KOMakesThings

I like to make things (she/her) 90s kid, Labyrinth fan, Uses too many exclamation points to be taken seriously

[komakesthings]

Happy 40th Birthday to Labyrinth, a film that continues to inspire me, comfort me, and fulfil me. I have been a fan of Labyrinth for the majority of my life, but about 10 years ago specifically I was inspired to try and recreate one of the props from the film.

I wasn't setting out to find a new hobby for myself, this was just a new thing I could try. It was just me squinting at blurry screenshots and trying my best to turn what I saw into a tangible prop that I could put on my shelf. I finished that first prop and thought it was so fun and fulfilling that I soon started work on the next one...

And here I am 10 years later, and I look at my shelves full of props and I think about where I started and how far I've come. How much I've grown and come to respect not just the hobby of prop replica making, but the artistry behind Labyrinth. Every minute I pour into one of my prop replicas, I can't help but think of the amazing people behind the screen some 40 years ago who made the original props I try so hard to recreate. How did they build this prop? Did they struggle with figuring out what to do next like I am? Maybe some of the steps and techniques I'm using were the same exact ones they used 40 years ago? It makes me feel a strange sort of kinship for folks who I've never met. I hope that my replicas can do their work justice. 

It's genuinely hard to imagine where I might be in my life without Labyrinth, it's a movie that's really come to shape me as a person in surprising ways. So on Labyrinth's 40th Birthday, I wanted to share some of my favourite Labyrinth prop replica projects I've made over the years. I learned so much, and still have so much more to go.

Thank you to Jim Henson, Brian Froud, and everyone who played a part in bringing Labyrinth to life.

[komakesthings]

So sorry for the wait on this folks, but the longform video on how I turned my Kermit into the Dread Pirate Frogerts is finally done! And for the folks who are just interested in hearing how things went meeting Cary Elwes/Westley, keep reading!

(I'm gonna copy/paste this from my update post about how it went meeting Cary Elwes, I think it got a bit lost because despite lurking on Tumblr for ages I've never quite learned the ropes of this site ha ha).

The meeting with Cary was brief but memorable. He said Kermit looked great as Westley, and all in all seemed very amused with him. I so wish I could've spent more time with Cary, he seemed like a very nice man, surprisingly soft spoken! I think I was so used to seeing him play more extroverted characters that I assumed that was how he was like in real life too.

Prior to meeting Cary I had attended his panel at the convention, and during the Q&A section another audience member asked what he thought of the idea of remaking The Princess Bride with Muppets.

I so wish I could've gotten this on film, but sadly it wasn't allowed at the panel so ya'll will just have to take my word for it. But Cary said he approves of the idea and confirmed that if it were to happen, he would want Kermit to play Westley and Piggy to play Buttercup. So that was incredibly delightful to hear, as I sat there in the audience with Kermit on my arm.

(There's a green/black blob near Cary's left hand in the previous photo that I THINK is my Kermit, but your guess is as good as mine)

All in all, it was a good day, and I’m grateful to have had the experience of making my tribute to Westley and getting to share it with the man himself. And it was also really fun to get to see everyone's reactions to Kermit, both online and in-person (In fact, I actually had someone recognize me in a panel from the post on Tumblr, small world! Hello again to you, if you happen to see this!).

Thanks to everyone for all the likes and nice comments you've left on the original post! The response to my Kermit has been extremely positive and at times slightly overwhelming to an introverted weirdo like me ha ha. But I truly do appreciate how much joy my Dread Pirate Frogerts has been able to give folks. Last thing I'll share, because I'm pretty proud of how my photoshop job turned out... I had intended to bring Kermit to an official photo-op with Cary at the convention, however upon arriving I was told that props weren't allowed (And unfortunately, to convention staff Kermit was considered a prop). So that was pretty disappointing, but thankfully when you're like me and have learned a few photoshop tricks over the years, you can make any picture better in editing. I ended up cobbling together the below photoshop of my photo-op with Cary, a picture of my Kermit, and my Youtube pngtuber-self to make this extremely goofy photo.

Genuinely, I kinda prefer how this edit turned out better than my actual photo-op ha ha. No generative AI was used in the making of this FYI, this is all just me slapping layers around in photoshop for 3.5 hours (Plus an initial 1 hour spent sewing the little costume for my arm). Anyways that's it for this post, I gotta get back to making that Gonzo replica that I've been putting off for half a year now!

[komakesthings]

Have you cast the king and queen for the Muppets Princess Bride? I’m thinking of Dr. Teeth and Janice. I can just hear Dr. Teeth saying, “That’s groovy. She kissed me!”

Oooh I haven't found a spot for them no, I can totally get behind this casting! I can picture the end of the movie, where Piggy/Buttercup is thinking Kermit/Westley isn't coming to save her after all, and here's Dr. Teeth and Janice are completely grooving out, having a great time and totally oblivious to Piggy's despair.

