Ze Rewards Are In Ze Mail! Online Badges, New RoboPodcast
RoboBackers,
The lion’s share of t-shirts, pins, and a letter from Bob Morton on behalf of OCP’s Statuary Concept Division are in the mail or zipped up to go, so if you haven’t received anything yet, check your boxes in the days ahead. Shwoow! We wish we had a RoboMailroom! Behold a very small slice of the hundreds of package
As a backer at any level, you have a fancy, custom digital badge waiting for you right now at http://detroitneedsrobocop.com/robobadge . Just type in the email address you used with Kickstarter and your personalized badge will appear like so:
Post it on your website, print it and post it on the refrigerator, iron it on a t-shirt, wheat paste it where bill posting is allowed, tape it to your brother’s back, or anything else you’d like that’s digitally or physically possible.
Inspired by the statue, the Detroit film podcast The Projection Booth with Mike and Mondo Justin just put out an *epic* 2 hour + interview with actors and crew from RoboCop, and an update on Detroit statue production with some project stories (starting at approximately 2 hours(!) and 4 minutes in): http://www.projection-booth.com/2011/06/22/episode-16-robocop . Note: the best way to listen to it seems to be to click the “Download Show” button, which will bring you to an easier to use player. Enjoy!
We’ve been surfing the seas of details over here, making sure all the studio, production, and location processes and permissions are in place. We anticipate more firm announcements on projected manufacturing and rough unveiling dates in near future.
Thank you so much again for making this happen. We’ve been trying to keep RoboBacker updates limited to really significant milestones while we work through everything, but recognize that you can’t see everything we’re seeing over here, so we’ll be sure to update more frequently with more stories of what it takes and what it feels like to realize this collective vision.
Sorry… I was a little late posting this… the event is over
Project Update #9: Detroit Fanfare, Peter Weller, Party, Post Office, Progress
RoboBackers,
Check it out, coming up on September 24th and 25th it’s the Detroit Fanfare, a big comic book convention in downtown Detroit: http://www.detroitfanfare.com . RoboCop star Peter Weller will be there and we will too, representing the project at our very own RoboBooth. Yes this is awesomely nerdy and yes this is awesomely awesome. We’ll be sure to take pictures.
At our booth we’ll have updated illustrations of the statue, awesome Detroit RoboCop shirts, the Detroit RoboCop statue story and timeline so far, and, somewhat wildly, the debut of a 4-feet X 6-feet crowdfunded oil painting-turned-video game called “The Spirit of Detroit Vs The Blight” that includes RoboCop as a playable character: http://bit.ly/pTku4O .
On the night of Saturday the 24th there will be an after party at PJ’s Lager House (a great time to cash in on your free drink if you’re in that reward bracket ) with all door money going to Forgotten Harvest ( http://forgottenharvest.org ) as featured by RoboCharity.
*ALL* of your packages should already be in your hands, or in the mail in a few cases. If you’ve given us your address and we haven’t spoken one-to-one in the last week about a special case, RoboSanta should have come for you by now. Sorry if he got stuck in any of your chimneys along the way. RoboSanta tries his best.
Fred Barton ( http://www.the-robotman.com ) who’s painstakingly executing the RoboForm we’ll be casting for the statue says he’s almost done…maybe a month…before we can scan the pieces and make another big dent in statue production.
Project Update #10: Happy RoboDays! A Very Merry Update. Stay Out of Trouble.
Posted by Imagination Station Detroit Received 12/25/2011
Merry Christmas, Happy Poly-Holidays, and a Pre-emptive New Year’s greetings strike to you, RoboBackers!
We’re excited to let you know that a long and crucial and awesome progress bar has finished loading and we’re now entering a new phase of RoboDevelopment.
Fred Barton http://the-robotman.com has completed his brand new, custom, kicka**, MGM-licensed RoboCop sculpture which is now on its way to an undisclosed facility (hint: not Area 51) for 3D scanning, digital scaling, and foam fabrication. From there the forms will arrive at Venus Bronze Works in Detroit where the statue will be cast and poured by liquid metal ninjas who’ve lovingly roundhoused many other important works in the city: http://www.modeldmedia.com/features/venust13908.aspx and http://www.thedetroiter.com/site/venuspage.html .
