Making Lionel Richie's clay head from the video "Hello"

Offices tend to have their own set of weird quirks and inside jokes often formed out of hilarious shared experiences. Instructables is no exception. Our founder, Eric, is a health fanatic and that’s definitely rubbed off on the office. We often spend lunchtime talking about Jack Lalanne, juicing veggies and pulling 100 tug boats through water with our teeth.

(There was also a pull up competition on my first day at the office.)

Recently, our office chatter has taken a turn from fitness talk to Lionel Richie’s video for the chart topping 1984 hit, “Hello”.

If you’re unfamiliar with the song, it comes out of the great ’80s “stalker genre” of song (ie: Every Breath You Take by The Police). The song is undeniably awesome. The video, however, is incredibly cheesy and slightly creepy, taking us through the life of a professor, played by Lionel, that is secretly in love with a blind student, Laura.

Lionel calls her up, singing his love on the phone, only to hang up mid sentence. He sings behind her in the cafeteria as she’s eating lunch, follows her into a dance class to serenade her, and so on. Eventually we learn that the love between Lionel and Laura is mutual, for she sculpts his head out of clay and reveals it to him by saying, “This is how I see you”.

This video has caused so much hilarity in the office that all kinds of “Hello” pranks have ensued. One morning I came into the office to find this on my desk (courtesy of my work wife, Angie):

I knew I needed to one up Angie, and with Lionel as my inspiration, Jonathan and I decided to build the clay sculpture of Lionel’s head.

This was not an easy process. Considering neither one of us knows how to sculpt, I immediately took to the internet to see if anyone else had sculpted Lionel’s head. I did come across this unbelievably hilarious tutorial by Ted Fines. Ted, also a n00b when it comes to sculpting came up with this:

Photo by Ted Fines

As you can imagine, that left me pretty concerned.

I was down, but not out. Determined to find a way to sculpt Lionel’s head, I stumbled upon the story of a bunch of art students in the UK, which undertook “The Hello Experiment”. They actually sculpted Lionel’s head blindfolded:

With renewed inspiration, I crafted my plan. We went to the local weave and extension emporium in the heart of the Tenderloin and bought a foam head. Next, we purchased a bunch of air dry clay and a variety of clay molding tools. Mind you, I had no idea what to do with this tools, but I felt they would add more authenticity to my newfound life as a sculpter of creepy celebrity busts. (For the full set of instructions on how to make your own Lionel Richie clay head from “Hello”, check out my Instructable.)

We decided to mold the clay around the foam head so to have a bust that was, at the very least, anatomically correct. Next, while carefully pouring over an image of the original clay head from “Hello” we began to sculpt. The whole process took about two hours, and in the end we had our very own Lionel “Hello” head:

The happy couple

Once dry, I carefully packed up Lionel’s head and plotted how to get it onto Angie’s desk without her noticing. When she went out to grab coffee, I placed Lionel on her desk and waited for her return. This is what happened when she came back and found Lionel:

So good, so sweet, so Lionel.