.

Unlike other solvents, Safe-Smooth does not permanently alter the surface of your sculpture. You can go back into a surface smoothed with Safe-Smooth and continue sculpting. This makes solvent sanding a process that you can use at multiple stages of your sculpting, instead of just as a finishing move.

A guide to solvent sanding

Here are the easy steps you can follow to get the best solvent results on your piece. 

1. Spray Safe-Smooth onto a thin strip of a 3M Softback Sanding Sponge - the lightly abrasive sanding sponge will work the Safe-Smooth into the surface layer of your sculpture.
2. Using Safe-Smooth on your sanding sponge, use circular motions across the surface of your sculpture to create a slurry of Cx5 and solvent. 
3. Wipe away the slurry with a lint free paper towel, exposing the smoothed Cx5 surface below.

A few tips

1. Work in small areas. Don't coat the entire sculpture, just work on one section at a time.
2. Wipe the solvent off after you've smoothed a small area. Don't let the solvent sit and soak into the surface, this will cause it to become gummy and unworkable. Wipe it off right away, and you can always go back in and continue sculpting on a smoothed area.
3. Safe-Smooth is meant to remove the surface layer. Use it to create a slurry and then wipe off that slurry to reveal the smoothed Cx5 below.

We're really excited to finally have Cx5 available for sculptors, and we're working to find a way to supply customers who live overseas. Since Safe-Smooth is a solvent it cannot be shipped by air, so currently we can only ship by ground to customers in the contiguous USA, Canada and Mexico. We're working towards getting Safe-Smooth into the hands of customers everywhere, and will keep you all up to date!

We're excited to announce that the Kickstarter campaign for Cx5 Sculptable Filament launches on Tuesday, August 9th! We've been working very hard on this and are inviting you to spread the word before the campaign goes live. We have some fantastic rewards lined up, and we'll be sharing more about the amazing things Cx5sf can do. 

After a successful Kickstarter campaign for Cx5 Sculptable Filament in August, we at ABI ran into a very difficult fall and winter. As many of you have heard, founder Adam Beane has been experiencing health issues, specifically heart issues, that have required hospitalization and major lifestyle alterations. Instead of using critical time for development and manufacturing of Cx5sf, we were spending time in emergency rooms, while attempting to keep up with standard manufacturing obligations to fulfill worldwide demand for Cx5h and Cx5s. 

It turns out that drastically reducing stress in order to maintain heart health does not fit with running a small scale manufacturing operation and simultaneously focusing on new product development. While these medical issues are finally getting under control, some things have needed to shift here at ABI. 

Although Kickstarter funded successfully, we now need far more time to complete our obligations to backers. We are delaying the completion of the Cx5sf Kickstarter rewards by a year. They should have been sent out this month, but we are simply not ready.

We are also selling through our existing inventory of sculpting materials starting today, and then we will be pausing sales until further notice.

During this downtime we will be looking for partner opportunities to outsource manufacturing of Cx5, so we can relieve the stresses of small scale manufacturing, preserve Adam’s health, and focus on finishing development of Cx5 Sculptable Filament.

If we can find a suitable larger scale manufacturing solution for Cx5, then we can much more easily fulfill demand without needing to attend to every facet of manufacturing in our facility, leaving us better able to focus on customer relationships and new product development.

Starting today, we are focusing on what the next phase of ABI will look like. We love our products and want to get them back in your hands as soon as possible, and we’ll keep you up to date on our progress towards that goal.

Get Cx5h and Cx5s now, while we're selling through existing inventory

Hi everyone,

We wanted to give you all a quick update and let you know that we're thinking of you this holiday season! We know the holidays aren't quite the same without Cx5 to give as gifts this year, but we hope you have some from previous years to melt down and sculpt with indefinitely. ;)

As you know from our June 2017 update, we put manufacturing and R&D on hold because I was dealing with severe health issues. Thank you so much to everyone who wished me well - your kindness and patience were and are immensely appreciated. 

Pausing things at ABI temporarily gave me a chance to recuperate, and I’m glad to say that my heart is in much better shape - no more emergency room visits!

Per our last update, we’re still talking with companies that can help us scale up manufacturing of our products, and will give more details on that when we're able to. For now, we wish you all a very happy and healthy holiday season!

All the best,

Adam Beane