Making a Book: A French Duo's Masterpiece

By a French Duo who has been mostly known for doing documentaries on Ray Harryhausen and other creatures, they have finally put out a book that is both a tribute to Phil Tippett's work and a showcase of their own expertise in the field. The book, titled "Mad Gods and Monsters," covers everything from the stop-motion stuff and practical effects to Mad God and digital effects, making it a must-have for fans of Phil's or just creatures and cool stuff in general.

The French Duo has done an excellent job of curating this collection of work, which features great photos and a detailed look at each project. What's particularly noteworthy is the inclusion of some personal touches from the creators themselves. One such example is my own surprise appearance in the book! It turns out that one of the most recent projects I worked on with Phil was for The Mandalorian and Book of Boba Fett, where we created stop-motion puppets using our skills. My colleagues have mentioned me many times in the book, which is a lovely touch.

The book also delves into Kate Saber's work, who has been involved in various Tippett projects over the years. Her contributions are highlighted throughout the book, showcasing her expertise and dedication to the field. Mad Gods and Monsters is indeed a worthwhile collection that celebrates the best of creature design, stop-motion, and practical effects.

New Tools for Model Building

In addition to exploring Phil's work, I've also been sharing my own experiences with various tools and materials over the past year. One tool that has become an essential part of my model-building routine is the Vortex Mixer. This handy device has revolutionized the way I mix paint and has saved me countless hours of struggling with stubborn colors.

I was initially skeptical about investing in a paint mixer, but this product has far exceeded my expectations. Simply press the paint down onto the top of the device, and it creates a vortex that thoroughly mixes the paint for you. This has been a game-changer for my model-building projects, allowing me to achieve more consistent results with less effort. I highly recommend the Vortex Mixer to anyone who works with paints or needs to mix small batches.

Another tool that has found its way into my workshop is the Micro Sander. I was hesitant to try this at first, as I wasn't sure if it would be effective for my specific needs. However, I've been pleasantly surprised by its capabilities. This tiny sander is perfect for getting into tight spaces and removing fine details from small models or 3D prints.

The Micro Sander has proven itself to be a valuable addition to my toolkit, allowing me to achieve results that were previously difficult or impossible. While the included adhesive sheets could use some improvement, I've found that making my own custom shapes with rubber cement and tape is an easy solution. Overall, I'm thoroughly impressed with this tool and would recommend it to anyone who needs a reliable sander for small details.