Thank you for the suggestion!

[komakesthings]

Hey folks, it's time for the fourth annual Tough Pigs Pride Month Fundraiser! To try and raise some much needed funds for LGBTQ+ people, a bunch of us Muppet fans have contributed prizes that are gonna be raffled off at the end of June. Yours truly has donated two hand-sewn/hand-crafted Robin the Frog plush replicas as prizes. I don't do commissions, so this is a very rare opportunity to snag yourself one of my creations (Plus, you get to help out a very good cause!). Check out Tough Pigs for all the information on how to enter, and to check out the other prizes that are up for grabs!

[komakesthings]

Although May has been a pretty busy month for me, I couldn't let Tough Pigs' Muppetational May go by without contributing at least one illustration! Today's prompt is "Any character whose name starts with “Miss,” “Mrs.,” “Mr.,” “Dr.,” or “Professor”", and of course, I'm not gonna turn down an excuse to draw Miss Piggy. I've been telling myself for a while now that I wanted to do another Piggy drawing in the style of those classic Barbie illustrations, so this was a real two-birds-one-stone kinda thing. The original Barbie illustration I'm referencing comes from the "Beauty Secrets" Barbie from 1979.

Shout-out to Savannah Alexandra Art, I was very much influenced by her ability to mimic vintage print styles with her illustrations and wanted to try out her method. Savannah has an entire video on her Youtube channel that explains how she gets the vintage look, which I highly recommend watching if ya'll wanna try out this style yourself.

[komakesthings]

Very excited to finally share some pictures of my Dread Pirate Frogerts build! I've been thinking about making this outfit for my Kermit for a while now, but the proper motivation to actually get this done was hearing that Cary Elwes was announced as a guest for my local comic convention! So with any luck Dread Pirate Frogerts will be getting to meet the real Westley very soon.

A shocking amount of work went into making this little outfit... I completely underestimated the amount of time I would need to put all this together. Though a good chunk of that was me getting way too wrapped up in perfectionism... ask me how many times I re-did the smocking on the sleeves (On second thought, don't, it's embarrassing). Here I thought I had been con-crunching with Piggy last year... technically, I only just finished Kermit today, and the convention starts Thursday. Lots of internal (and external) screaming was had with this build. I did film the majority of it, with plans to turn it into a full video and reel in the future... maybe once I've had a chance to recoup from aforementioned con-crunch.

[komakesthings]

So sorry for the wait for this update, its been a week since the convention but I feel like I'm only just starting to feel like a human being again. But here's the grand finale, my Kermit meeting the man in black himself: Cary Elwes! The meeting with Cary was brief but memorable. He said Kermit looked great as Westley, and all in all seemed very amused with him. Prior to meeting Cary I had attended his panel at the convention, and during the Q&A section another audience member asked what he thought of the idea of remaking The Princess Bride with Muppets. I so wish I could've gotten this on film, but sadly it wasn't allowed at the panel so ya'll will just have to take my word for it. But Cary said he approves of the idea and confirmed that if it were to happen, he would want Kermit to play Westley and Piggy to play Buttercup. So that was incredibly delightful to hear, as I sat there in the audience with Kermit on my arm. All in all, it was a good day, and I’m grateful to have had the experience of making my tribute to Westley and getting to share it with the man himself. And it was also really fun to get to see everyone's reactions to Kermit, both online and in-person (In fact, I actually had someone recognize me in a panel from the post on Tumblr, small world! Hello again to you, if you happen to see this!). Thanks to everyone for all the likes and nice comments you've left on the original post! I'm gonna start work on a video going through the build process of my Dread Pirate Froggerts, so look forward to that sometime in the near future (Hopefully soon anyways, I am as slow as cold molasses when it comes to video uploads).

[komakesthings]

Very excited to finally share some pictures of my Dread Pirate Frogerts build! I've been thinking about making this outfit for my Kermit for a while now, but the proper motivation to actually get this done was hearing that Cary Elwes was announced as a guest for my local comic convention! So with any luck Dread Pirate Frogerts will be getting to meet the real Westley very soon.

A shocking amount of work went into making this little outfit... I completely underestimated the amount of time I would need to put all this together. Though a good chunk of that was me getting way too wrapped up in perfectionism... ask me how many times I re-did the smocking on the sleeves (On second thought, don't, it's embarrassing). Here I thought I had been con-crunching with Piggy last year... technically, I only just finished Kermit today, and the convention starts Thursday. Lots of internal (and external) screaming was had with this build. I did film the majority of it, with plans to turn it into a full video and reel in the future... maybe once I've had a chance to recoup from aforementioned con-crunch.

