It has come to my attention that many of you have not read the very prominent notice in red at the top of the Collectors Mask Page store. I highly recommend you do this before you purchase a mask from me. Depending on supplies availability, schedule, amount of orders, or all of the above it can take time to make your mask or kits. I ship in the order they were received.
I also recently posted a video about this very thing that explains in more detail. Meanwhile I’m waiting for more crepe hair. It will arrive tomorrow. I just got an order of cement I used to apply the hair yesterday. Tomorrow I’ll be back to laying more hair after I paint a whole bunch of masks today.
Yesterday began with another trip into town for materials and a stop at my favorite hobby shop in the world. Smith Brothers Hobby Center in Reseda. Click on the home button to visit there store site.
I have been friends with the owner and the people that work there for over 40 years. They have survived as one of the only few remaining old time hobby shops in LA because of their loyal friends and customers who shop there instead of the internet.
It’s a beautiful, happy place full of the wonders that so captured our hearts as children. It has kept our inner child alive. It has contributed to much longer lives than would have been possible with the passion and love for our hobbies.
I could have ordered my plane online, paid the same price and had it delivered. But when you buy from a local hobby shop you get the social pleasure of visiting there, looking at what we’re about to buy, hold it in your hands, having your questions answered by experts, and visiting with old friends. Even though you pay the same price, you help the hobby shop. Since they are dealers they make a profit from your purchase that goes a long way to keeping them in business, not amazon.
If we are going to keep the hobby shops and the experience of them alive , we all need to support them and stop supporting online businesses that can never provide the same experience I had the joy of yesterday.
Now that I have a field close to home with a paved runway it has changed the hobby for me.
When I moved to Ventura over 9 years ago I lost my ability to fly locally off and paved runway close to home. I flew gliders on the dunes and cliffs when I could. Took off grass with small planes at a park in Carpinteria. Everywhere I could go with the exception of the local dunes was a long drive. So I didn’t fly much and I gave away many of my planes. Now that I have an excellent field 18 minutes from home I’ve started flying regularly once again. I had no idea how much I missed it. And it dramatically changed my disposition. Not that I was unhappy, but it just contributed more to my happiness and joy.
Being that I’m a bit rusty I picked up this Piper Cherokee yesterday. This is an excellent well mannered general aviation aircraft that has a wide flight envelope. This will allow me much needed practice navigating the new field and the flight pattern there. And with its scale lighting it helps improve visual flight orientation. I’ll be flying this weekend and I’m really looking forward to it.
Back at the studio I got 4 masks shipped out and then ran out of hair. I’ll have more tomorrow. I got two more orangutan masks with one left to cast today.
This catches me up and I should finish the remaining pile of these masks this week.
What can I say that I haven’t said constantly for weeks now.? Yes I’m still making masks and filling orders. It has slowed down and I haven’t got many more orders lately which is a good thing because it allows me the time I need to catch up.
Yesterday I got some more paint and hair laid on the masks. Today I can ship 4 masks at long last and the rest this later week(if my materials arrive in time) before the Grandchild arrive for 5 days at our home. And you all know what that means.
I still have a rocket kit to make up too but I ran out of stuff and had to ordermore. I have stopped bulk buying materials for the most part. Everything is going up 1/3rd to 1/2 and it’s outrageous. Soon I’ll be forced to raise my prices. So I get what I need as I need it but then there’s the supply chain problem. Some things like crepe hair I have to wait for and I ran out of dark brown yesterday. Here I wait to hear back from the supplier…”when?” Or I’ll have to order from New York and wait 3-4 days.
Meanwhile I’m trimming and painting so when the hair gets here I can finish these orders. Thank you all so very much for your understanding and patience.
This has to be the most repetitive newsletter to date for most of you. Repetitive in the sense that I am repeating myself due to the influx of ape mask orders. Little did I know they would be so popular and it is taking all of my time lately to keep up with it all. But that’s not a bad thing. It’s a good thing for the studio.
Despite that, the profit from all my hard work is marginal (all masks are under $275). This fact does not allow me money to hire help. And everytime time I turn around to re-purchase materials the price of those materials go up. Inflation is very real here and cuts into studio profit. Companies are using inflation and the war as an excuse to jack up prices. They have increased the costs of some things as much as a third over that of what I paid last month. By all rights I should increase my prices. I’m not sure the market will bear it. The people that collect my work are hard working people and money is tight these days as the men in the suits steal from us more and more.
End of bitching and back to the work at the studio.Time has been spent with casting, trimming, painting, and laying hair but it all goes a long way to keeping our doors open. I never did get the Tologian started this week. I hope to do that and start apes prosthetics as well, next week.
I did manage to make the first Orangutan test mask and I think it turned out rather well.
We are now officially adult Girl Scouts and our Troop is Camp Arnaz. The Girl Scout troop we are involved with is actively seeking a launch site for their rocket class activities we will be teaching soon. Finally I can contribute to the interests of young minds seeking the stars. Who knows which one of those girls might be the one that discovers warp drive and starts the dream of exploring the Galaxy.
We had a good production meeting with Peter Fox and Dr. Chris Landon for the movie I’m directing soon named, “Good Vibrations”. This is not about the beach boys but a rather deep lesson in the human experience about life. There will be no aliens, flying saucers, or Sci Fi this time. Our lives are amazing and unexplained as it is without all that. We have our child actor who is an amazing little girl with tons of talent named Poem. I think her name is rather perfect considering the nature of Peter Fox’s script. This film should be a game changer for us.
Mary explained the following on Facebook:
“I’m going to put it out there (if anyone is seeing this)
Peter Fox wrote a great screenplay short called “Good Vibrations”.
He and a child actor are playing in it.
