Rusty Gibbs

This is a side project we made to be entered into the Signs of the Times 2020 sign competition at the International Sign Association sign expo in Orlando, Florida. Unfortunately the stressful rush to complete the project was in vain because coronavirus canceled the sign expo (but has since been rescheduled to August).

Leading up to the completion date we were pleasantly surprised to have been featured on the cover of Signs of the Times magazine as well as a featured article inside a prior edition! To us, that made it all worth it.

This year’s competition theme was “Less is More” and our creative interpretation of that, which we call “Lizard G”, depicts a cyborg lizard holding a giant G. Inside the G is our team/employees doing what we do best, making cool art! Our current company goal is to do “less” of the boring work and “more” of the custom 3D sign work.

Rusty and Amanda co-conceptualized the piece shortly after attending the 2019 ISA sign expo in Las Vegas where they were inspired by sign competition contestants including co-founders Dan Sawatzky and Jim Dawson.

In our piece you’ll find many of the different materials and techniques we like to work with including: cnc carved wood (black locust), laser engraved wood (cedar), steel, acrylic, sculpting epoxy, layered plywood and more.

The G is made up of nine layers of plywood cut on our cnc router and glued together to make it 6.5″ thick. The G is 27″ tall. After hours of sanding it was ready to be primed and painted. But first we added some Coastal Enterprise’s TSF-45 to create some texture and interest.

The wood base is hollow and holds an electric motor attached to a shaft with bearings that connects to the bottom of the G with a welded plate. Internal LEDs illuminate the 1/2″ thick acrylic.

The cyborg lizard (a nod to our 7 year old son who loves lizards) has a welded interior structure and a hand sculpted 2-part sculpting epoxy outer skin (scales). It was fun tearing apart old machines to gather some interesting parts (wires, gears, computer chips) to add to the lizard’s cyborg body. 

One side of the G is layered with 1/2″ thick acrylic and 1/8″ thick steel inlaid into a plywood border. A small scene depicts a worker laying mortar on a base of mesh and plywood. The other side represents the workings of our Gibbs Graphics shop and depicts a scene of people constructing and decorating the G. Each figure was hand sculpted and then hand painted.

 All in all this pieces has close to 200 hours into it. It’s home will be in our office for customers to see. Enjoy the following photos and video. Thanks for looking!