[komakesthings]

Another entrant in my Muppet Princess Bride series! This is based on a suggestion from @disappointmint from a few months back. They wanted to see the more movie accurate version of this scene (specifically where Fezzik/Buttercup smile at each other after he successfully catches her), but Sweetums failing to catch Piggy just felt more fitting for the Muppet version... buuuut I couldn't help myself and wanted to draw the sweet version too, so consider this next drawing an alternate reality:

[komakesthings]

Woo hoo! I finally finished another Youtube video. This is the long-form version of how I made my most recent Labyrinth 13 hour clock replica. This now brings me up to five 13 hour clock replicas in total, at this point I think I'm obliged to try and replicate every clock in the film. I have so much respect for full-time Youtubers nowadays because this sucker took me the better half of a month to produce and edit. Hopefully I can figure out a good workflow so these can come out a little faster. Thanks in advance to everyone who watches! I'm currently chipping away at the next Muppet Princess Bride drawing, so hopefully that'll be hitting your timelines sometime in the near future.

[komakesthings]

For the last year or so the Muppets have been spotlighting a different Muppet every week in the "The Muppets 70th" celebration, and we finally got to Piggy's week! So I of course, had to draw some fan art of her. This time a Mucha style take on Piggy, ala the "Precious Stones" series of illustrations. My drawing was inspired by another Mucha style Piggy that was recently featured in the Julien's Jim Henson auction, also from the Precious Stones series. I thought Piggy looked absolutely beautiful in the Art Nouveau style so I wanted to try my hand at it. If I'm honest I don't think I quite captured Mucha's style, but I do think I ended up with a lovely Piggy all the same.

[komakesthings]

Introducing my new Robin replica! After remaking my Kermit earlier this year I knew I'd be getting around to making an F3 fleece Robin eventually. Granted, I didn't think it's take me two whole seasons to get around to Robin... but hey, that just means I got to take some fun winter shots with him, which contrast nicely against the summer shots I got with Kermit.

I did have to add the snowflakes in with Photoshop in these pictures. I had hoped to do a photoshoot with actual falling snow, but the weather wasn't cooperating and I was getting tired of waiting for a perfect snowfall (Watch as we get one right after I post this). 

Robin is decked out in some American Girl doll clothes, which was a decent fit from the get-go but I did have to take in the shoulders a bit. Feels kinda funny seeing him in a winter coat and sweater, but no boots! 

If the weather cooperates I'm hoping to get a few more shots of Robin outside enjoying the snow. (Hopefully next time I don't forget my snowpants, my behind was pretty frosty after the first photoshoot). I didn't take many pictures while making Robin because I mentally just needed a project where I didn't worry about documenting the build process, but I'll include a few pics I did take below:

My Robin is essentially a stuffed plush with some wire inside to pose him. He started off as a green peanut, before getting his arms and limbs attached. Fun fact, I sewed on his arms/legs a total of 7 times because I'd sew a limb on and only realise afterwards it was crooked or asymmetrical. In fact, one of his arms is still wrong, but I was tired of sewing so that'll be something for future me to fix one day.

The last pic in this batch of photos has a weird ol' wire sticking out the back of Robin... I though "Oh maybe I can just make a thin wire stand that'll wrap around Robin and be nearly invisible in the snow". But that ended up just being a big pain in my butt that didn't work out, so I made a white stand with a wooden dowel plugged into a wood circle. Painted white, and covered with some extra snow, that wooden stand blended in beautifully with the scenery (And only required a tiny bit of editing to remove from the final pics).

Below is the unglamourous "Behind the scenes" shot from Robin's photoshoot which I always like to include because I think it's proof how much the right lighting (And a bit of photoshop magic) really make or break a prop photoshoot. If you're not happy with how your prop photos are turning out, try learning a bit of photography! It's really helped me see the full potential of every prop I've made.

[komakesthings]

Hi Ko! I think you're fantastic. Do you accept commissions? Because I absolutely love your Muppets Princess Bride series, and the one scene I'd like to see more than anything is right when Fezzic catches Buttercup and they smile at each other. I think if I ever saw Sweetums smiling I would die of cute. Can I throw you some cash to make that happen?

Hi there! Thank you, I don't do commissions but I really appreciate your interest!

I've done a few commissions for friends in the past and I find that I tend to just stress out worrying if the recipient will think the art is worth the price they paid me (I've never received a bad reaction to the finished work, but it doesn't stop me from worrying about it ha ha). So I tend to just do my own thing and avoid commissions because that's the easiest way to keep my art feeling 'fun' for myself. That said, now that you're talking about it I do really wanna see that moment between Sweetums/Fezzik and Piggy/Buttercup too! So you might see me draw that someday. Though I can't help but think that the more "Muppety" version would be Fezzik failing to catch Buttercup ha ha. We'll see what I go with whenever I get to drawing that part!