Conclusion

As we wrap up our review of Mad Gods and Monsters, I hope you'll consider checking out this wonderful book on creature design and practical effects. It's a must-have for fans of Phil Tippett or just those who appreciate the art of creating fantastical creatures and bringing them to life. And if you're interested in model-building tools, be sure to look into the Vortex Mixer and Micro Sander – they've been game-changers for me, and I think they could be for you too!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey everybody it's Sean from tested back with this year's edition of favorite things we've got a nice variety uh some toys some tools some books so let's let's get started uh let's start with the toys uh this uh fulfilled something I've been wanting to do for a long time I've always wanted an Iron Man armor particularly from hot toys which does some really really nice versions of the armor and um I just never got around to it so this year I bit the bullet and I got this this is the uh Iron Man 3 Mark III suit construction version from hot toys uh this is actually as far as I know this is actually a re-release of one that they had done a few years ago um I don't know if they've actually done any updates to it it looks identical to me um but I missed it the first time around but anyway so uh it hits the sweet slot for me because you get you get the you get part of the suit you get building and construction and tools and you also get lighting which it just lights up beautifully uh between the Arc Reactor and the eyes and it even has these little spotlights down here on the base that are somewhat adjustable so you can get a nice uh up light and um it it's it simply comes flat packed it assembles you hang it onto the little chains has all these great little cords and plugs to go into the bases and it even has his little a battery pack down here that goes into the base as well uh all the little guys including the hand Repulsor lights up and you can even remove the chest plate if you want to reveal the inner workings of the suit so like I said just hit a real sweet spot for me between being a really cool figure and kind of you know my building construction tool aspect as well the the other thing that I really like about uh this this guy is that it can run off of either batteries or a power supply which which is always annoying when you have these awesome figures that use like the little coin batteries and stuff like that they always go dead you got to remember to remove them so they don't explode on you so it was a nice touch that you can either do batteries in the base or a separate power supply which was not included but easy to pick up on Amazon or whatever um yeah so the Iron Man Mark III construction version which is a re-release from Hot Toys all right so let's move on to some more toys uh other than Iron Man probably my favorite purchase of the year is this guy uh from Gremlins um in fact all of the other toys are all from NECA they've been like knocking it out of the park for me this year and they have a whole series of Gremlin figures and I cannot recommend them enough they are uh pretty well articulated uh the paint job on these was really well done better than I thought they have uh even some nice articulation like the mouth and the head and the the thing that really pushes it over the edge though is the accessories that come with it like this guy he came with the popcorn bags and the 3D glasses we got a doo-dah bar and um all of the other ones that they've put out as well uh come equally uh fleshed out with really good accessory trees and detailing my only complaint about the Gremlins is they can be a little bit hard to pose so that they stand up on their own because they got such tiny feet but you can do it with a little bit of work so Gremlins from NECA they have uh Gizmo Spike all the other bad guys and like the various different ones like the the trench coat guy uh and um uh Santa version the carolers uh they're they're all out there and available and and I highly recommend them also from NECA we are going to take a look at some of my favorite movie Monsters they've been doing a really nice line of universal uh classic movie monsters and I've picked up the Frankenstein's monster and the mummy so far and not only are they really well detailed and really capture the likeness of of Karloff in both cases here but they uh they are releasing different versions one of which is a full color version as if you were on set and seeing it in person but I picked up the black and white versions which retains you know how you picture them in the films themselves which I really appreciate the fact that they've been doing both versions all of them come with a variety of heads and accessories um I couldn't locate my Frankenstein monster ones but uh The Mummy came with a nice little chest including his uh Revival scroll which is a nice touch and various heads and hands as well and the detailing and paint job and articulations all we all all well done they've been also are selling some accessory kits for both of these and for example you can get a nice sarcophagus set to go along with the Karloff mummy which I have not picked up yet but also looks really well done so yeah so NECA uh monster toys of various films um speaking of films we have a few film related books to to take a look at um let's do this guy first uh any Ghostbusters fans will recognize uh the title of this book The Tobin spirit guide this was actually a gift from my wife for my birthday and it is one of my prized possessions uh now because what she did is she actually bought There's an actual Tobin spirit guide that you can buy online and it is a compendium of monsters creatures ghosts Spooks specters Etc that you would expect from the spirit guide so she bought the actual official uh book release and it already has some kind of nice patina Pages uh looked a little aged and then she further uh dyed them with some coffee to make them look even more old and decrepit she crumpled up the edges a little bit uh she she weathered the uh the book markers and then she sent these to custom leather books Marcia at custom leather books will do custom coverings for all kinds of different things journals whatever and this was a special request for my wife so she built this entire leather cover from scratch which blows my mind um you should check out our site um I think we're going to link to her Instagram and then she has a an actual website too where