Italian toy show

A couple months ago I got an email from LAB81, an Italian design company trying to break into the ever-so-popular PVC toy market. They asked 40 artists and designers to do these toys for a show that will be traveling around Italy. It sounded fun, and new, so I said yes. Everything went smoothly until I got to actually painting the figures (meaning that drawing out my ideas of paper went well). They're made of clear PVC(vinyl) and are slightly flexible. I wanted to write a blog chronicling the process, but I ended up running into so many problems that I forgot what I did. Mostly, the acrylic paint wouldn't stick at first, I just thought it was the material, but now I'm wondering if there was a lubricant on them to ease release from the mold. So I spray painted them with primer, and it just remained endlessly sticky. The acrylic I put over it too, it just wouldn't dry. So every time I touched them with paint on my hard it stuck, and if they touched anything else, it stuck. the paint also rubbed off at the slightest touch. I painted one, then the paint started cracking so I had to start over and strip off the acrylic with rubbing alcohol, then the spray paint with turpenoid. I painted these things so many times; really frustrating. Also, my roommate's cat decided to gnaw on one of them. I tried to repair it, but you can still kinda tell. This was a difficult challenge and I learned a lot, but think I'll stick to 2-D for a while. One thing I leaned is that there's a huge community of toy artists and toy collectors out there, I didn't realize the scope of it. People are dead serious about it too, they even commission artists to paint toys for them.

The theme of the show is love and hate. I decided to make the hate figure have a little love and vice versa because I don't believe in those kinds of absolutes.

P.S. Sorry for the crap photos!

Finally got the Ed Gein record

I don't remember when I did the art for this record, it was a while ago that's for sure. It seemed like everyone had seen the actual pressing except for me. Today I got a care package from Hex. It's a truly fine release that I'm proud to have my name on. The record itself is a hefty (180 gram?) one molded from translucent cream and red vinyl. I didn't have any part in that, and I didn't know it was going to be on colored vinyl, but I like it a lot. Also seen, some other goodies thrown in. This is sort-of a standard package from an indie record company when you do art for them. It's nice.

Then there's a really sweet wheat-paste I saw in China-town that just happened to be on my camera as I was importing photos.

Rambowski

Another shirt design for Graf Orlock. This one was a bit of trouble. I worked closely with Alan from Graf on ideas, mostly because their shirts tend to be concept based, and I'm realizing that I don't have a lot of strength in that realm. I'm good at making things look cool, of conveying emotion, or being creepy, but there's never really a punchline. I can't describe my art work, it doesn't sound cool, you just have to see it.
I was originally going to draw Conan slashing up terminator machines. I drew Conan and 1 1/2 machines before quiting. It was coming out horrible, and the machines were taking me forever to draw. I knew it would be a challenge, but it was too much for me. Conan also didn't look like Arnold, and his face was drawn for too small to really get a likeness. I was going to post it here, but I decided that it's just WAY too bad for anyone else to ever see. So, sometimes you have to realize that it's not working, and cut your losses. I had one night to do this shirt left. I went home from work, got dinner and an energy drink (which I've been drinking a lot of lately) and went home to sink my teeth into this. Let me tell you about this energy drink called Venom. If you HAVE to get things done, drink one of those things. Holy crap. And I don't want any of you guys shaking your heads about my energy drink consumption. I have a legitimate sleeping disorder, which I used to take ADDERALL for, so this is much better in my opinion. Got to get that surgery, damn.

I'm really glad I started over, this came out pretty killer, and it didn't even take that long. One thing I know about myself is that I work well under pressure.

Disintegration Self-Portrait

I'm going to be working on a 7" cover for Born Anchors and they want me to paint the band in the same style as my "Lipstick" painting. Naturally, I need to pull their likeness' out of it, which is an interesting challenge. I did this test yesterday since I'm waiting for some reference shots from them.

Ripped off again

Dang. I wish they had just commissioned me to do their tour poster, but I guess that they knew what they wanted.

CHOW#116

This was for Character of the Week on Conceptart.org. I'm trying to improve my character skills by doing this exercise. I'd like to do them every week, but I probably won't have time for the rest of the month. The character concept was "The Host" which as it was described is a Celtic folklore character who takes the souls of the dead. Part of the submission requirements were to make a sketch of an alternate version of the character.

What is the deal?

Maybe somebody can shed some light on this situation. Every so often I get a request to do something, and I'm into it, so I say yes. I never hear from them again. I follow up to see what's going on with the project, and nothing. What is with that? It feels like I said a racial slur on national television and they want to distance themselves from me all together. I understand that some projects get killed, if that's it. Weird. I need to know people!