Friday, February 29, 2008

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.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

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.

Monday, February 18, 2008

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...

Monday, February 11, 2008

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.