New Reactor-88 Stickers

I finally got my new Spade-Skull stickers in over the weekend. These are a bit more fancy than my original batch. They are about 2.5 x 3 inch, die-cut, two-color on clear vinyl, with back printing. The good people over at Sticky Rick's did these up for me and they came out really nice. Rick has been printing stickers for sticker-fiends all over for many years. If you need any stickers made, you should drop them a line and get a quote. Anyway, like my little buttons/pins, I'll be dropping a few stickers into each of the packages I ship out- fun stuff...

Spade-Skull Buttons/Badges

I got some little 1-inch Spade-Skull buttons made. Another thing I've wanted to do for ages that I finally got around to doing. I'll throw one of these into each package that I send out along with a few stickers. Speaking of which, my new stickers should be ready next week or so- these are much nicer than my old batch. Hopefully they came out right. I still want to make a Spade-Skull rubber stamp- that is next on my list.

iPhone Background #4

I found some cool carbon fiber desktop patterns the other day. The one I liked was still a little too plain, so I embossed a Spade-Skull into them and cropped it down to iPhone size. For a widescreen desktop wallpaper size (1680x1050), click here.

Updated Reactor-88 Homepage

I figured since it was the start of a new year, I should start off with something fresh for 2009. Note- I've been talking about redesigning my four year-old site now for the last few years, but it's always taken a back seat to other commitments. I figured since it still might be some time before I get around to a full redesign, I should at least try to update my background image. When I first put up the site, I thought my techie/satellite/robot art image was cool and worked well with how I wanted my site to be portrayed. I initially created that image in 2002 as part of my Chaos Module series of digital art works. Well, it's now 2009 and while it still may be cool in some way, it's not really the look and feel I want my site to have. So I've drawn out a more organic vine pattern incorporating my Spade-Skull logo, but still kept it in the distorted, layered and slightly digital style that the satellite robot image had. Hopefully I'll get some time before 2010 to do a full redesign of the site, but until then I think this is a good start. Happy 2009!

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!

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.

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 :)

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.

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.

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...

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...

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...

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.

Spade-Skull Labbit

So here's my finished 5-inch Labbit for the upcoming Uberbot Labbit show. I was literally putting a couple finishing touches on it this morning, took these photos, packed it up, and dropped it off at the post office this morning- since the deadline to get it over to them is next Monday. I've been wanting to do a 10-inch custom Labbit for ages, but with the time constraints I was under for this show, a basic Spade-Skull it had to be. Even still, these things take a long time. I had a few issues with the yellow, and since I used a fluorescent orange, once again many, many coats of paint were necessary. In the end, I really liked how this guy turned out- hopefully everyone else will too.

A few more pics of this little guy can be found over on the Kidrobot Discussion Board here.

Sticker Shock

So I finally got some stickers made. I'm not sure why it took so long- probably just blatant procrastination. I've always wanted to make some, but never really knew much about the process, where to go, etc. I guess with the sticker explosion in the last few years and prices coming down for folks like me that don't want a gagillion stickers, it was time to really investigate and get these puppies made. Plus I finally had something I could legitimately make into a sticker- my little Spade-Skull icon. After finding a fairly inexpensive, local sticker place (one of those word of mouth kind of things), I pulled the trigger. I went with some basic, one UV color rounds on white vinyl to start- kind of a trial run thing. Next time I'll probably go die-cut, clear vinyl with crack & peel backings, but since I have 500 of these, next time is gonna be a while. Anyway, these little guys will find there way into all the packages I send out to clients, and who knows where else...

Spade-Skull Munny

So I just finished up my custom Spade-Skull Munny for the Lift Footwear Detroit Munny show. The show is this Sat (the 23rd) and pieces were supposed to be there by the 18th, but folks were given a little wiggle room. I think they were a little more flexible with the deadline because this event was organized at the last minute and not much of a heads-up was given to the artists. When I was first asked to participate in this show, I was very hesitant to get on board because of the short notice. But I decided to get on board and see what I could do under the gun. Anyway, my goal was to finish it this weekend (which I did), and it will be out in the mail tomorrow morning headed priority over to Michigan. I'm still quite amazed I was able to finish this in only about 3 weeks- I usually work a lot slower :) I'm also kind of hoping a few folks on my commission list take notice of this piece and pick it up from the show. Mainly because they're on my list for a Spade-Skull Munny, and if they grabbed this guy that would knock someone off my every increasing list. UPDATE- show blurb is up on Vinyl Pulse- nice, my Munny gets a preview alongside of Dok-A's piece- talk about being in good company...

So with this guy complete, it's on to finish up my pair of baby Qee customs for the Love & Hate show next month and hopefully start plugging away at that commission list before it gets unmanageable...

New Stuff

So I've finally finished up some new customs, so I thought I'd share. Now don't you feel special? First pic- a sneak peak of my piece for the upcoming Vinyl Elements show. I guess I could show the whole thing since no one really reads my blog, but hey, you never know. I don't want to upset Jack... I just packed this up to send over. Hopefully when they receive it they'll take some real pictures of it. My little digital point/shoot just isn't quite up to take studio/product shot-type pictures. The second pic is my Spade-Skull IceBot that I painted for the Art Toy Alchemists show at Artifact Unmundane. Where is this you ask? It's down in Anahiem- yes, I was surprised when I found out there was a vinyl shop in Anahiem too. This world is full of surprises. I'm pretty sure I'll be driving down for the opening night- as long as it's on the weekend. The third pic, are some fun little mini customs I've been working on. I call them my Spade-Skull Metal Series. It sounded cooler than saying Gold, Silver, Copper. Anyway, all three of these little guys sold at my "online preview." It's pretty scary when someone like me is setting up "online previews" by request. Like I said, this world is full of surprises...