About Me

I am a professional graphic designer and right now I am moon lighting as a toy customizer. Every waking minute outside of work I commit to painting and sculpting custom toys.

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Rabies


This is the movie I went to see last night and it was really good. I really don't mind movies in sub-titles though this was the first film I'd ever seen in Hebrew. It was really gory and the plot and script were unexpected and fresh. Had a good amount of humor in it as well... not in the form of jokes but more in the situations the characters get into and a whole string of bad luck for them all. If you get a chance to see it you should check it out.


Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Ex-Lives

Every Time I Die is from my home town of Buffalo NY and they fucking shred. Their new record comes out next week. I still see these guys every chance I can.


Get it here if you're so inclined.

or at least listen to it here

Weekend Update

Sorry for the lack of updates over the last week and even missing my normal Monday post. Yesterday was a sprint to try and finish my Biker Munny for the PBR show here in town and I got it there with like 30 mins to spare. It was the only 3D piece in the show and most of the people there had never seen a custom toy before. It's cool to reach new people, but the coolness of the piece was probably a bit lost on those who have no reference.

So we were supposed to get our internet on Friday and we got the self install box from ATT. I spent the whole night trying to set that bitch up so I could watch Stargate on Netflix and never got it to work. Spent an hour on the phone with tech support, then Amanda spent another hour on Sat and nothing got accomplished. We ended up saying Fuck It and called Comcast and sent the ATT shit back. ATT can suck it. Sprint can Suck it too for putting a limit on the Hot Spot when all they're commercials say they're the only unlimited service. I had been running the internet off my phone but with their new policy I was going over the limit by about 1500 bucks a month. Stupid.

So I didn't get any work done Friday other than cleaning and coating my screens for printing on Saturday. I got up early Saturday and got to printing. I had to get the prints to the venue by 5 ish and I had to do everything still. I printed the stencils, burned the screens with 1 failed burn, printed both colors and signed all 20 and got them there by 5:15. I think they turned out pretty great for a print from design to completion in 4 days. The next show is in late March and Graveyard is hosting another art show with a movie theme so I will probably be doing a screen print for that too.

After dropping off the prints I had to go to a party for our friends new puppy so the rest of Saturday night was shot. Worked all day Sunday on the biker Munny. Had to take a break to go to my soccer game and I scored my first goal in almost 3 seasons. As a defender I spend most of the game marking so I just don't get that many shots but I was playing high pressure and picked off a pass practically in front of the goal and still almost screwed it up. We did win 9-1. Was up til 4 AM Sunday night and only went to bed because my damn paint wasn't dry. Finished everything else up between lunch and 5 – 7:30 after work and drove the piece over ASAP. Hung out there for a while and spent the rest of the night working on Strider and the Chinese Warrior. Going to see a movie that's part of the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival tonight ( we do design for them so we get free tickets ) that is a slasher film in Hebrew called Rabies, but I should get a few hours in the studio before and after. I hope to finish several pieces this week.















Monday, February 20, 2012

Weekend Update

Going all the way back to last Thursday I had a pretty busy and productive week. Thursday Amanda and I went to The High Museum for the Kaws opening "Down Time." It was really great. I went to the lecture with Kaws and heard him speak and had a chance to say hi and get my Kaws book signed and doodled in the gallery during the short period of time he was there. Friday Amanda and I went to this big industry event through my job called " The Next Cool Event." The name is lame but the party is pretty cool. Amanda was looking hot and I got to wear a tie for the first time in ages. Saturday we ran a bunch of errands picking up supplies, grocery shopping, we got another one of the new Polaroid cameras for people to use when we're in Hawaii, and we went to the Youngblood gallery to see this woman who retro fitted a truck with a letter press. She's been traveling around the country doing demonstrations. It was pretty rad. AND..I worked on a bunch of stuff. I actually feel like I made some headway with a few projects this weekend.

• Still working on the 3 Storms weapons....uggggh
• Finally finished sculpting Medusa and started painting
• Nearly finished the Burmese Jaws head
• Started the Strider Mini-Munny
• Started Perseus
• Started the Chinese Warrior
• Nearly finished my MW3 vector
• Got a much needed dry erase board for my studio
• Started the 3" Gundam samurai

And a last minute thing I stumbled upon today is a PBR art contest that ends next Monday hosted at this bar named Graveyard that has a concert venue downstairs that I've targeted as a potential place to start doing gig posters for...SOOOO, I am gonna whip up a PBR Biker for the contest and see if I can leverage myself in for the kill. Some pics.


I don't know this dude, he was just up when I was taking pics.


Still a little refining to do.