she has examples of her work and and shows a little bit of how she does it but she will hand carve a little kind of topographical cutouts to do all of the raised items on the book and then this very soft supple letter leather is uh then uh pushed down over top of it and I assume glued in place but she even did detailing like this this copper banding and the rivets at the corner like just I so well done I love this thing so much and like just this textured leather that she used uh all around and um I did do a little additional weathering on it she did some but she didn't know how far to push it but I did a little bit of chemical weathering on the copper banding and a little Fuller's earth and other uh Grime on here and then wiped it off to get it a little grimier but this thing is just I love this so much um and Marsha at custom other books did an amazing job and you should check her out for some of her other work so the custom Tobin spirit guide inside is the regular book outside custom leather all right so let's take a look at this monster uh this is the uh mad dreams and Monsters the work of Phil Tippett and Tippett studio for those not familiar Phil is a legend in the movie industry he is a specialist in stop-motion animation we've done many many different videos with him in the studio over the years which you should totally look up and check out on the on our Channel but Phil did a lot of the stop-motion animation for the original Star Wars so he either created or animated things like the Tauntaun the adats uh the rancor lots of different creatures the chess set which also was redone then for solo as well and then Phil went on to found his own Studio where they worked on they did stop motion for RoboCop such with Ed 209 and in RoboCop 2 with the Kane robots which we have featured many times on tested um and and then recently Phil has uh finally released his his 30-year project Mad God which is a full stop-motion animation movie um that they just released on shutter so uh I've been lucky enough to do some work with the studio uh as well as our other tested contributor Kate savaker um and um just being in the shop the years and years and years of photos and sketches just stuck up on the wall in addition to all of the uh creatures and other uh stuff that is left in the studio I was like you guys need to make a book and they finally did this has put out um by a French Duo who has been mostly known for doing uh documentaries of uh Ray harryhausen other creatures they did one on Phil that has the same title as the book and basically they just took all of this stuff from tippet studio and put it in a gorgeous volume it has great photos it covers everything we have Jurassic Park did which we have covered here before we have Starship Troopers it's like it it's totally worth picking up if you are a fan of Phil's or just creatures and cool stuff in general and it goes a little it goes from everything from the stop motion stuff and and the Practical stuff to Mad God and the more digital stuff and I have to I have to point out that I am in the book I didn't even know that I was in the book but I am in the book because one of the most recent things that Tippett has done is we did stop motion puppets for both the Mandalorian and uh the book of Boba Fett and they have a little blurb in there uh about our work and the uh Walker that we did and also the spider that we did for Boba Fett so mad Gods and Monsters I I mean I'm a little biased I am in the book but it's a really cool collection of everything that we love it here attested and um I'm in it uh Kate sabaker is mentioned many many many times in this book because she's been working on tip of projects for a long time so yes the the Mad dreams and monsters definitely worth checking out all right so finally we'll take a look at a few tools that I have picked up over the last year and have been using a lot um both uh actually kind of model building related uh I I have a pretty decent collection of paints at home and I just I don't do painting as much as actual building stuff so what happens with my paints every time is they separate um and then you're sitting here mixing and shaking them forever and I just can never get them mixed to my satisfaction especially ones with like pigment in it like metallic paints so one of the things that I invested in was this guy which is a vortex mixer and I'm sure model painting veterans will be like well yeah that's what you should have gotten years ago but I I didn't know about them so Vortex mixer um we showed in a little an action when we did the uh the cup noodle Bandai kit build but you simply press the paint down onto the top and it basically will create a little Vortex inside there and really mixes it up thoroughly and this has been a lifesaver for me and I like it uh this has been a lifesaver for me and has been one of my most used tools over the last year so yeah Vortex mixer I've gone through a few different paint mixers and this has been by far the best one uh that I have used I love it so Vortex mixer for paint uh and then another modeling tool that I picked up um that I was actually skeptical about is this little micro sander um I do a lot a lot of the stuff I end up doing is usually kind of small and I do a lot of 3D printing uh particularly resin printing so you get those little tiny support marks that can often be in little hard to reach places and I picked this up on a whim thinking ah it you know maybe it'll work I don't know this has worked far better than I I expected but it's basically just a little micro sander it has various tips that you can Interchange to fit you know whatever uh eye item you're working on and it comes with different grits of sandpaper a little adhesive shapes that go on the various different tips um it has worked far better than I would have expected and it uh it has allowed me to get into little tiny tight spots that would normally be really hard to sand um the only downside that I have to say about this is that uh the the the amount of adhesive uh sheets that it comes with are not very many you can of course buy more they're a little overpriced but I also say that it's easy to make uh your own little shapes the stick on these with some uh adhesive rubber cement atg tape something like that um and it and it's good to go so I have used this quite a lot over the last year and um I I would actually recommend this if you do a lot of modeling or small detail work that you need the sand so the micro sander