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Long and Tedious, But It's Gonna Be Awesome
Build Log December 19, 2022 · 3 min read

Long and Tedious, But It's Gonna Be Awesome

The alien sculpture on the bench

Sculpting an alien for an escape room — December 2022.

Sculpting an alien for an escape room. This is a long and tedious project. But it's gonna be awesome.

The thing about a project like this: a player is going to run past this alien in thirty seconds, in the dark, half-scared. They'll never know how long it took. The ribs, the three-fingered hands, the texture of the skin — all of it registers as a single flinch.

And that's the deal when you build the thing people run past. The labor is invisible on purpose. If it works, nobody thinks about the weeks. They just feel the moment and keep going.

The mold

The mold, the clay, the fiberglass — every step is tedious in its own way. Casting, sanding, refining. None of it is glamorous, and most of it is waiting for something to cure.

The alien sculpture in progress The alien sculpture in progress
The alien sculpture in progress The alien sculpture in progress
The alien sculpture in progress The alien sculpture in progress
The alien sculpture in progress The alien sculpture in progress
The alien sculpture in progress The alien sculpture in progress
The alien sculpture in progress The alien sculpture in progress

The tedium is the point. The audience never sees it, but it's the difference between a prop and a thing that feels real.

Working on the clay, smiling

Still, I'm grinning in the photos. The long, tedious part is just what gets you to the awesome part.

Until the next run out — work hard, play hard.