This insane, gruesome sculpture brings ‘Doom’ to life

Jason Hite has been in love with Doom since 1993. And in 2004 he decided to create a tribute in the best way he knows how: a wonderfully dark and disturbing sculpture.

It all started when Hite received a miniature figure of the iconic cyberdemon enemy from the game. After he finished painting it, he couldn’t quite stop himself from making something bigger. “I wanted to build an environment for the little evil cyborg,” he says. Since 2004 he’s been collecting circuit boards and Doom figures to add to his piece, a sculpture that looks like a screenshot crossed with a creepy diorama. It even includes a dozen real bullets, soaked in water in the name of safety.

It’s far from just a collection of random objects, though. “I love using found objects,” says Hite, “but I had to make some stuff too.” A 22-inch long demon head, the focal point of the sculpture, was made using urethane resin, as were iconic game elements like the “Doom face” character avatar and the plasma-spewing cacodemon. A young John Romero, one of the original creators of the game, is featured as well — his disembodied head can be found stuck to some circuit board. “This was a strange piece to fabricate,” says Hite, “but I had to do it.”

The sculpture is currently on display in the “Roadside Attractions” exhibit at the Copro Nason Gallery in Santa Monica, California, and you can check it out in person until November 8th. And if you really love it, it’s also available to purchase for a cool $6,000. Hite does plenty of other sculpture work, from gallery pieces to the H.R. Giger inspired stop motion short Stasis, but it seems that he’s eager to venture back into the demonic world of Doom once again. He even has dreams of building a complete level from the game.

“This project was so much fun I didn’t want it to stop,” he says.

Images courtesy Hite Studios.