It's real... and all designed and built by Monster City Studios of Fresno, CA. All photos, Craig Kohlruss Photography Monster City Studios has built some MASSIVE and AMAZING themed environments. One of them is our "Temple of Vroom" man cave. For this job, Craig Kohlruss of Craig Kohlruss Photography - CraigKohlruss.com was hired to document the build. Here's an except from his blog: "I’ve been working with Monster City Studios for a little while now documenting a project the

Cosplay props are taking over. Wearable art. Take a look... Death Knight - World of Warcraft - Photo by CosPortraits.com Over the past few years, a word has entered the everyday lexicon of just about anyone under the age of 40. COSPLAY. What's it all about? It's simple, it's all about dressing up like your favorite character and acting like them. You hear about it a lot as it seems like any 'CON' that's held anywhere is filled with COSPLAYERS. I remember going to Comicon abou

Such a large part of what we do here at Monster City involves sculptures and sculpting. We've made pieces from foam, fiberglass, concrete, wood, urethane, acrylic, epoxy, lexan... the list goes on. Most of the character sculpts we produce either start in clay or in the computer. Of those two, the computer & technology usually trumps the old "hands on" method. It's not that we don't love hand sculpting, we certainly do, but in a production shop, speed is usually king. However,

Video - Laser scanning a sculpted clay knight here at Monster City Studios. One of the biggest challenges in creating the real world in duplicate is the problem with taking a physical, live object and capturing it digitally so it can be manipulated in a computer. Over the past 10 years, it's gotten easier and easier to capture 3D data of a real object, import it into a PC or MAC, modify it and then output it in another form. Some captures stay digital, such as in video games

Theming is everywhere. Whenever you want to engage an audience, one of the most effective ways is physical 3D theming. What the heck is theming you may ask? Good question. A lot of times you may be surrounded by it and don't even know it. Many will immediately point to Disneyland or the Universal Theme Parks. Obviously these places are themed meccas and pretty much everything you see in these parks are covered in layers of theming. Characters, rides, buildings and event the w