Continued from Part One

It takes a lot of work to go from a pile of parts cocooned in printing supports to clean pieces ready for paint, mostly in the form of sanding with successively finer grits of hobby sandpaper. After much elbow grease I was able to assemble two complete figures, and it is always such a relief to get to this point and see the thing you’ve only known on screen or in pieces finally stand on its own two legs, literally.

Next I put everything in baggies of soapy water and use an ultrasonic jewelry cleaner to remove all the dust.

Once clean, it’s on to priming. It actually takes kind of a while to keep assembling and disassembling the whole figure, but to me it’s emotionally worth it to see things how things are coming together. I liked how the primed version looked so much I took proper photos with my real camera. Afterwards they need to be taken apart again and placed on individual holders so the right colors can be applied with airbrush.

Masking is the least fun part of all. If I were to do this again I would split the pieces in such a way to minimize the need to keep painting, masking, and repainting, but I got through it okay in the end. It just takes SO LONG to apply the mask and then remove it bit by bit. After airbrushing comes brush painting by hand— mostly reserved for the monkey head’s eyes and smaller details.

I can hear Wendy Wang’s soundtrack in this photo

Finally… assembly! The main pieces are reinforced with brass rods. Always something of a nerve-wracking experience with how unforgiving glue can be. It feels like the end of the LOTR books— you think it’s smooth sailing once they get back to the Shire, but all sorts of last minute, potentially fatal scares keep popping up.

This video is me attaching the very last part and completing both figures! I took some proper photos for my own records, as I imagine I’ll never see these pieces ever again. From what I hear they are in secret Disney storage somewhere, so I’m happy I have these images.

This was such a remarkable project that even sending them to the studio was fun. I made a fitted foam sarcophagus to keep them safe in transit, and when I took it to Fedex, the employee there asked what’s in the box. He saw the LA address and I told him it was a TV show prop, so he congratulated me and said he’d subscribe to watch once it was released.

This was February 17- barely a month since we began talking. I might write more about the SXSW premiere and the CAAMFest screening later, but if so I’ll save it for another day. Today is May 23, 2023, a day before “American Born Chinese” begins streaming, and I’m just looking forward to watching the show in its entirety.

I will forever be grateful for Gene, Kelvin, Destin, Erin, and everyone else who I worked with who invited me on this adventure. My family journeyed here to California in 1993, and it’s frankly unbelievable that something I made could be a part of all this. Thanks for reading, and, as Kelvin has said before, I hope you enjoy the show.

5-23-2023

Journey To The West— Part Two

Dennis Chan