Final Custom Toys of 2008

Here are my last custom toys for 2008. I'm neck deep right now in a very large commission and I'm also starting to think over ideas for some upcoming shows in 2009, so I've been taking little breaks here and there by working on these two little guys. The one on the left has a pearl white base color, with red and gold. The one on the right is plain white, with Black and orange. I still enjoy working on 3-inch Dunnys and have some cool ideas for some non-Spade-Skull designs that hopefully will see the light of day early next year. If all goes well I'll be starting on some more over the holidays while I continue on the commissions and show pieces. Most likely this will be my last post of 2008, so Happy Holidays to all and I'll see you in 2009. Cheers!

Design This Design That Issue 3

Issue #3 of Design This Design That is out and focuses completely on toys. This is really nicely put together e-zine. There's a lot of cool pictures of customs, hand-made plush, production pieces, and some interviews with the various artists featured in the zine- one of those being with yours truly. To check it out click on the link above.

Through this project I became familiar with Issuu, which is basically a online publishing site that anyone can use- cool stuff. Below are some small pics of my interview. Once I get a pdf of it I'll set it up as a download.

New Spade-Skull Mini Dunnys

Here are some new 3-inch Dunny customs I just finished up. I like to paint minis once in a while. I use them as a way to relax while I'm working on other projects. I try to have at least one mini in progress while I'm working on various commissions and show pieces. They're so small I can turn them around a lot faster, which is nice when I'm consistently working on the same large piece for weeks on end. These four little guys have been in a various stages of completion since the beginning of summer. After I finished my custom Stitch, I decided to take a little break and finish these guys up. I was in a flocking mood for a while, so most of my recent minis have been flocked, and I followed suit with three of these four. The little black and white one was supposed to be a Halloween skeleton guy, but the 31st came and went really fast. Anyway, I'm already back plugging away at my commission list, but I'm hoping to turn out a couple more minis before the end of the year. Stay tuned.

Ougon Neko

Since the Miao custom show preview went up a few days ago, I figure it's okay for me to post a full shot of my custom Miao (and Mousubi). You check all the customs out at Subtext's blog by downloading the pdf preview. And don't forget to check out the show this Friday if you're in the San Diego area.

Miao Show

I just finished my piece for the custom Miao show at Subtext. Once again the line-up for this show is very impressive and from what I've seen so far the customs are going to be top notch. This show has been a little under the radar, but with all the artists involved I'd say this is another must-see show if you're anywhere near San Diego. At first I wasn't really sure what I was going to do with this figure, but then an idea hit me and I really like how it turned out. I've attached a little sneak peak here (sorry for the photo quality, it's pretty bad.) Once we get close to the show date I'll probably reveal the full Miao and Mousubi. Stay tuned.

SDCC 2008 Customs

So I just got back a couple of my customs from this year's SDCC. I know a few folks were interested in these and I was telling everyone these had sold (which I thought they had), but it turned out there was some miscommunication on that and pricing discrepancies which caused these to end up back in the Reactor-88 display case for now. I've also got a couple of the SDCC minis (had those for a while.) Anyway, if any of you that contacted me about SDCC customs are still interested, send me and email and we'll talk.

Spade-Skull Poker Chips

This was kind of an odd project when I got the request, but I think it turned out pretty cool. I was approached about using my Spade-Skull logo on some poker chips a few months back. The client found it by googling "spade" and "skull" thinking some cool card/gambling related artwork would pop up, and low and behold my logo caught their eye. At first I wasn't sure about it, but this was a small personal project that wasn't going to be used commercially or anything, so I figured it would be cool. It could have been really easy for this person to just grab a pic of my Spade-Skull logo off the net and use it without my permission and I'd probably never know, so I thought it was pretty stand-up that they contacted me and asked my permission, etc. Anyway, I got the samples in last week as you can see by the pic. Now if only I was a poker player I'd be making my own set now :)

