LAURELVILLE — A Hocking County man will appear in a new reality online television show next week on the streaming platform Disney+.
Dustin Weatherby, originally of Bellefontaine, Ohio and now living in Laurelville with his wife Raven, competed on Disney+’s new reality competition show, “Foodtastic.” Episodes premiere on the streaming service next week.
Hosted by Keke Palmer, “Foodtastic” is an international competition series in which teams of artists create Disney-inspired scene works entirely out of food, according to a press release.
Weatherby works as a sculptor and plant-based health coach. He’s worked in a variety of sculpting mediums, he said. Along with his passion for health and food, the show seemed to marry his two professional interests.
“I basically tell people that I can make anything out of anything,” Weatherby explained. “My primary materials that I use is wood, as in like wood carving. I do a lot of steel fabrication work. I’ve built animatronics for haunted houses and theme parks.”
Weatherby is also a professional ice sculptor and pumpkin carver, he said. On “Foodtastic,” he competed in a team of three, the “Sculptinators,” with Elaine Li, a funnel cake chef from Columbus, and Oba Rhodes Jordan, a fellow pumpkin carver and food sculptor from Hamilton.
“Foodtastic” isn’t Weatherby’s first time in reality TV production. He also appeared on the 2008 History channel show “Surviving History,” where he and others created “torture devices and weapons from the Spanish Inquisition and medieval times,” he said.
“I do like participating (in TV) because I’ve been doing carving demonstrations for years, like (wood) carvings and ice carvings and pumpkin carvings,” Weatherby said. “And I also do demonstrations at different events.”
As for local business, Weatherby said he and his wife are working to open an eponymous Hocking Hills short-term rental, themed around art, nature and nutrition, called Ravens Retreat.
“We really found a focus on (mental health) as well as physical well-being,” Weatherby said. “Mental health services are as much, if not more important, than physical health. So we’re trying to kind of include all of them in a systematic way to help people better their overall fitness.”
Raven has three medical degrees, including a nursing degree, Weatherby said. The retreat aims to teach people about healthy living from head-to-toe, even beginning with choices made at the grocery store, he said.
The couple is also working to supply plant-based pizza toppings at a restaurant in Laurelville, he added. They also are enthusiastic practitioners of mixed martial arts (MMA), he said.
Weatherby is eagerly awaiting the premiere of “Foodtastic,” he said, though he couldn’t yet share the results and details of the program. He enjoyed appearing on the program, which was filmed in Los Angeles, and meeting fellow artists.
“It was really interesting because there were a lot of very talented artists on the show from different backgrounds,” Weatherby said. “I came into the team with a knowledge of a lot of different materials, steel and wood and engineering as well. We have like a really solid team for the show.”
Weatherby’s episode will be Star Wars-themed, where ‘“Foodtastic” food artists help a Rebel mechanic defeat the Galactic Empire,’ a Disney+ representative said in an email.