[komakesthings]

YOU'RE THE MUPPET PRINCESS BRIDE PERSON /AND/ THE LABYRINTH CRAFT PERSON?!

How, how are you so cool? Legit in awe of how talented you are arts and crafts wise dang 👏👏👏

Thank you for not only sharing your art but your process as well!

Ack I somehow missed the notification for this in my inbox, I'm so sorry for the super late reply!!!

Thank you so much for the kind words, I really enjoy getting to share my tutorials and art with everyone! It's nice knowing that when I'm long gone folks'll be able to appreciate the stuff I made, or in the case of my tutorials be able to make their own Labyrinth props!

As how I am so cool, well the secret is that you just be so decidedly un-cool that you somehow become cool in the process. Another tip is to not let the internet know your foibles, like that one time I absentmindedly poured milk onto my chicken nuggets because I was thinking about how I wanted cereal instead. Just don't tell anyone you ate milk-soggy chicken nuggets, and they'll think you're super cool!

[komakesthings]

My latest Labyrinth prop replica, the first 13 hour clock you see in the film! This is the clock that Jareth magics up to emphasize to Sarah that she has "13 hours in which to solve the Labyrinth...".

This clock is only on screen for a few scant moments, but that's all it took for me to become captivated by it. Largely because we never get a good look at the clock, the question of what it might've looked like in detail became a mystery I hoped to solve. Luckily for me, I was able to find a reference photo of the same model of antique clock, and used that to make my own version.

My clock is made out of laser cut/engraved pieces of plywood, stacked together to form the base of the clock before being stained and varnished. The design of the clock face was made by cutting black and white vinyl on my Cricut. The little shield emblems (No idea what these are called on the actual clock) were poster board cut and stacked together, sealed in varnish, molded in silicone, then cast in resin 13 times. All of the faux brass was the typical spray paint/acrylic aging/gilder's wax combo. And finished with a clock mechanism, to turn it into a real working clock.

I made a little miniature scene with fake branches/twigs I got from the craft store, photographed in front of a big screen. I photographed the clock separately, then edited everything together in Photoshop.

For fun, here's a "Before" and "After" the photo editing. I had to colour the correct the lighting a ton because originally some of these shots were less "Sunrise in the Labyrinth" and more "Mustard and Ketchup". I took a separate photo of the sky that I used a colour gradient on to give it more of a sunrise vibe, and combined that with a shot of Jareth's castle/the Labyrinth to use as the background.

[komakesthings]

Guess who finally finished another Youtube video tutorial?! I'm so happy to get this one out, for some reason the editing really kicked my butt on this video and it's taken absolute ages for it to be done. I'm still not 100% happy with the edit, but I'm gonna chalk that up to me still just having to learn the ropes of video tutorials (Hopefully I'll learn a few tricks or two the more I keep at it). This video goes into great detail about how I make my version of the Didymus plush toy that appears in Labyrinth. Didymus is a great entry-level prop replica in my opinion, because instead of making a plush from scratch you just need to modify an existing one (Which is exactly what Labyrinth's prop builders did for the original plush). I hope this video helps inspire folks to try making their own Didymus plush replicas! Special thanks to everyone who sent me their prop replica's to showcase in the video!

[komakesthings]

After much procrastination I finally finished v2 of my Kermit replica! Made with F3 fleece from Weird Kid Store (Which they dyed for me). As with my V1 Kermit, I primarily used ECL's threads on the Replica Prop Forums as guidance for how to handle my build, though I did do a few things differently (Like adding a lining to the head of my Kermit, and using foam dowels to stuff his arms and legs).

I took my Kermit outside for some sunshine and ambiance... which I slightly regretted because I forgot mosquito's exist, and they were far more attracted to me than they were Kermit. But at least Kermit got to enjoy himself! (I would've taken more pics of Kermit by the water but I was terrified he was gonna flop in... I did not want to have to experience trying to get pond water out of foam and fleece).

[komakesthings]

Time for another installment in my imaginary Muppet Princess Bride series! This one was yet another natural fit, Beaker's head-tuck thing felt perfect for this moment where Fezzik "Jogs" the Albino's memory.

Drawing this scene made me realise what a nightmare casting Sweetums as Fezzik and Pepe as Inigo would be to actually film. How the heck do you shoot a whole movie with these two sharing the screen together? Luckily I don't have to figure that out, and can just cheat their respective scales when I draw.

I'm not quite happy with how I drew the action of the second panel, but after waffling about this drawing for a while I think I just need to release it into the wind or risk it never seeing the light of day. I'm also pretty slow at drawing, so sometimes I take so long on these illustrations that the joke stops seeming funny and I start second guessing whether it was ever funny to begin with. So thanks to my pals on the Tough Pigs discord for reassuring me that this joke does indeed still work.