Steve Neill is directing it.
Dr. Chris Landon and I are helping with production.
We have a location at Girl Scout Camp Arnaz in Ventura County.
We need help though.
We have a camera but we need sound equipment (2 mics for the actors)
We have lights.
People wise, we need some help.
A sound person.
A light person (gaffer) and;
a make up artist.
Anyone who helps will, of course, get screen credit.
Our last film, The Dreamtime, won several awards.
It will be widely seen. (look up Peter Fox on Imdb)
That’s it for this week. We deeply appreciate all the orders and the busy times at the studio. We thank you all for your continued support on Patreon. Every bit helps us to remain engaged in our many activities and projects.
In closing,my dear friend Carl Soto sent me this image from Laser Blast. I had never seen this artwork poster for the film before. This is a film that launched my career and Ve Neill’s many years ago and remains popular with the fans to this day. I played the alien in the opening sequence and made all the prosthetics and props. Ve applied the makeup and so did I. It was a lot of fun. The film was panned badly by many critics. It was never intended to be a serious film, but rather a fun, comical, spoof. It remains a cult classic.
SNG Aero – Rockets by Steve Neill …and Mary on the web As always, feel free let us know if you want to be removed from our newsletter by emailing us. Share with friends if you think they would be interested in what we do. Comments and suggestions are encouraged. We love hearing from you!
I am slowly forging through these last batch of orders. In June I’ll have to increase the price as large companies are gouging us by increasing prices on products I use to make these masks by as much as one third more over that of last month.
Seems they are getting greedy and using the war and inflation as an excuse to steal from us all. Especially at the gas pump.
Here’s some pictures from yesterday. I start shipping now on Tuesday. I have become delayed once more as I ran out of Barge cement for the hair work.
Thursday was a day for the latest mask of the Orangutan. Being the first one there was a lot to work out. The crepe hair I got from Burmans was the closest to the original color without mixing two colors which of course sends the price up if I were to do that. My aim is to keep the cost of these masks as reasonable as possible for all of you to afford and enjoy. My profit on these masks after all the labor and materials is low at best.
I had to get the paint job and hair as correct as possible and it took two days to do that. Now that I have the test mask done I can take what I learned from it and apply it to the many pre-orders next week and get them done.
This caused the gorilla orders to be somewhat delayed and I apologize for this but it’s just me, myself, and I doing all this work and I very much appreciate your patience. Now that the orangutan is done things will start moving again. That and numerous meetings and business visitors to the studio has made this a complicated week of time investment.
It’s a bit like a broken record but once again I’m working on the apes nearly full time. Although we did have a production meeting with Peter Fox and Dr. Chris Landon in the morning the rest of the day was spent catching upon orders.
I got the first batch of last week’s orders painted. And I painted the first test Orangutan. It took awhile to dial in the color. In pictures and clips they looked different every time. I mostly pulled on my memory of the actual appliances I worked with back in the day. And they were always painted and colored a little differently from makeup to makeup.
I tried it on to see how much movement I might get out of this new batch of latex I got from the Burman’s recently. It moved very well. I can only imagine how well it would move if one was to glue it to one’s face.
Today I put the teeth and hair on this mask. Another test to see if the hair looks right.
I poured the chimp mask order in the new mold and that should come out today.
All the masks will get their hair today if possible and the first one shipped in the order they were received tomorrow.
Tuesday was fun packed with trimming and cutting masks. Dremel tooling away bubbles. Filling bubbles with Cabopatch, and prepping the masks to be painted today.
I got a bad Orangutan yesterday, the first bad casting in months. It happens sometimes. I poured another that should be fine. I need to cast up 2 more to complete this week’s orders.
I also made a new chimp mold off the master. It was overdue. The mold came out perfect and this time I used Hydrocal instead of plaster. These days pottery plaster #1 just isn’t what it used to be. This white Hydrocal is excellent. Today I’ll be able to pour chimps again.
I did a bunch of cleaning. This constant mask making is a mess maker of extreme proportions. Now I have a large workstation just for the apes. Sculpting, hair laying, and final assembly.
And if that wasn’t enough I went to Champ Arnaz to scout locations for the film I’m directing for Peter Fox. https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0289192/
The girls scout camp was a beautiful place. Peaceful, beautiful, and serene I didn’t want to leave.
Yesterday was a different Monday for me. It started out by driving into LA for materials and supplies. It was one of the most perilous trips I have taken in a long time. The rain was coming down so hard you could hardly see beyond your hood. People were driving too fast and losing control right before my eyes. Crashes everywhere all of which were avoidable if one knew how to drive.
My first stop was Smith Brothers where I picked up my P-51 Mustang. I was glad to be in the familiar place I have been going to for 40 years safe and sound with old friends. Yes this Mustang has retracts and flaps. I have owned many a Mustang over the years. In fact I practically learned to fly on a Pony as far back as 1986. Great to have this good flying old friend in the fleet once more.
Next stop was Burman Industries where I picked up the crepe hair, WED EM217 water based sculpting clay for the next mask. The toloian from Star Trek. I picked up a bunch of other stuff too.
The trip back was better as the storm had started to move through. I got home , picked up Mary and the dogs and off we went to the studio.
I poured two more masks after removing the first orangutan from the mold. It came out great. I also cleaned up the master for the chimp so I can make a new mold today.
I made a back plate for my life mask to start the prosthetic sculpture ape appliance later this week.
I am working hard all this week to fill your orders. I have many to get through and being the materials runner, mold maker, mask painter, hair layer, and sculpture is keeping me pretty busy. I greatly appreciate your patience as I forge ahead. Never have I been so busy. Thank you all for keeping me this way!
The Art of Steve Neill 