I was contacted by a Lynn Hoskins to do a
restoration on a ventriloquist figure. When he sent pictures of
the figure, at the time I couldn't decide who the maker was. It
kind of had a Marshallesque look to it, but the leather upper lip and
lower jaw kind of threw me.I
asked my partner Dan Willinger of VentriloquistCentral.com (
http://www.ventriloquistcentral.com ), if he has
any ideas. He said it did have a Marshallesque look to it, but
he thought it might be a Pinxy because he also copied Marshall in some of his techniques.
When Lynn first contacted me, he said
one of the eyes was busted and there was a small tear in the leather
on the chin. I told him I would be happy to restore it for him.
I asked him what he planned on doing
with the figure and he stated that it had been his Dad's figure.
His Dad had performed in the service with "Archie". Lynn stated
he wanted to use "Archie" in his business by doing some training and
performing.
When I received Archie, I started
taking him apart to see if I could figure out who the maker was.
I knew that Pinxy usually put his name on the bottom of the neck.
However, when I took the head out of
the body and check the bottom of the neck....no Pinxy. At this
point, I started to get excited thinking this may be a Marshall and
preceded to take the head apart.
Once I had the head apart, I was
surprised to see "Pinxy" carved in the back of the head (see photos
below). Dan was right....so I called him immediately to tell him
the news and ask if he had every seen or
heard of Pinxy carving his name in the back of the head, to which he said no.
After I started going through Archie
seeing the condition he was in, I contacted Lynn and told him that if
he really wanted to perform with Archie, he was in dire need of a
paint job. The paint had faded to a very pale looking face over
the years. Lynn agreed.
So below are pics....the before and
after.
| Follow Up
I've been receiving emails from
friends and others asking me about how I was able to paint this
Pinxy figure, especially when I'm colorblind.
So I thought I should do this
follow up to explain. First off, since I was trained and
mentored in figure/dummy building by Ray Guyll, I used the
painting method that he describes in his, “How To Make Your
Own Ventriloquist Figure” (click
here to see more about this information guide).
I would mix the paint exactly
as he instructed, step by step, then I would have to get my wife
to tell me if the colors were correct. I won't lie to you,
at times this was tedious because what I thought looked right
and what really WAS right, were sometimes way off.
But with my wife's help, I was
able to come up with the correct color combinations, then I
would follow Ray's painting techniques to actually paint the
figure. |
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