How I Make Handmade Fantasy Football Trophies: From Clay to Champion

 

When I tell people I have a business where I make fantasy football trophies by hand, I usually get the same reaction.

First comes the confused look.

Then comes the question:

"Wait...how do you do that?"

Or some variation of it.

And honestly, I get it.

It's not exactly what people expect to hear from a guy living in Brooklyn, New York. Or probably anywhere else, for that matter.

Most people don't wake up and think, I wonder who makes handmade fantasy football trophies.

But here we are.

So, how do I actually do it?

It starts with a model.

For all of the trophies you've seen on FantasyTrophies.com, that model has been my cousin Johnny. I take a bunch of photographs, make some preliminary sketches, and then start the fun part: sculpting.

I take a block of clay and slowly start turning it into the figure you eventually see on one of my trophies.

It's not exactly like drafting a fantasy team. There's no waiver wire and no trade deadline. You can't just hit "undo" when you screw something up.

The sculpture has to be built and sculpted by hand.  No IA here.  

Once I'm happy with the finished sculpture, I make a mold of it. That allows me to cast multiple copies of the trophy while keeping each one consistent.

After all, I can't spend a month sculpting every single trophy individually.

Even fantasy football commissioners wouldn't have the patience for that.

Once the sculpture comes out of the mold, the finishing process begins.

And there's always some cleanup involved. The molding and casting process can leave little imperfections that need to be removed or corrected. I go over the piece, clean it up, make sure everything looks right, and then give it its finish.

The Bronze Look

One of the things I wanted from the very beginning was for my trophies to have the look and feel of something important.

Think about the Heisman Trophy.

It's actual bronze, and it has that incredible presence that makes it feel like something worth fighting for.

That's the feeling I wanted for my trophies.

Now, before anyone asks, yes, I considered making them out of actual bronze.

And then I considered the price.

That's where I drew the line.

Actual bronze would make these trophies a whole lot more expensive than I think most fantasy football leagues are willing to pay.

So I developed a bronze finish that gives the trophies the look I wanted without requiring the league champion to take out a second mortgage.

Then Comes the Base

Once the sculpture is finished, I turn my attention to the base.

And I wasn't about to put a piece of artwork on some cheap piece of particle board that looks like it came from the clearance section of a trophy shop.

Not my trophies.

Every base I make is constructed from solid oak.

I build the base, sand it smooth, and then give it a satin polyurethane finish. The goal is for the base to look as good as the sculpture sitting on top of it.

Then comes the final assembly.

And...

Voila.

It's done.

At least, that's the quick version.

Because when I write it all down, it probably sounds pretty simple.

It isn't.

There are plenty of challenges along the way. Sculpting the original figure takes time. Getting the mold right matters. Casting can create its own headaches. Finishing the sculpture takes patience. And getting that solid oak base just right is another process entirely.

The good news is that I've been doing this for more than 30 years.

So at this point, I kind of know what I'm doing.

At least that's what I tell myself.

Why I Do It

The funny thing is that after I finish explaining all of this to someone who asked what I do for a living, I usually get an even more perplexed look than I started with.

And I wouldn't have it any other way.

Because there's something pretty cool about taking a lump of clay, turning it into a sculpture, and eventually seeing it sitting on someone's mantle with the names of fantasy football champions engraved on it.

These aren't trophies that came off an assembly line.

They're designed, sculpted, cast, finished, and assembled by hand.

And after 30-plus years of doing this, I still get a kick out of knowing that something I made is sitting in a fantasy football league somewhere, waiting for the next champion to get his name on it.

That's a pretty good way to make a living.

— Dave