Thanks for your patience as we fill in this expert-level statue sudoku puzzle. We hope to be able to share pics with you Real Soon Now™.
And oh hey, check this out. Peter Weller was in town a little bit back (he says hello!) and gave a great interview to WDET Detroit public radio that’s more than worth a listen: http://wdetfm.org/news/story/PeterWellerInterview . He talks about the statue and much else. Super duper smart and cool dude.
Also attached, a couple pieces of sweet RoboCop graffiti that have shown up in the city. Photo credit for “stay out of trouble” to dailyinvention on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dailyinvention/6274472975 .
<br>
Thanks again for everything you’ve done and continue to do to support this truly amazing, one-of-a-kind adventure in crowdfunded RoboStatuary, and enjoy what we hope is a relaxing time with the ones you love.
Happy pre-spring, RoboBackers! The sun is shining here in Detroit and the RoboBears are re-awaking from cyborg-hibernation.<br>
<br>Fred Barton’s precision-detailed RoboCop form has been shipped in many pieces to the http://acrosstheboardcreations.com 3D scanning and fabrication shop. They’ve sent along some pictures of RoboCop *in the computer* (<—Zoolander ref, +5 points) before it is re-physicalized at a larger scale, attached to this message.</br>
For the local production team here in Detroit, we’ve been in the same boat as you as far as wondering about timelines on when the statue will be here. Basically we are working with world-class wizards who are donating a lot of their time on a remarkably time-consuming process since the reality is $60,000 turns out not to be a lot of money for the tasks at hand. But! We’ve been constantly assured that like an actual wizard, a RoboCop statue is neither late nor early… it arrives precisely when it intends (<—Lord of The Rings ref, +5 points). <br>
<br>So when you look at the beach and see only one set of footprints during the hardest wait for the completion of a crowdfunded statue of your life and ask “Where were you then RoboCop?” He will say, “That, my RoboBacker, is before I had arms to carry you.” (<—religious poem ref, +[indeterminate points, we are a non-denominational crew]).</br>
<br>In action around the project, the RoboCharity fundraiser for http://forgottenharvest.org that sprung up alongside the statue project is hosting a really big fundraiser with the good folks at Funny Or Die, coming up April 27th in Detroit and hosted by comedian Seth Meyers. Awesome!</br>
<br>We’ve also just heard that the Go Comedy improv troop here in Metro Detroit is getting ready to perform their RoboCop The Musical which should be awesome in a different way: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gbsdetroit/go-comedy-and-gbs-detroit-present-robocop-the-musi .</br>
<br>The next statue steps we should be sharing are the physical foam pieces here in Detroit for casting along with additional access to the labs for more frequent photographs and updates. So stay tuned, stay strong, stay wizardly, stay bronze, RoboBoy, stay bronze (<—The Outsiders ref, +10 points, no question),</br>
<br>With love and sincere thanks for your continued support as the progress bar glaciates forward,
Team Robo </br>
Testing, testing, 1-2, 1-2. Hello RoboBackers. We just flew in from Delta City and boy are our arms tired. /crickets. eeee. /tugs on collar. Tough crowdsource…
But seriously, folks, it’s been a second since the last update. Apologies for that. The production has been a bit of a blackbox for us as well, but we just checked back in with Fred Barton who has assured us that the parts will be ready soon, and Venus Bronze Works is ready to receive them in Detroit. After that, things should open up quite a bit.
So, no real new news, other than we’ve checked in with the professionals and gotten a thumbs up and reaffirmation that all is well in the RoboVerse.
To help keep things on track and keep you more fully in the loop, we’ll increase the update frequency to no more than 30 days between updates.
Thanks for your patience and awesomeness. This wouldn’t be happening without you and we know you’ll be proud of the result!
Posted by Imagination Station Detroit August 28, 2012
Happy Tuesday, RoboBackers,
Fred Barton just sent over these pics of the last of the missing Robo pieces, now completed—hands and calf, check ‘em out below!
They’re on their way to http://acrosstheboardcreations.com to meet their brother and sister parts for 3D scanning, enlarging, and milling from foam. Then the foam pieces will be shipped to Venus Bronze Works in Detroit for molding and pouring. Really cool process all around.
This is a huge milestone, and while there’s a ways left to go, it’s now a new phase and we hope you’re as excited as we are. The form looks absolutely outstanding.