I think this is a micro Lux we'll put a link in the descriptions but that's just some of the stuff that I've collected over the last year some of my favorite things uh check them out let us know what your favorite things are in the comments and uh happy holidayshey everybody it's Sean from tested back with this year's edition of favorite things we've got a nice variety uh some toys some tools some books so let's let's get started uh let's start with the toys uh this uh fulfilled something I've been wanting to do for a long time I've always wanted an Iron Man armor particularly from hot toys which does some really really nice versions of the armor and um I just never got around to it so this year I bit the bullet and I got this this is the uh Iron Man 3 Mark III suit construction version from hot toys uh this is actually as far as I know this is actually a re-release of one that they had done a few years ago um I don't know if they've actually done any updates to it it looks identical to me um but I missed it the first time around but anyway so uh it hits the sweet slot for me because you get you get the you get part of the suit you get building and construction and tools and you also get lighting which it just lights up beautifully uh between the Arc Reactor and the eyes and it even has these little spotlights down here on the base that are somewhat adjustable so you can get a nice uh up light and um it it's it simply comes flat packed it assembles you hang it onto the little chains has all these great little cords and plugs to go into the bases and it even has his little a battery pack down here that goes into the base as well uh all the little guys including the hand Repulsor lights up and you can even remove the chest plate if you want to reveal the inner workings of the suit so like I said just hit a real sweet spot for me between being a really cool figure and kind of you know my building construction tool aspect as well the the other thing that I really like about uh this this guy is that it can run off of either batteries or a power supply which which is always annoying when you have these awesome figures that use like the little coin batteries and stuff like that they always go dead you got to remember to remove them so they don't explode on you so it was a nice touch that you can either do batteries in the base or a separate power supply which was not included but easy to pick up on Amazon or whatever um yeah so the Iron Man Mark III construction version which is a re-release from Hot Toys all right so let's move on to some more toys uh other than Iron Man probably my favorite purchase of the year is this guy uh from Gremlins um in fact all of the other toys are all from NECA they've been like knocking it out of the park for me this year and they have a whole series of Gremlin figures and I cannot recommend them enough they are uh pretty well articulated uh the paint job on these was really well done better than I thought they have uh even some nice articulation like the mouth and the head and the the thing that really pushes it over the edge though is the accessories that come with it like this guy he came with the popcorn bags and the 3D glasses we got a doo-dah bar and um all of the other ones that they've put out as well uh come equally uh fleshed out with really good accessory trees and detailing my only complaint about the Gremlins is they can be a little bit hard to pose so that they stand up on their own because they got such tiny feet but you can do it with a little bit of work so Gremlins from NECA they have uh Gizmo Spike all the other bad guys and like the various different ones like the the trench coat guy uh and um uh Santa version the carolers uh they're they're all out there and available and and I highly recommend them also from NECA we are going to take a look at some of my favorite movie Monsters they've been doing a really nice line of universal uh classic movie monsters and I've picked up the Frankenstein's monster and the mummy so far and not only are they really well detailed and really capture the likeness of of Karloff in both cases here but they uh they are releasing different versions one of which is a full color version as if you were on set and seeing it in person but I picked up the black and white versions which retains you know how you picture them in the films themselves which I really appreciate the fact that they've been doing both versions all of them come with a variety of heads and accessories um I couldn't locate my Frankenstein monster ones but uh The Mummy came with a nice little chest including his uh Revival scroll which is a nice touch and various heads and hands as well and the detailing and paint job and articulations all we all all well done they've been also are selling some accessory kits for both of these and for example you can get a nice sarcophagus set to go along with the Karloff mummy which I have not picked up yet but also looks really well done so yeah so NECA uh monster toys of various films um speaking of films we have a few film related books to to take a look at um let's do this guy first uh any Ghostbusters fans will recognize uh the title of this book The Tobin spirit guide this was actually a gift from my wife for my birthday and it is one of my prized possessions uh now because what she did is she actually bought There's an actual Tobin spirit guide that you can buy online and it is a compendium of monsters creatures ghosts Spooks specters Etc that you would expect from the spirit guide so she bought the actual official uh book release and it already has some kind of nice patina Pages uh looked a little aged and then she further uh dyed them with some coffee to make them look even more old and decrepit she crumpled up the edges a little bit uh she she weathered the uh the book markers and then she sent these to custom leather books Marcia at custom leather books will do custom coverings for all kinds of different things journals whatever and this was a special request for my wife so she built this entire leather cover from scratch which blows my mind um you should check out our site um I think we're going to link to her Instagram and then she has a an actual website too where she has examples of her work and and shows a little bit of how she does it but she will hand carve a little kind of topographical cutouts to do all of the raised items on the book and then this very soft supple letter leather is uh then uh pushed down over top of it