16
Jun
TUMS Commercial Costumes Custom Display Mannequins
Three custom mannequins made as displays for the TUMS commercial costumes.
We were contacted by TUMS’ parent company looking to display three of the TUMS commercial costumes at their corporate offices. The amazing giant Meatball, Taco and Chicken suits were created by our friends at Alterian, Inc. The suits arrived to us in wonderful condition and we were amazed by the details put in by Tony Gardner and his team. Once the Tums folks saw what a hit the commercials were they decided they wanted to display them in their corporate offices and that’s where TSD came in.
With each costume being such a strange shape dressing the mannequins presented us with unique challenges that didn’t exist when a person wore the costumes. A real person has the ability bend and twist in ways that a mannequin never could. This meant that each display was treated as a completely separate project. Whenever possible we endeavor to display pieces like these in such a way that leaves the original costume completely intact. For these television prop costumes, it meant using different types of supports for each mannequin that worked with the preexisting openings. We also added properly colored morph suits to the mannequins of the meatball and the taco so they looked more like the characters originally looked in the commercials.
We then created custom bases for the costumes. For the chicken and taco we chose a larger than life TUMS tablet. The tablets were hand carved from EPS foam, then hard coated and painted the subtly speckled pastel color of a TUMS tablet. For the meatball we decided to take inspiration from the commercial where it was jumping off of a table in the middle of an Italian restaurant!
Want to turn your original movie costume into a life-sized statue or museum display? Email or call today and let’s discuss your project!
Want to learn more about Rick Baker’s 40-plus-year journey as a special makeup effects artist?
