Humans Beware

Also coming up on April 10th is Humans Beware - I.W.G. Custom Art Show. The show is curated by Drilone and being held at Rocketworld, creators of the Insurgents Wilderness Gruppo Toys. This is Dril's first foray into curating, and he's doing a top notch job. There's an impressive 80+ artist lineup that will not disappoint. Some sneak peaks have been showing up online, such as Cris Rose's Vespbear. My custom I.W.G Bear is almost done- there might be some sneak peaks in a bit so stay tuned.

New Moon - Myplasticheart

Here's the flyer for the New Moon show at Myplasticheart. Curator John Wong hand-picked 25 artists to interpret the signs of the Chinese Zodiac. I chose monkey- really for no special reason other than I think they're kind of cool. Also I opted to not paint a custom toy for this show. Instead went the 2D route and painted a canvas or two. So if you're in NYC on April 10th, be sure to check it out.

2009 Show Listing

Here's what I have lined up for 2009 so far:

Attack of the ILLAZILLA
March 2009
Mini Tour (Various Locations)

Humans Beware
April 2009
Rocketworld (San Francisco, CA)

It Came from SkullBrain
April 2009
Super7 (San Francisco, CA)

New Moon
April 2009
MyPlasticHeart (New York, NY)

Vinyl Show
August 2009
Black Maria Gallery (Atwater Village, CA)

The Disney Stitch Experiment 626 Project Tour is also still traveling throughout this year. I believe they've added a few more stops- when I get more info I'll post it.

Lastly, I'll probably have a couple of customs at SDCC again this year. I just need to confirm (this was discussed before last year's con) and make sure I have enough time since the show at Black Maria might need a lot of time to prepare for.

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.

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...

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!

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...

Upcoming Show Listing

While trying to organize and prioritize my projects, I've been looking over my calendar and realized I'm in quite a few shows coming up pretty soon. Wow, I am really in over my head with this stuff. I need to stop blogging and get to work!

Vinyl Elements
May 17th, 2007
Barracuda (Los Angeles, CA)

Art Toy Alchemists
June 2nd, 2007
Artifact Unmundane (Anahiem, CA)

Cereal Killers
June 9th, 2007
Monkeyhouse Toys (Los Angeles, CA)

Detroit Munny Show
June 23rd, 2007
Lift Footwear (Detroit, MI)

Love and Hate
July (SDCC) 2007
Subtext (San Diego, CA)

Tofu Robot Show
August 2007
Robocon (Los Angeles, CA)

Social Tilt and Urban Vinyl
September 7th, 2007
Arthouse (Calgary, Alberta, Canada)

I think I'm also participating in a custom painted lunchbox show at Monkeyhouse Toys coming up sometime this year. Either that, or a blank metal lunchbox has sprouted from underneath my work table. Okay, enough chit chat- back to work...

Vinyl Elements Show

Vinyl Pulse's big custom vinyl show, VInyl Elements is coming May 17th, 2007. I've seen some sneak peaks of some of the pieces, and by the looks of the artist list this should be a really good show. Here's the details from the Vinyl Pulse website:

Vinyl Elements brings the excitement back on Thursday May 17th @ Barracuda from 7 to 10 PM. The elements the ancient Chinese believed to make up the universe Metal, Wood, Water, Fire and Earth form the show's theme. This classic theme will be interpreted by a select international group of fifty top-flight artists including David Horvath, Frank Kozik, Nathan Cabrera (for SURU), Tado, Tim Tsui, tokidoki, Touma and more. Rather than working on one identical platform, this stellar group will present their wide range of styles and techniques across twelve different vinyl figures. Vinyl Elements, a must-not-miss event, delivers the essential elements to showcase the very best in custom toy art, piece by piece from the first to the last.

Sounds impressive, huh? With that, I really need to finish up my piece. I'm customizing a 9" Jamungo BUD- I'll try to get a couple of sneak peaks up soon...

Tofu Robot

So yesterday I went down to Robocon in Chinatown to pick up a Tofu Robot. Created by the good folks at Spicy Brown, this little guy stands about four inches tall and has five points of articulation (I think that's just a fancy way of saying his head, arms and feet move.) Anyway, they usually have this little tofu graphic on the belly, but mine is blank because I'm participating in a Custom Tofu Robot show at Robocon's gallery later this summer.