Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Daniel D. Brown PhD, 2021

“Spider-Man: Miles Morales” is finally complete! Over 250 pieces of wood from 5 species, hand-cut on scrollsaw. No paints or stains – only natural wood colors (except the web). Built from bloodwood, wenge, walnut, purpleheart, and holly. The web was cut from high-density polyethylene (HDPE).

This piece is based on the final shot in the @insomniacgames Miles Morales game (it’s amazing!), which I screen-grabbed myself many months back. The moment I saw it I thought it would make a great wooden piece, though it took a while to convince myself I could pull it off. I initially intended to include a background with Peter’s version of Spidey swinging behind him as well. But once I realized how complex and time-consuming Miles would be, I decided on a solo no-background piece. This work took almost a full month to complete. Ihave no idea how many hours total, but it was in the many dozens. Obviously I took some artistic liberties with the suit; I really wanted to include some purpleheart.

I made the blurred New York street background just for fun, from an in-focus photo from the Wikipedia entry on William Street in Manhattan (credit “MusikAnimal” Creative Commons license 4.0)

Captain Link Skywalker, Daniel D. Brown PhD, 2021

One day I thought “hey I should mashup a few of my favorite geek franchises” to go in my geek lair.
That’s pretty much the whole deal here. Link from the Legend of Zelda, Captain America shield to represent the Avengers (I could have gone with several options but I didn’t want to clutter it, and a shield fit perfectly), and then of course a lightsaber for Star Wars in place of the Master Sword.
Yes the blade should blue with that hilt. But the green light looks better. Eat it, nerds (@cyclocrosscutter).
This is a hybrid of using natural wood colors (bloodwood and holly shield, African stinkwood harness, walnut boots, holly pants and shirt, maple face, mulberry hair, yellowheart buckles and shirt) and alcohol dyes (the blue, green, and red highlights). Link’s tunic needed to be a vibrant green and the shield needed the blue – natural wood just wouldn’t do. The dyed wood is ash or maple.

Boba Fett, Daniel D. Brown, Ph.D., 2020

“Boba Fett”, Daniel D. Brown, Ph.D., 2020

Boba Fett is complete! It only took ~6 weeks!
When I started this thing, I had no idea Boba would suddenly become big news again (no spoilers, aside from the fact Fett is back, which I think is safe since they’ve announced “The Story of Boba Fett” series). I had just read a really cool panel by @john_cassaday in Marvel Star Wars (2015) and instantly decided it would make for a cool wooden intarsia piece.

I wanted more “comicy” colors in this piece than I can get with natural wood grains, so I dyed the pieces with alcohol dyes. All 270 (!) pieces were cut on scrollsaw from a single storm-felled sycamore branch I picked up nearby.

Note: You can see the entire creation of this piece HERE in my Instagram story highlight.

Boba Fett, Daniel D. Brown, Ph.D., 2020