Custom Kanser

It's been a really long time since my last entry- more than a month now. I promised myself I'd have at least one entry a month, but seeing as how I only blog about my artwork (for the most part), that means I need to have something to write about every month. That can be a tall order at times. Anyway, looks like I'll hold true with the unveiling of my latest finished commission- a custom ToyQube Kanser. I had this guy started at the beginning of the year, but I had some serious show commitments so all of my commissions had to be put on the back burner. Once I got through the bulk of my shows for the year and went on a much needed vacation, I started thinking about commissions again and figured I should just spend a little time and finish this little guy up. Now that it's done, it's back to finish up my pieces for the final two shows of the year- the much anticipated Mad-L Citizens Show at Lift Footwear in Detroit, and the Miao Custom Show at Subtext in San Diego. Once they're out of the way, I'll be back on the commissions- with the goal to knock down my waiting list a bit and get out one big job before the end of the year. Wish me luck...

Spade-Skull Skate Deck

I finished up this skate deck over the weekend for the "All-A-Board" show over at Monkeyhouse Toys on Saturday, August 23rd. It was really a last minute decision. I've really wanted to paint a deck like this for a long time, so I figured this would be the perfect opportunity. Anyway, if you're in the Silverlake area on Sat, I highly recommend swinging by Monkeyhouse and checking out the show.

Reactor-88 x StrangeKiss @ SDCC

Well now that it's almost here, I get to show all the customs I've been working on for the Simple Pleasures show at the Strangekiss booth- happening during the San Diego Comic Con (SDCC) this year. Now, I'm not really sure if you'd consider this a typical "show" show- I think it will be more of a general display of customs and art from a handful of artists within the confines of the Strangekiss booth, but it's still pretty cool. I'll have a total of ten customs, six being brand new for SDCC (8-inch Dunny, Mad-L, Munny, Mini Munny, 2x 3-inch Dunnys), two from a few smaller shows in the years past (10-inch Icebot, 5-inch Labbit), and one (3-inch Dunny) from earlier this year that I decided to hold onto just for this occasion. You may have noticed that didn't add up to ten, as I forgot to take pics of my custom Spade-Skull Buffmonster toy- oops... Anyway, hopefully everyone that makes it down SDCC this year will swing by the Strangekiss booth and check out all the cool customs and art by all the great artists they have on display. If you can't make it down, at least you can see my stuff here in this post- well, everything except the Buffmonster toy...

iPhone Background #3

I've been in a grungy mood lately, so I decided to carry that over to my third iPhone background wallpaper. I dug up an ancient photo I took back in the day when I was into 3D- I used to take pictures of all kinds of interesting textures with the idea of building up my own nice library of textures to apply to my 3D models. Anyway, take one rusty metal pic, some cool Photoshop "grunge" brushes, apply some layer modes and voila- iPhone Spade-Skull Background #3.

Mega

I've been kind of busy with shows and a pretty big special event coming up soon, so commissions have been on the back burner for a bit. Needless to say I'm finishing up some stuff right now, so I should be back on commissions very shortly. To get back into the groove, I went and picked up the piece I'll be working on next- a Mega Munny. I haven't painted a Mega yet, so I was excited when the client mentioned he might want one. After some discussion we both agreed it was the way to go. I know this thing is going to take forever and ever, but I really think it will be sweet when it's done. Seeing it is giving me some extra incentive to finish up a lot of loose ends right now so I can get to it. Until then, it will stand guard next to my work area.

New Toy Site Coming?

