For the past year, we have been getting to know the team at Skunkworks; they are veterans who are well-known within the community and dedicated to producing only the best work. Founded by the ever-talented Paul Thornton, they have been a community cornerstone for almost 2 decades, most notably as the supplier of some of the most accurate Darth Vader Helmets & Armour on the market, among several other spectacular pieces over the years; we discovered we are both aligned in our vision to bring props to the community where quality & customer service is the prime concern, with their tagline:
“Heirloom quality prop replicas and pop culture art. Hand-crafted by fans. For fans”
Over the months, it became immediately clear that we could go further than just a casual alliance, and so we are proud to announce today that the Skunkworks team is joining us here at Orbital FX & JJ Industries HQ to forge a new path together.
Beginning today, most all items available on the Skunkworks webstore have been migrated to JJ Industries webstore; we have feverishly been planning & working in the background over the last months to migrate all of the team's equipment, materials and tools into our workshop, for the time being, the existing Skunkworks webstore will remain active to service existing orders and serve as a gallery of work with transactions taking place over on the JJ Industries Webstore.
Why? You may ask, it’s no secret the last years have been more challenging for creative makers throughout the world, and simply put, merging forces increases our capability as a group more than the sum of its parts while keeping a unified overhead results in lower operating costs so we can both keep doing what we love for longer, with Orbital FX’s Rising work within the Film & TV Sector it’s also an opportunity to offer more comprehensive services into productions.
We are committed to supporting Skunkworks customers and their community, the Skunkworks Social media account will still be actively updated but you can expect over time some overlap and unification to the JJ Industries Social platforms.
“Paul’s reputation & quality work has always been a shining example of what dedication and passion can achieve & trust people put in skunkworks and their work, we are so happy to welcome them into JJ Industries team as I sense there is no real limit to the creative projects we will work on over the coming months, we have so many complementary skills and processes it for me is a wonderful marriage of skilled practical and engineering skill sets under one roof”
- Luke Daley, Orbital FX & JJ Industries
“working on replica props for the collector/cosplay side is fantastic, and then to contribute to original props and custom projects with Orbital FX is such a bonus. Can’t wait to get going!”
- Paul Thornton, Skunkworks Props
We've set up a custom area to view the Skunkworks catalogue over on our webstore: https://store.jjindustries.co.uk/pages/skunkworks-props