Fred, from all of us, we thank you again and bow with gratitude from the bottom of our RoboHearts. See more of his work at http://the-robotman.com .
Project Update #14: Good Things Come To Those Who Wait + New RoboCop Films In Detroit + Boddicker & An Evil Cyborg Walk Into A Gym…
Posted by Imagination Station Detroit (Tue, Oct 30, 2012 5:21 pm)
Yes!
Kevin at Across The Board Creations http://acrosstheboardcreations.com just sent the attached pic of the new 3D scans of Robo’s hands and calves and throws us a double thumbs-up that all Robo parts have been shipped to his studio and his team is at work.
What does it mean? Well, Kevin estimates six weeks to finish scanning, enlarging, and milling all the parts sculptor Fred Barton has lovingly completed and shipped to him before sending them here to Detroit for casting at Venus Bronze Works: http://www.modeldmedia.com/features/venust13908.aspx .
It’s not the last lilly pad in our Frogger, but soon the parts will be tangible and local, which will feel AMAZING. Huge thanks again to everyone who’s helped produce the parts, get permission, and pioneer this admittedly wild process, and THANK YOU again and again RoboBackers, for your philanthropy of AWESOMESAUCE and ZENLIKE PATIENCE as we all will this RoboBeauty into the world for the ages.
From the side-story department, we hear that some filming for the new RoboCop movie has been going on in Detroit. If you’re involved in that please reach out! We gotta get a RoboBackers easter egg in the film to reward all these fine people and the crew trying to get this project done the right way, with permission and quality. Right?
Lastly, we’ve gotten many kind notes from actors and writers and designers and others involved in the creation of Robo movies. Last week Bruce Locke who played Robo’s evil cyborg nemesis in RoboCop 3 reached out to say that he’s a fan of this project, send along the attached pics, and say that, hilariously and awesomely, he goes to the same gym as Kurtwood Smith, who played Boddicker in Robo 1 and is friends with Calvin Jung, who played one of his henchman.
Thought you might like to know, and another reason not to work out! Be careful, bench-pressers. Danger lurks. To be continued…
Posted by Imagination Station Detroit (received 12/3/2012)
News! We have received the following 2 images of the completed 3D RoboCop body scan from Across The Board Creations, with assurance that the super-detailed foam parts will soon be here in Detroit for casting. Here’s hoping that the next update can include a video of them at Venus Bronze Works. Fingers crossed!
Like a fine robotically aged wine, we remain patiently, perfectly yours,
Posted by Imagination Station Detroit Fri, Jan 18, 2013 3:35 pm
Happy New Year!
Hot off the presses in 2013: Kevin Galloway from Across The Board Creations just shared these photos of the RoboCop pieces rolling off the assembly line. He says it’s among the most highly detailed work he’s ever done. Note that in the photo of Robo’s head(s), the head on the left is life-sized as modeled by Fred Barton, and the head on the right is the proportion when scaled up for a 10-foot statue (after being 3D scanned, digitally enlarged, and re-milled by Kevin).
Giorgio at Venus Bronze Works in Detroit is all set to receive them and get to work, which will likely take the rest of the year—it’s a big, detailed statue made the old-fashioned way! (Well, the old-fashioned way with some 3D laser scanners and fabrication machines pitching in. 😊) Over the holiday we paid another visit to his studio and know we’re all in great hands, and supporting a great local business. He’s worked on many statues and artists in Detroit and around the world, and as a master craftsman and Detroiter he’s excited to lend his talents to this epic piece of pop culture.
We thank you again for your support and patience throughout this process. When this started we had no way of knowing what everything would entail. Like any journey that takes on a life of its own, it has ups, downs, critics, and curveballs, and we’ve held on tight to march things towards completion. Your contributions, positivity, and faith are helping will a wildly awesome idea into reality. It’s the kind of thing that’s so rare because it would normally disappear as a spoken blip: “wouldn’t it be cool if…” and then poof, but yet here we are.
We’re going to need more of your support as it becomes time for Robo to go outside and settle into a home. Several options have been presented and we’ve wanted to get to this next stage of tangibility before zeroing in on commitment. Now, entering this next stage, in the weeks and months ahead we’ll be exploring that with you more. Considerations include finding a host site that can adequately maintain and secure the work—a critical component.
(
