Today we’d like to introduce you to Brandon Shiflett.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Brandon. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
My brother Jarrod and I started sculpting comic book, fantasy, and science fiction characters in the early 90s at the ages of 22 and 18. We had no formal training whatsoever and essentially just wanted to translate the two-dimensional work of our comic book artist and fantasy painter heroes of the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s into three dimensions. We worked on our own, showing no one but family members for almost two years, then got “discovered” when we took our one-of-a-kind sculptures, still in their original clay, out to the San Diego Comic-Con (the largest con in the country.)
We were hired almost immediately to work on video games (including the massively influential Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee) which back in the day, needed traditional clay sculptures to animate for their story sections. Soon after we began sculpting collectible statues for Marvel Comics, LucasFilm, as well as many others. The companies we worked for would take our one-of-a-kind clay sculptures and mold and cast them, mass producing our work, creating hundreds and even thousands of the pieces, which were usually numbered. We were lucky to work on some of the iconic Marvel characters including The Incredible Hulk, Wolverine, Thanos, Juggernaut, Spiderman, and Venom among others. We were officially living the dream!
But even though we were massive comic book nerds, and the freelance work was a blast, in our spare time, we began working on our own characters and ideas. We were creating statues and dioramas of our own design and we started producing these pieces in resin, polystone, and even bronze.
In recent years, being in the lucky position of doing more and more of our own stuff, we’ve won the prestigious Gold Award for Dimensional Work in Spectrum: The Best in Contemporary Fantasy Art, an annual book that collects that year’s best fantasy artwork. We’ve taught a Master Class in Sculpting For the Collectible Industry and recorded video sculpting lessons for The Gnomon Workshop in Hollywood. We’ve been featured in some super cool art magazines, including ImagineFX, Amazing Figure Modeler, and Heavy Metal, and recently we were honored to write the Introduction to 3DTotal’s new book Beginner’s Guide to Sculpting Characters in Clay.
We’ve also started a Shiflett Brothers’ Sculpting Forum on Facebook, where pros and amateurs alike gather to talk shop, present their work, and learn new tips and tricks. Our forum now has over 20K members, of all ages, and ability levels, all eager to learn more about sculpting. Everyone is welcome!
Has it been a smooth road?
Our work is loose in style and is not nearly as tight and cleanly sculpted as pieces by our peers in the collectibles and toy industries. That’s just our particular aesthetic, what we like to see and how we work. We look up to sculptors like Rodin and Remington (not that we are on their level!), whose work always felt so organic to us. This was a bit of a problem in toys, for instance, where our sculpts needed to fit into a line of work often sculpted by more technically precise sculptors.
Luckily for us, other artists seemed immediately drawn to our way of sculpting and we’re grateful for the big names in film, games, comics, and concept design who have stood up and endorsed our work publicly, often in print or on video. It’s been a huge boost to our careers. So, in recent years, in our personal work, we can be as loose as we wanna be! It’s quite a relief for us. And, in fact, that style really works well when casting in bronze, our favorite medium in which to present our work these days.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into The Shiflett Brothers story. Tell us more about it.
“The Shiflett Brothers are to sculpting what Frank Frazetta is to painting.”
-John Howe, legendary concept designer, The Lord of the Rings Film Trilogy
“The Shiflett Brothers are producing some of this hobby’s most incredible collectibles. The artistry of their work is only surpassed by the unique and energetic style in which they sculpt each of their figures, and this gives their work a completely fresh and spontaneous aesthetic. I am very pleased to have some of their exceptional work in my collection.” – Sir Richard Taylor, The Weta Companies
“The first time I saw the art of the Shiflett Brothers, I knew I was looking at a couple of true masters of the craft. Their incredible imagination, coupled with their scholarly knowledge of anatomy and sense of design makes them among the most respected and respectable artists in their field. I stand in awe of their extraordinary creations.”
– Jordu Schell, Lead Characters Designer, James Cameron’s Avatar
“If Rodin sculpted fantasy characters today, he would surely have to watch his back – The Shiflett Bros. would be giving him a run for his money.”
-Wayne Barlowe, Concept Artist Avatar, Hellboy, Barlowe’s Guide to Extraterrestrials
“The brothers are visionary geniuses.”
-Amazing Figure Modeler Magazine
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
Almost all of the collectible statue and toy industries that we used to work in are going digital. Sculptors these days use programs like ZBrush to create amazing digital pieces that are then 3D printed from the digital file. We have many, many friends who are great artists and masters of this process. And this technique is great for producing products, like toys, etc.
But we are attempting to go against the grain a bit; we’re trying to keep the traditional methods alive in our work and our teaching. We love the tactile, physical feeling of a clay sculpture… and we love getting our hands a little dirty… the old ways. We love that you can see our fingerprints, nicks, and imperfections in the clay and even later in the cast replicas. Clay is STILL cool, people!
Contact Info:
- Website: ShiflettBrothers.com
- Email: brandon@shiflettbrothers.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/shiflettbros
- Facebook: On Facebook, please search Shiflett Brothers’ Sculpting Forum. 🙂
- Twitter: Twitter.com/shiflettbros
- Other: Patreon.com/shiflettbros
Image Credit:
Professor McElroy’s Vertical Man-Tank photographed by Joe Winston, Komodo King, Deal with the Devil: Bronze Edition, Ol’ Scratch, and Talula and the Stray all photographed by Chad Michael Ward
Getting in touch: VoyageDallas is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
