Last night's meeting of the St. Louis Artists' Guild Illustrators Section featured another amazing presentation by one of those hidden geniuses. A person whose work is seen all over the country...but no one really knows he did it.
Wally Hauck of Zymo Studios, is a sculpture artist who does pretty much whatever when it comes to 3 dimensional models, displays, prop pieces, etc. My favorites were his tap handles (see image above for a sample). As an avid bar patron, I am an avid admirer of tap handles...but I never really thought about the fact that someone has to make the tap handle from scratch. Well that, among many many others fascinating feats, is what Hauck does. When it comes to the taps, he makes the prototype and then once they are approved, they are mass produced elsewhere.
Same goes for some of his props. Sometimes he will produce a large quantity of the model himself, but other times he will make just one, and then 5 years down the road, be in a bar and see something that he made.
He works with materials such as epoxy, aluminum, steel, wood, and other random materials that he finds in shops/stores and then masterfully paints them with automotive lacquer to appear like different materials such as leather, bronze, marble, fruit, vegetable, liquid, and even animal.
I can't say much more...his work speaks for itself...check it out at ZymoStudio.com