And the design comes full circle. This is the drawing of my MW3 design based on the photograph of the finished proto based on the original vector design. I always like it better when it's in actual perspective.



Thursday, February 16, 2012

Sneak Peeks!!!

Been busy all week as usual and I have some pretty juicy pics to reveal today... the first glimpse at my completed MW3 Dunny. She's come a a long way since the proto that I painted a month or so ago, and it's about time. I'm one of the artists dragging the series at this point so I'm glad I have 1 done so I can move on to the production of the other 7. That's right, there will only be a total of 8 of my Dunny's in the series, but don't anticipate huge numbers for anyone. There are more artists, less numbers, and less to go around in general.

So with no more delays, I present to you...

Arrrr Manda




Here you can see the finished product with my original proto. I like how her face is higher up on the figure and I think the body has much more character than the proto.


Process shots of Medusa coming along. With the elaborate sculpting on the head and the snake body she is proving to be quite an undertaking. I look forward to the work I'll have to put in on The Kraken 8"



And some studio shots. My shit is a goddamn mess right now, but when is it not. I clearly need to take out my garbage, and you can see several of the things I'm working on right now. Alot to do and alot to look forward to. Sometimes it's overwhelming thinking about all the projects I have lined up but once I get it all done and look back... I get quite a feeling of satisfaction knowing there is so much of my work in the world...and only more to come.




Monday, February 13, 2012

Weekend Update

I had a pretty productive weekend again. I always relish the weekend because I get to sit at home and work most of it, and get to hang out with Amanda at the same time. I was finally able to put in some significant time working on the Jaws sculpt that I've had in the works for over a year, I worked on Medusa andI worked on my first painted final of my MW3 Dunny which is coming along nicely and is almost finished. I also went to Costco for the very first time. That place is humongous. I piked up a copy of Drive on DVD to go with my newly acquired Mondo poster. Amanda bought me a new pair of Polo sunglasses for Valentines Day. I went to the High Museum of Art to try and catch Kaws doing his live painting that was supposed to go the whole week and it turned out he finished it in like 2 days...so it was already done. But I did get to see that and the triptych that was installed in the main atrium. It is amazing. The colors are so vibrant and it almost reminds me of a modernized Cubist painting. I love it. Went to Barnes and Noble and bought a new guide book on Hawaii so Amanda and I can best plan our honeymoon which I hope will be a bit of an unplanned adventure... but I'm not sure how on board Amanda is with that. We won our soccer game against one of the top teams in the league, and we had lunch at Mellow Mushroom which makes some of the best pizza in Atlanta.

I want this cat sculpt to me reminiscent of the Coarse sculpts so it is a bit exaggerated. Still some work to be done but I am very pleased so far.











Still have the face to do and alot of detail, as well as the inner figure.





Tuesday, February 7, 2012

First Glimpse at Junior

All of my Most Wanted 3 Dunny's are molded and magnets have been inserted. I got a re-up on magnets last night and got N48 strength this time which is near the highest so these little guys are pretty strong. The scale, which I have no idea how it's measured, goes up to N52, and I couldn't find any in the 1/4" X 1/16" discs that I needed. Now that the vessel is completed I made the mold of the inner Dunny last night and pulled the first 2. The ears didn't get fully formed on the first pull. I'm guessing since they're so small that there was no room for the air to escape. Before I did the 2nd pull, I made some vents at the bottom of the ears. I used my awl  and drove a hole from the ear to the outside. After stripping a length of wire, I pulled the wire out, and used the casing as a tiny little straw. These vents went straight down so when I poured the resin it DID start to drip out the vents, but it cures so fast that it leaks for a few seconds and then stops, and WULAH — I pulled the first successful Mini-Dunny Zipper pull. I've got 9 more to do.



I also pulled the first of the next round of FAFATL pieces — Sponge Bob and Patrick. They're pretty awesome.

Monday, February 6, 2012

Weekend update

I had a very productive weekend. I finished some weapons for the storms, I finished another 3" Dunny that I will be revealing soon, I casted up and painted 5 storm trooper heads for Free Art Atlanta and distributed them all at around midnight on Friday, did my taxes and my friend at H+R block did them for us and gave us his friends and family discount and saved Amanda and me 300 bucks in fees, and I finished casting all of my MW 3 Dunny's. I hadn't even started sculpting the micro Dunny that would go in the middle and I actually started and finished that too and it looks great. I anticipated it being fairly hard to get it to be accurate, and it was, but I think what I had is pretty dead on. I will grab a picture of that tonight. Giants won the Super Bowl and I won my soccer game during the Super Bowl. Like I said, a good weekend.