So my Reactor-88 site is almost two and a half years old. In internet years that's like dinosaur old. Granted it's gotten a few updates, but for the most part the design and code have stayed pretty much the same. There was the migration to XML to dynamically generate my gallery sections, but that was probably more than a year ago. So it's been in the back of my mind since last year to start thinking about updating "the reactor." I started working on some comps a while back, but got more interested in general cleanup and code optimization. Since I've been in a "code mood", I'm thinking about the structure and code requirements I'll need for the new site, but I'm still far off as far as the design and direction I want to go. In the meantime, I've decided to take on a smaller project to get myself in the proper mindset. This smaller project happens to be a subdomain "site" for just my toys. The pic above is a comp that will most likely be what the final homepage of the site will look like. Like it's older, bigger sibling- it will be all Flash/Actionscript. I thought about doing a full CSS/XHTML site sprinkled with some Flash, but now because of some of the feature ideas I had, I think it will have to be all Flash. But as usual, I have about a zillion other priorities right now (shows, commissions, freelance work, and that pesky day job), so it will be a while before this sees the light of day.

iPhone Background #2

These are just too much fun...

iPhone Background #1

Everybody else is making them, so why can't I? So here's a nice, simple Spade-Skull wallpaper background for your iPhone. I created this at 320x480/72 dpi. I've heard this is the standard size, but I've seen all kinds of sizes floating around out there so who knows. If I actually had an iPhone I could test it and see (one of these days I'll get one.) Keep an eye out for more wallpaper backgrounds...

Zombie Dunny Stripped

Okay, this really isn't that exciting of a picture, but for me it's pretty important as it has great significance. What might be significant about this pic you ask- well I can't get into specifics, but basically it means that a personal custom that I've wanted to make ever since I got into custom painting toys is finally starting to come to light (literally and figuratively.) Okay, so with that little clue you probably figured out that I'll be putting a light inside this Dunny, but hopefully you haven't figured out what the design will be- that's the coolest part. Without giving away more, I had initially started this project way back in 2006- originally I was just going to use a GID Munny for the idea. Then the DER Robo Dunny came out, and I realized with some illumination and some very custom paint, it would work much, much better than the GID Munny. So I purchased and stripped it down to be completely clear, but I had to put it on the back burner for a while as I got too busy with other projects. Then as I was just starting to think about this custom project again, the Zombie Dunny was announced and the translucent light blue vinyl was even more perfect. Anyway, I hate to say it but I'm going to be the busiest I've ever been for the next few months, so once again this guy will need to be "shelfed" for a bit. So far all the delays have actually worked to my advantage, so we'll see what happens when I can start thinking about this again in another couple months. Oh yeah, that's a stripped Hard Days Knight in the pic too- oops...

Dragon Lucha Qee

The 16-inch Dragon Lucha Qee custom is finally done! I've been working on/off on this big boy for a long time. He's gone through a couple of slight design changes along the way and I'm very pleased how he's turned out. He'll be heading off to his new home soon, and though I'll miss having him around, it will be nice to regain some space around my work area again :)

Very Old Renderings

A quick conversation with my buddy Lou this morning made me think about the good ol' days when I was in college and was doing a little oil painting. I remember I took an illustration class, and the whole point of the class was to explore different mediums for creating illustrations. We would essentially pick a photograph and render it in the "Medium of the Week." If I remember correctly we had nine projects that semester, each project we tried out a new medium. I remember how much I enjoyed painting with oils. The Alien rendering above was my first oil painting. The girl image was a graphite (pencil) rendering, and the T-Rex was done with goache. The TF-18 painting was my second and last oil painting- that was from an open project (do whatever you want) illustration class I took in my final semester at school. Even though I loved the blends and being able to rework the oils for days on end, I don't think I'll be picking them up again until I get into a different workspace- having all those fumes build up in my little work area would knock me over. Guess I'll stick with acrylics for a while...

The Dragon is Loose

More pics coming soon...

