Folks from all different walks of life, athlete types, gothy emo types, gotta get the cows fed types, store greeter types, expensive taste types, actions show lover types, drama show lover types, grandma cookie baker types, and even video gamer types were excited to see this movie.
What I thought was so interesting is that this show was created in 1966. I had been a devout fan ever since then, and I wasn't born until '71.
It was fun to see Star Trek finally get the attention and appreciation it deserved. Especially from those who, hypocritically I might say, mocked it barely two years earlier.
Oh uh, what? You like it now?
It was like a tiny little after dinner mint of revenge in the nicest way possible.
The original series back in '66, only lasted 3 years, and without a fan letter writing campaign it would have ended at 2 seasons. For such a humble beginning, it's become a real part of american culture, and has spawned many movies and spin-off series.
The first "sequel series" that came from the original which started airing in the mid 80s was Star Trek: the Next Generation. Because this show came out when I was in my teenage years, I was able to watch the episodes as they came out, and not as re-runs years later like the original. "Next Gen's" special effects seemed state of the art and much less campy than the original, and the aliens on the show were much more believable.
One of my favorite characters was one of those aliens, and he actually played a regular member of the crew. He was a Klingon named Worf.
In 2006 a company called Art Asylum started making action figures of Next Gen in a 7 inch scale. The detail on these was the best of these characters ever offered up to that point and very nicely done. The first wave that was offered included Commander William Riker, and Lieutenant Worf.
Throughout the 7 seasons of Next Gen Worf had many looks... No it didn't have to do with his mood, or if he had just eaten some Klingon sour patch kids.
The people in charge of the look of the show were experimenting, with what would look best on an individual of an alien race from Star Trek that had never had a consistent, "every episode" place on the program.
Sometimes their experiments were hits, sometimes they were misses.
They did this about once a year. Check it out... (the 8th picture is from when he was in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)
More obvious to me than the subtle changes in his forehead and eyebrows was his hair.
The look Art Asylum chose to produce their Worf figure in was his season 7 pulled back hair in a pony tail look. I really do think this look was my favorite look of him but since his character was such a favorite of mine, and because I felt that they did such a good likeness of him in a miniaturized version, I just had to see what I could do with it!
There were 2 versions I was interested in creating out of what Art Asylum had done. The first season version (which I actually thought was a miss and not a very good look, was so different from the way he looked the whole rest of the series it was iconic to me), and his fifth season look that was a "bob" hair do that I always liked which he had for some of my favorite episodes.
First season Worf.
I decided to start with season 1 Worf. Since his hair was all one piece, I was able to carefully remove it with a knife so I could sculpt his hair from scratch. At the same time I also did this to the figure I would later make into the season 5 version in preparation for that project.
After some close comparisons, I found that the season 1 Commander Riker figure that Art Asylum made had the same build, height of body, color and style of uniform for the season 1 Worf I needed, so I proceeded with a head transplant.
I used what's called in customizer circles the "boil and pop" method to remove his head. It's pretty simple. Just boil some water in a pan, dip your figure in far enough to cover the areas of plastic you need to soften to do your work. Leave it in for just a few seconds, maybe a long 7. And with a towel so you don't burn your hand, pop off the head.
From this point I just did the same thing in reverse and attached Worf's body-less head to his new 1st season uniformed body. Now, unfortunately I realized that from this point I wasn't as diligent in taking lots of pictures and I feel bad about that. But this was my first attempt at sculpting so try to overlook imperfections and inaccuracies. Along with his hair, I sculpted a new sash for him, based off an imprint I made of the sash from a different Klingon figure that's basically the same sash.
And now to jump ahead 5 years... to his season 5 self.
Time travel is awesome!
I was so glad I did the s1 version first because I was really excited about s5 and I wanted to make sure I did it right!
With this one I didn't have to boil and pop his head because on this one I wanted his tannish/goldish colored uniform.
Fifth season Worf.
His scalped head had a good groove in it that would work well to really cling to the big glop of clay that would make up his s5 mop.
I soon realized, with this much clay/hair it was hard to make it look like it was naturally rooted in his head, the way his hair looked in this style on the show. So I decided the best thing to do was to temporarily cut off the bottom part of his hair with some fishing wire so I could work on a good, natural looking head-hair connection.
And then, once I felt the hair connection looked natural
(not just coming from the crown of his head)
I worked the rest of the hair back on.
Once it was smoothed out, enough to look like one piece again, I worked it carefully to get the right shape around his face. I've seen a lot of sculptures and busts of s5 Worf that just didn't look right because of the shape of his hair. Weird I know, but it made a difference to me. Then, because I didn't want him to look like a dude with ridges on his forehead who was wearing a brown smooth Darth Vader helmet, I needed to sculpt details to look like individual hairs.
After a bit of styling and grooming (as much as Klingons groom) a bit of baking in the oven to cure the clay, and some darker brown paint, he came out just as I was hoping...
Here they are together...
Now at home with the rest of their brothers...
