I have wanted to sculpt him since I was a kid.
I’ve wanted to sculpt The Thing since I was a kid. I actually attempted it more than once when I was younger, so returning to him digitally felt like finally completing something I’d had sitting in my brain for decades.
The challenge was getting those deceptively simple Kirby shapes right. The silhouette, rock formations, brow and proportions all have to work together or he stops feeling like The Thing. Because he’s also so visually monochromatic, lighting became incredibly important for pulling depth and personality out of the sculpture.
Apparently teenage me had chosen a harder character than I realized.