Flickr

I'm not sure why it took me so long to get photos of all my customs and artwork up on Flickr, but I finally did it yesterday. Note, I've had a Flickr account since early 2006, and always enjoy checking out peoples photos and stuff, but it never really crossed my mind to post my stuff up on there- duh. Anyway, I've finally moved into the 21st century and from now on I'll start posting photos of my work and other random fun stuff there. Oh yeah, here's the address: Reactor-88's Flickr- and feel free to add me as a contact :)

GID Spade-Skull Munny/Multiple Personalities Show

The Multiple Personalities show over at Lift Footwear in Detroit opened up this past weekend to much fanfare. There was a pretty good turnout, and the new Lift digs looked really nice. One of my favorite artists, Mr. Glenn Barr was there for the opening as well. With that, I figure now I'll fully reveal the piece I created for the show- the GID Spade-Skull Munny. He's the brother to the original Spade-Skull Munny I made for last year's Detroit Munny show at Lift. Interestingly enough, the same person that bought last years Munny bought this one as well- thanks Tommy!

Easter Spade-Skulls (Kinda...)

After completing the green flocked Spade-Skull mini for St. Patrick's Day, I've been wanting to test out a slightly different flocking technique. So along came these guys. What I decided to try different with these guys was to compact the flocking onto the figure while the glue was still slightly tacky. It definitely gives it a slightly less furry look and has a more velvety appearance. But I don't know if it's just that the black flocking shows a more imperfections or what, but I can see a lot more spots on these where the flocking looks thin as opposed to other flocked customs I've made. I did one touch-up session earlier this evening on them, I might have to hit them again this week. With that, it's back to big stuff. I've got one really big project almost wrapped up, and them I'm going full-force on creating a few more pieces for SDCC and getting back to commissions. No rest for me...

St. Patrick's Day Mini Customs

I'd been wanting to work on some green customs for a while now, so I figured why not try to get a few done for the St. Patty's Day? Here's what I just finished right on time- the White Pearl/Green Lucky Spade-Skull Dunny and the Green Fuzzy Spade-Skull Dunny- all 3-inchers. I was also trying to revive an old NADE custom I was working on last year for the now defunct Rocketpop show, but I was having some issues getting it back together tonight, so back into it's box it went. Too bad, since it's all white/green and has a few shamrocks here and there just like the mini Lucky Dunny. Oh well, maybe I can revive it again and have it ready for next year. Anyway, I've also got a few minis coming for Easter (stay tuned), but once that's done I'm all about commissions (and some special SDCC projects- shhh...)

Sticker Sighting

No, I wasn't driving down the street and saw this- this was sent to me by Kidrobot Discussion Board member yesterday. His girlfriend really liked the stickers I sent them, so she put it on her car- cool! I figure most of the stickers I send out with my packages usually end up in places they aren't supposed to, so this was a nice change to see :)

Golden Spade-Skull Dunny

Here's a little 3-inch Dunny custom I whipped up the other day. This little guy was keeping me sane while I'm working on a few commissions and finishing up some show pieces. Lately I've been infatuated with black/gold color schemes- more proof of this soon...

Jumpin' James

I'm guessing most of the folks reading my blog (all two of you) have visited my website and realize I'm not just about toys and spade-skulls. Now for a little history lesson for those that didn't know this. Before I got into the custom toy scene, I was a pretty serious (at least in my mind) digital artist. I was into it all- 3D, animation, 2D motion, illustration, design, and every other thing that you could think of that would fall into that category. One of my favorite things to work on was collages. I loved taking photographs and 3D elements and mix those with some Photoshop and Illustrator work. If you poke around on my website you'll see many examples of this- Flower Power, Sinner, and of course my SS Design Modules. With that said, lately I've been spending a bit more time in the digital realm (don't worry, I'm still painting toys) and decided to resurrect a little collage I started a good year ago (I think?) If I remember correctly, I really wanted to go crazy with it- bring in a lot of "grunge" and layers and make it really dense and loud. But for some reason this morning when I started looking at it, I really started to like the simplicity of it.  So I moved a few things a bit, cropped it down a little, and voila- it is finished. Since the blog pic is so tiny, you find a larger version on my website, or just click this link here. Note, the photos are courtesy of Potato Grande.

