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.