Crawley's Creatures: Creating Fey in All Shapes and Sizes
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Last September there were Froudian creatures mingling with the attendees at a new Labyrinth event at West Wycombe Park in Buckinghamshire, England. Guests were able to interact with life-size three-dimensional recreations of some of their favorite characters and props from the film brought shockingly realistically to life. Who made these incredible pieces? many asked. How did they come here? FAE Magazine owner and faerie event creatrix Karen Kay was at the Labyrinth event, and sensed an opportunity. She met the artists, Jim Crawley and Nat Simpson, and asked them if their sculptures could be a part of her Froudian themed event in Glastonbury in March of this year.
Jim and Nat had already started brainstorming how they might recreate the troll witch from the front cover of Brian Froud’s Trolls. A few months later Jim and Nat connected with Karen to solidify their plans, then contacted the Frouds to ask for their blessing on the two new ideas for creations. Approval granted, the work began to create two more beings: the troll witch and a fairy from the margins of the Faeries’ Tales book.
At the Froud-themed event in Glastonbury, the response to their creations was just as overwhelmingly positive. For many of us, it is a dream come true to be able to see our favorite movie moments and paintings brought to life in a way we can touch and interact with. I was recently able to talk with Jim and Nat, and find out more about their fantabulous creations and future plans.
Your work really seemed to burst onto the faerie scene when your statues appeared at the Labyrinth event in summer 2023. Can you tell us a bit about how that happened? Were you longtime fans of Labyrinth and the work of the Frouds? And were the statues you made for Labyrinth your first large-scale figures?
We are both Labyrinth fans and have been fans of the Frouds for over twenty years; collecting many of their books, art work and oracle cards. Nat would often attend Karen Kay’s events in Glastonbury hoping the Frouds would be there, and sometimes they were! Jim happened to come across an advert for the Labyrinth experience and got very excited, purchasing tickets IMMEDIATELY! Soon after, Jim contacted Thames Con as we were drawn to get involved and offer our skills, in whatever capacity that could be! Zay at Thames Con was interested in characters/ props and asked if we could do that. After showing a little portfolio, we said yes. Zay asked which characters could we make, we said ‘which would you like?’ and the characters were born again. The more characters that were made, the more kept wanting to be made and we ended up with 16 characters and 15 sets of moss eyeballs! Apart from an Ewok made from a couple of buckets and a half finished landstrider, these were our first large scale characters.
Please tell us a little about the creation process for one of your large figures. Does that process vary widely or is there the same basic framework and medium to start? What kind of time frame does it take to create one? Do the two of you split the work between fabric arts and sculpting?
The creation process differs from piece to piece, in the case of the Troll Witch, she began life as a head sculpt made from air dry clay, then using the measurements from this, Jim made an A frame type body from wood, foam, and lots of hot glue! After this process was complete, the padding of the body took place, with bandages, foam and wadding. She was then ready to paint and dress. The final stages were the hair, trinkets and Clarence the owl. The Troll Witch was completed over a few months, however, the Labyrinth characters sprang to life over an INTENSE seven to eight weeks! Jim is the sculptor, engineer and painter of the creations and Nat is in charge of hair, fabrics, fur, tails, wings and organising Jim! Our roles switch from time to time depending on the task and the limited time frame.
How does it make you feel when you see people taking photos with your large scale figures? Is that what makes it all worthwhile, or is it the feeling of success after the statue is done, or a bit of all of that?
We feel incredibly emotional and humbled by the response that the public have shown to our creations and very often in complete disbelief! We really love seeing how much it means to people to see their favourite characters brought to life and have been often overwhelmed by the feedback and the comments we’ve received. To us, this is what makes it all worthwhile.
The presence of the characters themselves brings us a tremendous amount of joy; getting to know them, feeling their impatience in getting finished! Getting that last detail finished for completion and sensing the magic that the characters bring as they come to life, is such a wonderful feeling and we are truly lucky to have the opportunity to be a part of their stories.