and I assume glued in place but she even did detailing like this this copper banding and the rivets at the corner like just I so well done I love this thing so much and like just this textured leather that she used uh all around and um I did do a little additional weathering on it she did some but she didn't know how far to push it but I did a little bit of chemical weathering on the copper banding and a little Fuller's earth and other uh Grime on here and then wiped it off to get it a little grimier but this thing is just I love this so much um and Marsha at custom other books did an amazing job and you should check her out for some of her other work so the custom Tobin spirit guide inside is the regular book outside custom leather all right so let's take a look at this monster uh this is the uh mad dreams and Monsters the work of Phil Tippett and Tippett studio for those not familiar Phil is a legend in the movie industry he is a specialist in stop-motion animation we've done many many different videos with him in the studio over the years which you should totally look up and check out on the on our Channel but Phil did a lot of the stop-motion animation for the original Star Wars so he either created or animated things like the Tauntaun the adats uh the rancor lots of different creatures the chess set which also was redone then for solo as well and then Phil went on to found his own Studio where they worked on they did stop motion for RoboCop such with Ed 209 and in RoboCop 2 with the Kane robots which we have featured many times on tested um and and then recently Phil has uh finally released his his 30-year project Mad God which is a full stop-motion animation movie um that they just released on shutter so uh I've been lucky enough to do some work with the studio uh as well as our other tested contributor Kate savaker um and um just being in the shop the years and years and years of photos and sketches just stuck up on the wall in addition to all of the uh creatures and other uh stuff that is left in the studio I was like you guys need to make a book and they finally did this has put out um by a French Duo who has been mostly known for doing uh documentaries of uh Ray harryhausen other creatures they did one on Phil that has the same title as the book and basically they just took all of this stuff from tippet studio and put it in a gorgeous volume it has great photos it covers everything we have Jurassic Park did which we have covered here before we have Starship Troopers it's like it it's totally worth picking up if you are a fan of Phil's or just creatures and cool stuff in general and it goes a little it goes from everything from the stop motion stuff and and the Practical stuff to Mad God and the more digital stuff and I have to I have to point out that I am in the book I didn't even know that I was in the book but I am in the book because one of the most recent things that Tippett has done is we did stop motion puppets for both the Mandalorian and uh the book of Boba Fett and they have a little blurb in there uh about our work and the uh Walker that we did and also the spider that we did for Boba Fett so mad Gods and Monsters I I mean I'm a little biased I am in the book but it's a really cool collection of everything that we love it here attested and um I'm in it uh Kate sabaker is mentioned many many many times in this book because she's been working on tip of projects for a long time so yes the the Mad dreams and monsters definitely worth checking out all right so finally we'll take a look at a few tools that I have picked up over the last year and have been using a lot um both uh actually kind of model building related uh I I have a pretty decent collection of paints at home and I just I don't do painting as much as actual building stuff so what happens with my paints every time is they separate um and then you're sitting here mixing and shaking them forever and I just can never get them mixed to my satisfaction especially ones with like pigment in it like metallic paints so one of the things that I invested in was this guy which is a vortex mixer and I'm sure model painting veterans will be like well yeah that's what you should have gotten years ago but I I didn't know about them so Vortex mixer um we showed in a little an action when we did the uh the cup noodle Bandai kit build but you simply press the paint down onto the top and it basically will create a little Vortex inside there and really mixes it up thoroughly and this has been a lifesaver for me and I like it uh this has been a lifesaver for me and has been one of my most used tools over the last year so yeah Vortex mixer I've gone through a few different paint mixers and this has been by far the best one uh that I have used I love it so Vortex mixer for paint uh and then another modeling tool that I picked up um that I was actually skeptical about is this little micro sander um I do a lot a lot of the stuff I end up doing is usually kind of small and I do a lot of 3D printing uh particularly resin printing so you get those little tiny support marks that can often be in little hard to reach places and I picked this up on a whim thinking ah it you know maybe it'll work I don't know this has worked far better than I I expected but it's basically just a little micro sander it has various tips that you can Interchange to fit you know whatever uh eye item you're working on and it comes with different grits of sandpaper a little adhesive shapes that go on the various different tips um it has worked far better than I would have expected and it uh it has allowed me to get into little tiny tight spots that would normally be really hard to sand um the only downside that I have to say about this is that uh the the the amount of adhesive uh sheets that it comes with are not very many you can of course buy more they're a little overpriced but I also say that it's easy to make uh your own little shapes the stick on these with some uh adhesive rubber cement atg tape something like that um and it and it's good to go so I have used this quite a lot over the last year and um I I would actually recommend this if you do a lot of modeling or small detail work that you need the sand so the micro sander I think this is a micro Lux we'll put a link in the descriptions but that's just some of the stuff that I've collected over the last year some of my favorite things uh check them out let us know what your favorite things are in the comments and uh happy holidays\n"