This is the Hip Shaking Frankie Wall Clock I made as part of my exhibition Haunted House Rock. Its made out of 9 pieces of timber and acrylic that were first expertly custom laser cut by the fabulously friendly and professional people at Made By White. I then had the tricky task of hand painting the pieces, gluing it all together and getting the pendulum clock mechanism to wobble those hips.

My exhibition Haunted House Rock was featured in an article in the Inner West Courier, On Tuesday the 22nd of November 2011. Big thanks to Lauren Murada for writing such a fantastic article and Danny Aarons for taking such great Photo's.

Frankie Is a character I created a few years ago, he features pretty heavily in my up-and coming exhibition Haunted House Rock, below is a portrait of him which i'm working as well as a bit more about Frankie.


Elvis Aaron Frankenstein was a singer and actor who could arguably neither sing nor act. A cultural icon, he is commonly known simply as Frankie and is also sometimes referred to as The Modern Prometheus of Rock 'n' Roll as many attribute him as single-handedly taking Rock 'n' Roll to the masses.

Frankie had many hit songs such as: That’s All Wrong (Mama), Raise Hell Hotel, Good Hauntin’ Tonight, I Forgot To Remember To Kill, Do Be Cruel, Spook Me Tender, Blue Suede Shackles, All Shocked Up, Are You Gruesome Tonight? and Suspicious Brains.

Frankie quickly became a teenage idol and went on to become a Hollywood star in his own right. He starred in a total of 31 films including: Fear in Acapulco, Harum Scare'em, A.I. Blues, Flaming Torch, Haunted House Rock, Ghouls, Ghouls, Ghouls, Paradise Transylvanian Style, Follow That Brains, Killin' Cousins, Ghoul Happy, Undead In The Country, Brainbake, Stay Away Monster, Live A Little Die A Little, The Trouble With Ghouls, Viva Las Vengeance, Scareway, The Bride of Frankie & Johnny and It Happened At A Burning Mill.

During the height of his career the world was gripped with Frankie Fever and Frankie's image was used to sell everything from lightning rods to platform shoes he even had his own line of hair care products.

Sadly, health problems, prescription drug dependence and angry mobs of peasants with fire torches plagued the star in his later life leading to his untimely death at an early age.

For my exhibition Haunted House Rock I list Toy Customisation as one on the many mediums I use to create artwork. For me toy customisation has very humble beginnings. As a kid growing up I used to love to play with toys in particularly Super Hero Action Figures. As with most kids my age I  went through a Superman, Superman, Superman phase. He was my favorite toy I used to fold his legs up behind his head, put him in my top pocket and take him everywhere with me, I liked him so much I lost his cape and wore the “S” right off his chest. For Christmas that year I received a second brand new and (in my opinion) all powerful Superman Action Figure It was great I was so happy, but there is one problem, when your playing Superman and you have two Supermen there is only so much flying around you can do before you need to find a bad guy to beat up. I remember taking to one of my supermen with some plasticine to make him “more muscily” and a coiled up pipe cleaner crown which I placed  on top of his head, he now became the mighty-evil leader known as King Spring, and a new hobby was born.

Now days I mainly start my customising with a Generic 8-inch Mego styled body, I sculpt the head or add facial features to a resin cast of and existing head with modeling clay. I then go about creating a costume and accessories for the figure via many different means. 

For those of you that don’t know, The Mego Corporation was a toy company that dominated the action figure toy market during most of the 1970s. The Mego Corporation was founded in the early 1950s and was mostly known prior to 1971 as a producer of dime store toys. Starting in 1971, Mego began purchasing license rights to a variety of successful motion pictures, television programs, and comic books, and started producing lines for Planet of the Apes, Star Trek, and the Wizard of Oz. Mego used various licensed Marvel and DC superhero characters to create their World’s Greatest Superhero line, which became their most successful toy line. They also produced an original character, Action Jackson, an unsuccessful competitor of Hasbro’s G.I. Joe. The secret of Mego’s success was that their action figures were constructed with interchangeable heads. Generic bodies could be mass produced and different figures created by interposing different heads and costumes on them. Mego also constructed their figures primarily in an 8-inch (200 mm) scale - setting an industry standard in the 1970s.


I prefer to customise using the Mego’s 8-inch figures for a few reasons, firstly I love them as a base because you can really go crazy with the cloth costuming secondly they have a very classic look to them, and thirdly there is a really established community around customizing Mego Action Figures and it is pretty easy to purchase reproduction parts and accessories.

Happy Halloween everyone, I thought I'd take this opportunity to share a few sketches of pieces that I've been working on for my up-and-coming solo exhibition Haunted House Rock! Have fun Trick-Or-Treating!

Over the weekend I had the pleasure of attending The Winter Season of Cinema in the Cemetery. The Cinema was playing a spooky double feature, Frankenstein The 1931 Classic and possibly the worst movie ever made, Plan 9 From Outer Space.


The Cinema also displayed my design for Frankies Hair Tonic as part of a few mock advertisements which ran before the feature film.