Spade-Skull Ghost Sqwert

So I finished this custom Sqwert late last year, but at the time I thought I wanted to do a bit more to it. Because of that, I deemed it not complete. I threw around the idea of putting a very faint light inside, and possibly adding a coat of pearl over the whole thing. As it's been sitting here next to my computer for the last two months, I've realized that it's a cool little custom just how it is. The monochromatic Spade-Skull/vine design laid over the frosted clear vinyl has a very interesting look. I guess another thing that made me think I should just leave this little guy alone was the fact that it (along with my Spade-Skull Ice Bot) was one of the two pieces in my 2007 retrospective that got the most individual standout comments. Interesting seeing as how they are both still in my personal collection (ie- not sold yet...) Since other folks seemed to dig it in what I thought was an unfinished form, that was the icing on the cake. So it is officially done and posted on my site.

Sneak Peak

Here's a little sneak peak of the piece I just finished for the Multiple Personalities Show on March 29th, at Lift Footwear in Detroit. If you can't tell from the pic- it's GID and I'm sure you can also tell it's a Munny. That's it, I'm not saying anything else... For once I finished my piece with plenty of time to spare- amazing. I've decided I need to plan out my work a little better this year. I want to make sure I have ample time to finish show pieces, so I'm trying to get a jump on them as soon as I know. I do have some other shows and a few other big things that I already know of this year, so I'm taking up a lot of time here in the first part of the year to plan stuff out properly. Hopefully it pays off. Once again I'll probably be making apologies to all those folks waiting on my commission list, but I promise I will get to everyone's pieces eventually...

The Clean Workspace is Back!

So it's that time of year again (happens about 3 times a year) when my work table just gets so cluttered and covered with stuff that I have to do a serious cleanup job on it. Note, the picture I posted is the after pic- if I had posted the before all you would've seen is a big pile of stuff with a table somewhere underneath it. I had basically resorted to doing all my painting out in my living room, which probably isn't a good idea since I have a very nice antique coffee table and a decent couch. Anyway, things are clean and I can once again "work" at my table. If you look closely you can see some goodies for some upcoming shows, and a few commission pieces in the works. I think there will be a phase 2 of the cleanup soon- I want to get my paint stored away on a rack or something so I have even more room to work (ie- clutter up in a few months...)

And on a side note, you may have noticed (or maybe not) that I'm center justifying my pics now- no more left-justified/wrap around text. I must admit I liked the way that looked way better, but for some reason IE on the PC just didn't like it. Now usually I don't really care about those kinds of things, but since I have to sit in front of PC all day at work and I guess the majority of the world does too, I should- hence the change. Bleh.

Happy New Year!

So it's now 2008 and already it's shaping up to be a very busy year. I stopped taking on commissions late last year in hopes I could slowly catch up on my list, but with 2008 shows and possible SDCC commitments, it's still going to be a long wait for all the folks waiting very patiently for a custom piece. On top of that, I really hoped 2008 would be the year I could work on some personal pieces that have been on my mind for the last couple years now- we'll just have to see how it all pans out.

I had also intended to redesign my website over the holidays- if you happened to check it out recently you'll notice it still looks the same. While I toyed around with some redesign ideas in my head, the actual focus over the holidays was updating my Actionscript so that all my galleries would be generated from external XML files. My site galleries were already pretty Actionscript heavy, and each time I added new content meant me having to add info to data arrays in the Actionscript and republish the site- not fun. It really started getting big and ugly, so I figured it was about time to clean things up a bit and get on the XML bandwagon. Anyway, the code is all set, and I just need to convert one more gallery to XML, and then I switch gears and think about the redesign again.

On the art front, I took a little time and posted a 2007 retrospective of all my custom toy and artwork on the Kidrobot Discussion Board. You can see the thread here. It's always fun seeing them all in one spot- makes me feel like I actually accomplished something last year :) I also have a show coming up on the 25th- the "Get A Grip!" Custom Moneygrip show at myplasticheart in New York. If you happen to be in the area you should check it out. No sneak peaks of my piece here either- you'll all have to wait for the show. And last but not least, I have a new interview up on the ToyToons website here. Enjoy!