ANIMATRONICS

I have been designing and fabricating animatronic characters and shows for over 30 years.

I fell in love with this art form in the mid 70's and was lucky enough to find a job with Creative Engineering of Orlando, Inc in 1977. Aaron Fechter had a small shop in Orlando and was just starting his company and was looking for an artist that could create, design, illustrate, sculpt paint, airbrush, make molds and casting, work with rubber and fiberglass materials, etc. I was already an accomplished artist but there was a learning curve we all had to go through back then to figure out how to build these animatronic characters. We of course did that and eventually became the largest manufacturer of animatronic characters and shows in the world. Most of you are familiar with Chuck E Cheese and Showbiz Pizza Time. We designed and manufactured the Rock-Afire Explosion for the Showbiz Pizza Time chain and also created dozens of other shows in the 70's and 80's.

I at that time I was the Vise President and art director. My job was to artistically create the look of the characters and shows, provide initial illustrations, sculpt and cast all the faces and body panels, interface with the mechanical fabrication department and make sure that the art and mechanics would all work together. I of course by that time I had an entire crew working under me. We spent many long hours and all nighters at times to meet the increasingly demanding production schedules. Arron of course was the HEAD CHEESE. I would get all of my directives from him and all of my work and work from the art department would have to meet his approval. There were many other extremely talented and creative people involved in the creation of those shows. People like David (Billy Bob) Irvine, Bo Sherman, Greg King, Tim Inglis, Marve Ratchford, Paul Berg, Mike Demascioi, Alex DeAzuero, Scott Etter, Eddie Gismondi Sr and Jr, Jim Clayton, Susie Thomas, Nancy Decarlo, Burt Wison and many more that I will list and go into detail about at another time.

I left creative Engineering in 1984 and started a company called Diversified Designs of Orlando, Inc. I continued to design and build animatronics but also did a wide range of other creative projects over the years. One of the projects we did as Diversified Designs was to take on what Showbiz Pizzatime, Inc called concept unification. The idea was to convert ALL of the Rock-Afire Explosion characters and stage props to the Chuck E. Cheese characters. They were toying with converting the Chuck E. Cheese characters to the Rock-Afire explosion characters but my old boss, Aaron Fechter, was not interested in selling the rights to those characters to them. This was all after Showbiz Pizzatime bought the Chuck E. Cheese franchise. I will go into all of that later also as I develop this blog.

I now live in the Tampa Bay area with my beautiful, smart and wonderful wife Brionne. I in recent years have done some motorcycle customizing and also still design and fabricate animatronics on a much smaller scale. I am working on animatronics "KITS" that you can purchase. I am also working on a character I call "CYBORG". He is an over 6 ft tall human proportioned animatronic character that is in itself a cool looking character without any rubber or fur art on the outside. I will also have character art, ie rubber masks, feet, hands,fur and fabric coverings to convert him to such characters as a werewolf, zombie, alien, monster or a generic man or woman that can be turned into just about anything. I am hoping to have this character and the kit ready to sell by September 2009.