[Plastic Cell is a company run by four brothers who hand make and hand paint miniature sculptures. Their previous pain-stakingly-detailed figures include Tupac, Hellboy, Dr. Doom, and Batman—all which were made in limited quantities. We heard they were creating some Conor McGregors (not avaiable for purchase), so we reached out to sculptor Phuong Tran to ask him about the production process and the decision to include the nearly famous Irish mixed martial artist in their lineup of pop icons.]

I collaborated with my brother Danny on this sculpture because he has the steady hands to paint Conor's “low key” tattoos. With this sculpture, I wanted to capture Conor's calmness by putting him in a neutral pose. At the same time I wanted to make him look vicious and ready to throw down on a second’s notice. I did this by lowering his eyebrows and giving him those dead eyes. Those eyes that let people know his opponent does not matter.

After about a week of sculpting, I mold and cast the sculpture with a high quality resin to make it more durable. From there my brother gave it a couple layers of primer before he start painting. He spent hours studying Conor's tattoos before picking up a brush and hand-painting them.

At first, I thought the tattoos Conor got were ridiculous but it grew on me the more I look at it. It's a challenge to paint on small surfaces, but my brother got all the fine details down and it looks perfect. He even got Dethrone's fighting Irish logo and the phrase "slow is smooth, smooth is fast" on his forearm. We finalized this piece by sealing it with a matte protective layer to keep the paint from fading and easily scratch.

Ever since it was announced that Aldo vs. McGregor would headline UFC 189, as fans of the sport we couldn't wait for the fight and was inspired to sculpt these two. When the news leaked that Aldo had suffered a fracture rib we were disappointed that this epic fight might not happen.

After days speculation, the UFC confirmed that Aldo was out and replacing him was Chad Mendes. At this point we were glad that McGregor was still willing to fight no matter who the opponent was. In a recent article, when his coach John Kavanagh told him that it could be Mendes instead he opened one eye and said "they're all the same" and went back to sleep. Reading that statement from his coach inspired me to continuing sculpting McGregor even though Aldo was out. Despite not being the champion, he was the reason why people are putting their kids up for sale to get a plane ticket to Vegas. We are just as hype to see him match up with Chad Mendes this weekend.

See more of Phuong and Danny's work on the Plastic Cell website.

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