Photo by Karen Kay
How have you found the welcome of the faerie community to be since you started attending events and immersing yourself online?
The faerie community is really fantastic! Everyone is so supportive and welcoming, not only of us and our work, but of everyone’s work, which is great! We feel grateful to be a part of this magical world.
What was the response of the Frouds when they saw your work at the Labyrinth event? At the Froud themed Karen Kay weekend?
Brian and Wendy were both incredibly busy at the Labyrinth event and we weren’t able to chat with them properly about the characters that weekend, however they were very complimentary in email correspondence on the lead up as they had a few sneak peeks! Toby did meet Sir Didymus on the last day and congratulated us on what we had achieved.
For the Froudian weekend, Brian and Wendy were involved in the process of making the Troll Witch by giving advice and seeing in-progress pictures. Their response when they met her for the first time was a moment we will never forget as they were so complimentary of the accuracy and details that we had achieved. They really LOVED her! And we think the Troll Witch was very pleased to meet them both too.
What are your goals and dreams when it comes to your creative work?
We would love to be able to share our skills, creativity and love of the fae realm with the world. And to spread magic through our work, connecting ourselves and others with the world of the fae. Jim is a published author and illustrator of children’s books in the UK and we would LOVE to develop our own books around the fae world.
It would be a dream of ours to be involved in the film/TV industry, sharing our passions and bringing the realm of fae to others. On a side note, a new studio would be amazing, as our living room is getting a bit full of creatures – especially with a Troll Witch and her owl in the corner of the room!
Can you tell us a little bit about the faerie beings you’re currently bringing to life? What are your inspirations for those? Do they come to you through meditation, imagination, a combination, or something else?
The faeries and beings that are currently being brought to life have shown themselves to us through meditation, visions and our connection to nature. We have felt ourselves connected to the realm of the fae for many years, however since beginning the Troll Witch, this mystical realm has been calling to us louder than ever! Which increased again following our weekend at Karen Kay’s Froudian faery event. Jim’s sketch book has been filling up fast, and the many different characters have been eager to be created into clay form. We are of course hugely inspired by the Froud’s work, but also the work of Paul Kidby, Alan Lee and more recently, Iris Compiet.
Have any of these new fey told you their stories yet?
Yes! The faeries have been speaking very loudly and telling us all sorts of whimsical and wonderful stories. The Troll Sage and his Apprentice have been explaining the intricacies of mushrooms and foraging, whilst the Wandering Troll has been explaining how he enjoys hitchhikers joining him on his journeys but only if they don’t hold onto his ears! The rest of their stories, we are keeping quiet for now but hopefully one day they will end up in a book for the world to hear.
Now that you're working on original fey creatures, can you talk a little about how the experience varies from recreating the work of the Frouds?
When creating our own original characters, the energy behind them is very fast paced and fluid – they all want to be made! When recreating the work of the Frouds, because the pieces mean so much to people and they have been part of people’s lives for such a long time, there is always a certain responsibility that comes with ‘getting it right.’ Jim is a perfectionist for details and with Brian and Wendy’s work, EVERY detail has a story; every line, mark, wrinkle, trinket has meaning and this is so important when bringing the characters from 2d into our 3d world. Our characters explain to us how they want to be made as we go. They evolve and manifest themselves into this world through our hands, although the Troll Witch did make it VERY clear at times how she wanted to look!
Is there anything else you want to cover that I haven't asked?
We are extremely grateful and fortunate to be able to do what we do and to share our love of the fae realm with the world.
Where can we find you?
We are attending Thames Con on June 1st. This is the Never Ending Fantasy Con, with Brian Froud and William Todd-Jones in attendance along with actors from The Neverending Story, Return of the Jedi and more. Our new creature collection will debut there.
We are going to be at Karen Kay’s 3 Wishes Fairy Festival (16th -18th August)
Our website isn’t finished yet but will be soon! – www.crawleyscreatureshop.com
You can also find us on our Instagram accounts:
