Been a While

Sorry I've been MIA for over a month, it's that time of year when people are traveling and dealing with the holidays and I am no different. Been working steadily on commissions it just seems like I never finish anything anymore. Just so much to do. Fear not folks I am working on your stuff. Having to go to work every day and having to start and stop working on projects every day makes gaining any momentum difficult not to mention that my aforementioned day job has been busier than ever. I can't complain about that though as I do not have to rely on making toys to pay the bills but after working 8 hours a day when I get home I want to eat dinner and relax with Amanda and next thing I know it's midnight and we'd fallen asleep on the couch. And I know I always say it but hang in there with me folks. You know I'm not going anywhere, and big things are bound to come my way especially with all of your support.

The most recent piece that I have finished was a 7" Marilyn Monroe Munny commission that I posted on IG. I think she turned out great. I really love the way her dress came out. It flows really nicely especially for being sculpted. He hair looks really nice as well so I'm very pleased with the results.

I have ALOT of commissions in queue so if you haven't heard from me in a while drop me a line and remind me what we're working on.

Jared

Resin Horseman Heads

All the Headless Horseman orders have been shipped unless I have spoken to you otherwise. I think they came out great and typical for me it took much longer than anticipated because basically every one was different and unique and I insisted on making different packaging from the un-numbered heads I was giving away at Comic Con…but I think you all will like what you get. Quite a spectrum here:

I will have a few things to put in the store soon including a body or 2 and perhaps a complete figure with painted head like the original scheme. Whenever I finish those I will put em up in the store and just leave em tip someone grabs it and will be ready to ship asap. And the problem with the heads right now is unless Kidrobot produces the figure most of you who don't already have a body won't ever get one because I'm not ever gonna make enough to go around. 

Appreciate everyone being patient with me…working hard here, it just takes time

Lots of commissions in the works as usual. Hit me up if you have questions or concerns.

J

Kaws Box Suit

Halloween has come and gone and you do not have your Horseman Heads yet and I apologize. I got into painting them and I decided I didn't want to do the same ol thing with each one so it's taking me longer to finish them then I hoped. I very much want to get them in the mail this weekend, but maybe Monday at the latest.

On a side note, I did finish and post the picture of my Kaws Dissected Companion Box Heroes suit to Kawsstudio instagram and he just reposted my pic last night. It's up to just over 5000 likes now and he's supposed to choose a winner today so I have fingers crossed that he likes my costume. Here are some pics that Amanda and I took in front of The High Museum of Art here in Atlanta where Kaws had his exhibition last year.

And if you haven't already go and like my picture on @kawsstudio. There is a half naked chick and a baby that have way more likes. :) Tits and toddlers will beat you every time.


I posted most of these same pics on either my IG or Flicker but here they are again. Overall I am very happy with how he came out. I didn't have to cut any corners in terms of design, and at the last minute I figured out a way to have a red undershirt for the left side, and a dark undershirt for the right side. I actually have a dark long sleeve shirt on, with a red short sleeve over it. I rolled up the short sleeve up to my shoulder on the right side, and then put a red long soccer sock over my hand up past my elbow on the left side, so that's what you see peeking through at the gap at my elbow. He's pretty hard to walk in so I don't know if I'll be wearing him in any parades any time soon, but I'm gonna mess with the feet and leg mechanics and see if I can't get it a little more mobile.

 The finger in the background here is the live painting installation that Kaws did for his exhibition. This was the first time I'd been back to The High in over a year and I was very happy to see that it was still there. The High was smart to keep it and I hope it remains as a permanent fixture at the museum. When he was scheduled to be painting it I was planning on going to watch for a while but he ended up painting it early and doing it off hours so people like me wouldn't be bothering him.

 This is almost the exact location of where Passing Through sat in the courtyard in front of the Museum. There really isn't much to look at out there now but these trees. Although you can see the scoops at the top of the picture, the very top of the building, which are directional skylights that capture the sunlight for the gallery at certain times of day…a trademark of architect Frank Gehry. They are beautiful from the inside looking up.

 When I was standing at the top of the stairs some guy waiting at the bus stop was yelling "Whose in that Box?" at me from behind Amanda as she was shooting. Neither of us responded, but it was pretty funny.

At the end of the shoot a man and his 2 young kids came up to us and asked us some questions about the box suit. They were curious but they were also scared to say anything so the dad approached us first. Amanda showed them pics of the Dissected Companion on her phone as a reference and the young boy told me he was an artist too. Maybe I inspired him to keep doing it as I told him as an adult I still play with toys and get to make cool things like this suit so keep drawing and painting and do whatever you like to do.

It's already November and I'm gonna get back to busting my ass on commissions. Got a bunch of boxes to make, portraits to draw for Dunny's, and things to ship. Thanks for being patient and continuing to be so…I'm still here and I did not forget about you.

Halloween and on

I finished the 2 Mega Munny's and they were shipped and arrived at their destination mostly unharmed so a fairly big success with these 2 pieces. This is the only picture that I have received from the client and I think they look pretty awesome:

Finished these guys from design to completion in 5 weeks. It was a sprint from the very beginning.

Working on my Kaws Dissected Companion Box Heroes suit and he will be done soon enough. He's gonna be freakin awesome. I making him for the Kaws Instagram costume competition, but I will likely bring it to Comic Con next year because he's just too cool to not show off else where. 

I intend to get all of your Headless Horseman resin heads out and delivered before Halloween. I finished printing the cloth bags they will all come in and I just want to photograph them all together and  get them in their bags, signed and numbered, and in the mail. 

I'll have a couple other goodies up for sale on the site, random colored Horseman heads you might be interested in, maybe a body or 2, we'll see. :) Just be on the look out if you're interested.

All other commissions are still in queue and underway, I'm just plodding along trying to get them done as awesome as possible...and as quickly as that allows.

Thanks for looking guys.

2 Days to go

The big project is about to come to a close, thankfully. I have been working on these 2 Mega Munny's non-stop for the last 2 weeks and I have to have them finished and shipped by Wed afternoon. I still have a ton of work to do but I have alot done as well. I have all the sculpting done, I have both jackets completely sewn together and finished, I have the glasses cut and ready for paint, I have the base colors down on both heads and about to start the faces, I have both bases just about finished with paint, I have the plexi glass lenses cut for her glasses and I'm going to be molding and casting the lenses for his goggles so I have the masters sculpted and fitted and my silicon is arriving today. It was a pain in the ass too because sculpey shrinks slightly when you bake it so it kept jusssstttt not fitting. I have to screen print the logos on the back of the jackets, make their name tags and sculpt their accessories...and I guess that's it :) Their accessories are a biopette, which is a high tech pipette, and something called a sequencing chip, which I have no idea what that is but I know what it looks like. I'm going to cut the  sequencing chips out of 1/8 plywood and pant them, and the biopette frame will be cut from the same material but then will be sculpted out from that as if it were the central axis and then I will mold and cast that as well since i need 2 of them. I have the faces all mapped out already so I just need to transfer the line art onto the face and paint in the varying shades which I have mixed already as well. I went to bed at 5 last night and I'm sure I will be up as long as I have to be tonight and tomorrow. If I have to I will push the biopette and sequencing chips to Wed night and overnight them to Boston On Thursday.

Like I said, still alot of work to do, but I think the end is in sight.

Big Project

First off, Amanda and I went and saw Don Jon last night. We got free passes from a site that I had signed up on last year but until now had never actually gotten and used any tickets. We got passes for a movie like 6 months ago that we didn't even really want to see and we had plans that night. But we really like Joseph Gordon-Levitt so when I got the email to get passes I was stoked. The movie was really good. Funny, relevant, and despite it being his directorial debut it was very well made. I suggest it to anyone and everyone. Basically, it's about how men and women alike have distorted views about what relationships should be like based on pop culture. It really focuses on the effect that pornography has on mens view on sex, but I think it also subtly comments on womens distorted view on marriage — the perfect man, the perfect ring, the perfect wedding, the picture perfect family — some of which is propagated by womens magazines and romantic comedies just like mens skewed view on sex is effected by porn. Go see it. It has a perspective I've never seen before in a movie and that is hard to do.

More importantly, I was recently approached by a client, a real client, to create 2 Mega Munny figures of a male and a female scientist figure. I'm basically being sourced to make these figures for a client of theirs which is a bio tech company in the genetics field and the figures will be shown and displayed at a big trade show in a few weeks. They'll be giving out Foomi figures at the booth with sticker sets so people can make their own scientists, and the 2 Megas will basically be used to draw people in and get them excited and curious about what is going on at the booth. So after several revisions these are the 2 sketches that were approved. After talking the client and I decided that we didn't want to do the stereotypical scientist. While doing research I came upon a study that showed if you ask just about anyone to draw a scientists they will give you the same thing — an older white male, with an excess of facial hair, glasses and is frowning or has some kind of wacky facial expression. Though the figures had to immediately read scientist, we wanted to try and not play too much into those archetypes.

So both will have sculpted hair, physical glasses and goggles with lenses, actual sewn lab coats and actual rubber gloves. They will both have a pipette accessory and everything else will be painted on including all the facial details and clothing other than the labcoat. 

I have 19 days to finish both of these and I am just about done with the Horseman Heads so I imagine I will be working on these up to the very last minute. 

I ordered these cool cloth bags that you sometimes get candy corn or something in on Halloween and I'm gonna screen print a little graphic on them and that is what the Horseman heads will be coming in so unlike the ones I made for comic con which came with a header, these ones will have a different and a bit more special packaging. 

Finishing up a number of other things, got a bunch of boxes to make, and as always, I got you in line. I'm just real busy, and slow. Thanks guys.

Other Things I Waste Time Doing!

One of my favorite shows started its 27th season yesterday, Survivor — and so far it's actually pretty intriguing. After 27 seasons you'd think it might be hard to bring anything new or different to the game but by bringing back 10 returning players and pairing them with a loved one has created an entirely new dynamic to the game. The returning players are all on 1 tribe and their loved ones are on the other tribe so they are playing against one another. At the onset I saw this as an interesting dynamic once the tribes merged, but something I didn't anticipate is people weighing their vote by the actions and play of their loved one during challenges. The first person voted out was done so because her uncle on the other tribe was a sore winner during the first challenge. And all the men on the newcomers tribe have formed an alliance and if they can maintain it to the merge it bodes well for their female veteran counterparts. But what to do once they merge? You cannot have a 10 person alliance. Needless to say the social game continues to be the more interesting and the hardest factor in the game to figure out.

I am also playing fantasy football for the first time in 10 years. The last time I played I drafted Anquan Boldin and Andre Johnson as rookies if that says anything. So far I am 1 and 1, and should have won week 2 if the 49ers had not run into the Seahawks...sheesh. So While I am constantly working on toys I watch alot of tv. Just about every other good or bad show on tv I watch albeit complete shit like real housewives, the bachelor, the Voice, American Idol, X-Factor or any reality show that has to do with kids, hoarding or wife swapping. Things I do like are almost anything on the Food Network, Sci-Fi, Spike, I check out most new shows on standard networks, and then I've been watching all the new and past seasons on Showtime and HBO — Dexter, Boardwalk Empire, Game of Thrones, Girls, Homeland and The Newsroom. And then of course Breaking Bad, Sons of Anarchy, Always Sunny, The League, Archer, and I love Workaholics and Doctor Who. So as you can see...I watch a ton of tv, and movies. It's something easy to do while working and I prefer that over music.

I got a big commission for 2 Mega Munny's that has a real right deadline so I will be starting those very soon. I'm about to finish the Mini-Munny Kit Fisto, done sculpting the Bot Rocketeer, Still painting Duny Medusa, 8" Dunny Kraken, a Jaws I've been working on for like 3 years, about to start 2 Paws, still have 3A to do and a ton of other things to do. If I did not mention you fear not, I have a long list with all of you on it. I promise.

And if you want to see updates and process pics, the best place is on Instagram — @Nikejerk.

Thanks guys.

Commissions

I'm back into the swing of things and working on commissions and a few other things.

I'm just about finished casting the Headless Horseman orders. All the crazy colors are looking very cool together and if you follow me on IG then you may have seen that I am casting bodies as well. I originally molded the body with the collar piece as one whole piece because I needed to make a few more whole figures and figured this was easier in the long run. I had measured out the amount of resin I needed to pour the 2 head molds and the body so now that I'm casting the rest of the heads I'm still just using the same measurement and casting bodies with each color even though I have no immediate plans for all of them. Right now the plan is to make 2–3 full figures with the new head but painted like the original head. Right now there are none that exist like that. They will go up in my store once finished. So just be on the look out.

