Figure maker
Bill Nelson
A professional illustrator who sculpts figures in clay and casts them one at a time, so no two exist.
Nelson works in Virginia and is a professional illustrator as well as a figure maker, with work published in The Wall Street Journal and Playboy. Jimmy Vee's first-hand record has him living; a NIADA profile records his election in 1991. His studio website is now parked, which says nothing about him.
His method is unusual and worth stating precisely, because he confirmed it himself when shown the figure here. He sculpted in clay and had the heads cast in fiberglass without making molds, so every figure is one of a kind. The early figures were signed on the back of the neck, had a flat-bottomed neck and used drop-through bodies, and the jaw was the only movement — the mechanics were subcontracted to someone in Richmond. He painted in oils.
He identified this figure as quite possibly his first, finding a photograph in his own archive of his Richmond workshop with it visible in the foreground at the sculpting stage. He dates it to late 1970 or early 1980 and could not narrow it further.
He later created Mr Horowitz in partnership with Chuck Jackson.
Status Living recorded first-hand by Jimmy Vee, which outranks any web source — maker websites in this field routinely outlive the maker
- Trained by Bob McKinley (via the book Dollmaking)
The figures
9 photographs across 1 cataloged object. Each object is one entry in the register — where a character name covers two physical figures, they stay two entries, because the character outlives the object more often than the record admits.
Possibly Number One 9 photographs
- Materials
- fiberglass
- Dates given
- 1970; 1980
Recorded owner Ventriloquist Central Collection as stated on the source page when it was written — not current ownership
