Jesse Farrell is a longtime DC in the 80s reader (back from our tumblr days) and an artist who lives in Massachusetts. He chose to sculpt the Sandman Mystery Theatre Vertigo version of Wesley Dodds Sandman, as Jesse is a fan of the series and he liked the low-rent Shadow aesthetic of the character. Jesse says that he was inspired by Guy Davis’ interpretation of the character, as well as the rotund, overcoat-wearing protagonist of a Moebius story, To See Naples.
This piece was sculpted with a gray mix of Super-Sculpey and Sculpey III over an aluminum armature, molded in Smooth-On Oomoo 30, cast in Smooth-Cast 300, primed and painted with acrylic paints and accented with chalk and pastels. The finished piece stands about 7″ high.
I realize that Sandman Mystery Theatre ran from 1993 to 1999, and we are really pushing the boundaries for what we are considering an 80s webzine - but consider that Wesley Dodds Sandman was a recurring character in 1981's All-Star Squadron on-going series. The Wesley Dodds Sandman (as seen in the Vertigo series) is a pudgy, nonathletic, homely amateur detective - which is a HUGE departure from the sharp, handsome, millionaire playboy as portrayed during the Golden Age (and - if the continuity stayed intact - throughout the 80s as well). The Vertigo series gave him quite an overhaul and even went so far as to connect him to Neil Gaiman's Sandman.
At the beginning of the Vertigo series, Wesley Dodds wears a gas mask with a slightly longer/bigger filter cartridge canister. It's closer to the end of the series that Sandman starts wearing the shorter filter cartridges. As seen in the issue covers below:
Jesse Farrell has a lot of other fine sculpts (which you can see here and here), and will even create commission pieces. Thanks for sharing this with us, Jesse.
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