Hi Raymond and Brad,
Again thanks for your kind comments. Perhaps as this is a rather informal forum to chat, I can share some personal insights into my approach.
Putting me up there with the big boys is far too kind. Theirs are large business operations, involving multiple personnel and large production runs.
It was never my intention to produce what is already out there. Thus, for me, this desire was gestated about 25-30 years ago, when I came across this marvelous booklet on the Raffles Gamelan produced by the British Museum. A gamelan is an orchestra made out of gongs, drums and metallophones (similar to xylophones). I also came across a couple of books on Bali and its culture.
It was only about a couple of years ago that I decided that I had amassed sufficient research (and courage) to completely do new masters based on a few artistic concepts. I liked the look of old toy soldiers but I did not want to repeat the same themes, neither the expected style of sculpting nor even the production mode.
Thus ‘no soldiers’, an abstracted style of sculpting and, multiple parts to create modular pieces instead of single castings was my approach. This puts a number of hurdles into my path, including a smaller collector base, higher production costs, longer lead times and generally added complexity. As you can see, the production is really targeted at the connoisseur collector. Surprisingly, most of my carefully limited number of castings comes from the UK, where I was able to define quality and small production runs. I do all the additional assembly, modification and painting myself as I am very particular about the final ‘look’.
The article states Balinese Musicians and Dancers. However I have two ranges in production – Bali and the Javanese Kraton (the latter features the Raffles Gamelan). I am very proud of those accessories. I’ll probably do a more detailed write-up in my webpages.
rgds Victor
