Army Men Doing Yoga

Chris in Home & Design

9/19/14

[updated: 1/5/21]

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Yoga fan [and, ahem, ManMade reader] Dan Abramson created Yoga Joes, a re-imagining of iconic little green army men who’ve traded their battle poses for yoga positions. You know, like “Drop and give me 20 dogs. Downward-facing dogs.”

We asked Dan a little more about his conception and what it took to bring these guys to life. He began because he really wanted to “to get more dudes into yoga, because yoga is often assumed to be a [feminine] sport. This belief is false – yoga is macho as hell. Plus I wanted to get more army folks to give yoga a shot. A number of studies are indicating that is reducing the symptoms of PTSD.” Wink.

The initial design and sculpting process took about a year to execute perfectly. Dan says, “The design process was as scientific as it was efficient – in that it was one fail after another for about a year. The rhythm of the game was fail, fail, pivot.”

“First I sliced up green army men, then melted them into yoga poses with a heat gun. But they looked pretty Frankenstein-y. So I took a 3D scanning class, to scan existing army men, but I couldn’t really get a precise scan, only blobs. I then taught myself some simple 3D Design software, and 3D printed them with a resin.”

“I then worked with my yoga instructor, Stephanie, to make sure the yoga positions were just right. It was a challenge to say the least, but it was a project I just had to finish.”