I am also about to print my X-Men Wolverine shirt that I've been drawing and refining on and off for almost 2 years. I will be printing a few extra, like 1 sm, 1 m and 1 L, that will go up in my store for the original price but they'll be done and you'll be able to see them.

Also working on many commissions that have been around for a while as well as new ones so fear not, your piece will come. If you didn't already know I work full time as a graphic designer so I only get to work on toys at night and on the weekends. And much of the work I do is pretty detailed and intricate in sculpting and painting so I work quite slow. Even though I don't sleep much it still takes me a while to finish pieces so please be patient, and you can always message me if you have any questions.

And a few more pics from my Boulder trip and misc stuff from the last week.

This is Sporta Authority Stadium where the Broncos play in Denver. It's got a pretty cool shape if you ask me.

This is a bot head that fits on 1/6 bodies that an artist from Singapore sculpted and I will be casting it for orders that have already been placed. I will be getting to this in the next month.

Amanda and I went and saw The Worlds End. It was really funny and we love Simpn Pegg. This is a pretty cool view of downtown Atlanta from the theatre. We almost never go to matinee's so even though we've been to that theatre a ton of times I had never noticed the view.

We went to this little art show that featured artists that work at Cartoon Network and I really liked this illustration of Walter White.

This ink drawing was really cool too.

I'm obsessed with Lgo's now and I LOVE the new Star Wars sets that have come out and these are all the new mini-figures that are in the new sets. I have yet to get any of the new sets but every time I go to Target I drool over this display. 

Kidrobot Boulder

As you know, as 1 of maybe 20 people that read my blog, Amanda and I spent the weekend in Colorado. As you also know we were there to visit Kidrobot Boulder to see my piece in the 1 Year Anniversary show for Kidrobot Boulder, and maybe while we're there I might have a chance to speak to someone about The Headless Horseman. Everything about the trip was a success if you ask me. First of all there were no travel problems other than the huge ass Phish concert that was in Colorado this weekend too which made getting our rental car take much longer than it should have. We went directly to Kidrobot from the rental car place at the Denver airport so that I could meet up with the store manager before the party and she could not have been nicer. She introduced us to all the KR employees that were there, let us take picture of some of the toys before there were big crowds and all in all gave us a great initial welcome to Boulder. The store itself is in an open walking mall type retail plaza. It's just like a regular indoor mall would be, with stores on both sides, seating, art, and all kinds of things in between the stores, but there is no roof. It's a very cool space with stores and restaurants all mingled in with each other.

And though they are not connected, the corporate offices are essentially right above the retail space. This sweet neon light is in the window of the corporate office.

There were a ton of people at the party and I got to meet a couple other artists from the show and from the area and was very impressed with their work. You should look up

Mike Fudge.

84 Pages

And I talked to Mind of the Masons who was not in this show but has shown at all the KR stores so his work is awesome too.

Kevin Gosselins  original Dead Kozik bust is on display at the store as well. It was up high, but it is sweet!!!

It was a pretty great night, free drinks, music, talking to a bunch of different people about art and toys, what more could someone ask for. 

The next day was Sat and Amanda and I basically had the day free and we decided to do a little hiking and went to the Eldorado Canyon State Park. There wet crazy rock facings where there were a ton of people rock climbing. I use to do alot of climbing but NOTHING like this. They were so high up you could barely see them. The water was beautiful, the sun was shining, it was a great morning.

 You can see climbers in this pic.

And then we drove to the Flatirons, but we were too tired to get much closer than this. The Flatirons are those huge angled slabs.

And then one of the coolest things that we did was after hiking we went back to the Pearl St Mall, ate some deep dish pizza, drank some more beers, and after she made a few phone calls, the KR manager Ana was given permission to give us a tour of the Kidrobot corporate office while they were closed. It's like a toy nerd paradise. Toys on every single desk, great artwork from many of the artists they work with, all kinds of fun stuff and just seeing the work environment was fantastic. Amanda and I are very grateful to be given the opportunity to see all that so thank you Ana! And of course we did not take any pictures... some things are meant for the imagination.

Indigo Vortex is in the mail

So I settled on the name Indigo Vortex. I got the suggestion of Vortex and it made alot of sense to me so I ran with it. Was up til 5 working on it this morning, but I had been up til 7 on Sat night and slept til 3 pm so it's not like I had been up for 24 hours. Packed him up in a giant box full of peanuts and shipped him off to COL. ODDLY enough, it was 13$ cheaper to send it Express than it was to send it Priority. This happens on occasion and I have no idea why. I will be sure to take a ton of pics at the show so follow me on IG @Nikejerk and I will post pics here as well.

And here are 2 of the final pics of the piece. I took some at my apt last night staged with all the scraps and junk leftover, but I did not have a chance to take any glamour shots on a white background.

The last things I did was add some black details to the face and the chest, as well as the arms and the spine on the back.

And I did his name on the back. The upside down Munny on the back turned out to be a great spot for his name and was sort of just a happy accident. I think it looks awesome.

I'm hoping that this piece is unique enough and done well enough to really stand out at the show. There really aren't that many artists showing so to have a piece like this... I really think there is a chance for me to stake a claim. We shall see what the other artists come up with.

Almost There

So here is the most recent pic of my BOX Munny. Still no decisions on the name yet. A new possibility is Indigo Vortex, but still not sure. I will decide by tonight. Amanda is out of town til Sunday so I will be working on things full tilt and I hope to finish this tonight to ship tomorrow, but if it got pushed til Monday that would be ok too.

All I have left to do is the left hand, and then outlining. The fist took quite a bit of messing with but I finally got it to where I wanted, and in the end the arms look great. They move great, they have interesting lines and dimension and ended up being a good length. I just hope I don't overdo it on the outlining.

The name??

Trying to come up with a name for my piece and similar to in the films I want to give it a name like one might give to a plane, or a tank...or a giant robot. Because of the color and because it sounds cool I decided to go with Indigo, but the 2nd word is still eluding me. These are the 2 I like so far:

Indigo Triumph or
Indigo Phoenix

others thoughts were

Indigo Pride
Indigo Victor
Indigo Fiend

What do you guys think? Any other suggestions? Nothing too long as I want to write the name in script on the back of the head guard.

Message me or leave a comment.

Arms

The general consensus is to paint and I was always in favor of painting and most people that messaged me had the same feeling that it needs some definition because of the randomness of the existing color panels. Thanks guys.

I spent all last night working on the arms. Had a couple false starts but in the end I got something that I really like and I think it looks pretty cool. You can't really see it in this picture but I also spent much of the night working on the retractable sword that is in the right arm. I will grab some pics of that at lunch. I just need to make the fist that will go at the bottom of the arm seen in the pic, add a little more dimension to it from the profile side view and then making the other arm will go much quicker since I have the templates and patterns already made and cut. If you've seen Pacific Rim and remember the chain sword that was the inspiration for the retractable blade. The tip is visible and is secured with a magnet. Pull on the tip and it slides out about 4" and is then caught in a 2nd position by another set of magnets. It slides out just below that pink triangle at the same outward angle as the edge between the triangle and the blue part of the arm. In its retracted state it extends into the shoulder via a channel that I cut out.

I also had to change the 1/2" magnet for the arm out for the same 1" magnet that I used for the neck socket. The 1/2" just wasn't strong enough and luckily a had 4 left to use for the arms. That sucker holds awesome now and is strong enough you can rotate the arm and it will always stay in place. 

Here you can see the blade tip. and the back end of it in the opening at the top.

Blade extended. 

Here I added this green panel to the front. I'm slowing adding dimension and depth to the arm.

To Paint or Not To Paint

I will get the most recent pic up when I come back from lunch but the most pressing question right now is to paint or not to paint...concerning the Munny Box Mecha! My original plan was to outline the various panels in black and add some colored panels and whatnot to add dimension to the piece, but Amanda likes it the way it is so far. So what to do? Maybe you'll only be able to tell if you could see par tof it outlined already but if i do that there's no turning back. I personally think it needs a little more. It looks slightly unfinished and I really think the outlining will make it more striking as well as to help define many of the edges that tend to blend into each other because of the random color fields.

What do you think? Leave a comment or message me.


AND...I just got this today, the official flyer for the party. Amanda and I will be in attendance so hopefully I will see some of you there that can make it. And as you can see other than Scribe it's all up and comers so this is a good sign for what may come for me and the others involved.