Hell!

Apologies for the lack of a post yesterday! Back to business as usual from here on in. After my tutorial I decided to attempt to craft something/anything useful out of a block of wood. Now as most people know, I HATE 3-d and trying to wrangle with the problems that arise when doing it. I'm just not really a maker of physical objects.

Anyway, with my moan out of the way and a wee bit of inspiration from the South London Gallery ( see picture below), I decided to invest in cut offs from B&Q some hand tools and just go to work on wood seeing what I end up with and respond to.

Now you probably wont believe this took the better part of two and a bit hours, but I assure you it did! Im certainly not proud of this, but its a start and has thrown me totally out of this "comfort zone" everyone speaks about.

Air hardening clay still appeals to me, as I can control every aspect down to the most minute detail, and it doesnt crack like standard clay. For now though im going to use the Bandsaw to create some more interesting shapes on tuesday.

Plans for a new build. Model at S.L Gallery

English 'lout' Bulldog Version 1

quick update!

Gary Baseman is an artist based in San Fran whose vinyl toys and art youve probably seen all over the place but didnt know it. This guy is AWESOME! He is influenced ( both illustration and toys) by pop art. Mexicano and his american toys, advertising figures and sculptures from the 1920's, 1930's and 1940's - The big bold eyes are VERY Betty Boop-ish. The figures are very american, and his range of figures named 'Dunces' most certainly rifs off of this . Some of his illustrations are painted on top of typically american advertisments.



The dunce range

A little closer to figuring out how to make my figures quintessentially LDN/British

Today was pretty productive; sorted out a stronger direction for the project and the next few steps at the very least. Woodword, vacuum forming and injection moulding. NOT exactly my strongest points but a guys gotta try!

Still looking for a cool way to inject a sense of London/Britain into my vinyl toys. Ive been toying with the idea of the english bulldog as a base for all of my toys. Nathan Jurevicius managed to take a traditional japanese toy and inject some aussie heritage into it ( the mushroooooms!):

He has a highly graphic style - something that will come in handy when designing the box and graphics for the "promotion" of the toys.

I've been drawing people every day on my way to college to get character/human traits and looks down as accurately as possible. Funnily enough my "sleeping city fatcat" from day 2 was on my train again today
English bulldog says a slobbery hello! May update later if i make any progress on my first head sculpt.

SHAMELESS PLUG TIME !

Ten Ton studios are a group of illustrators who work primarily in comic books, pencilling, inking and colouring for both independant and major press.

The forums (www.tentonstudios.com/forum) is full of talented illustrators constantly posting and critiquing work. Marvel Comics regulars khoi pham and reilly brown take part in the sketch offs and critiquing work so its a definate place to hit if youre interested in the comic industry.

Ive got an ongoing sketchbook on there (http://www.tentonstudios.com/forum/index.php?topic=6591.0) so feel free to take a look and even join in on the fun!

Ingredients to make what?

This book is just awesome! Has a couple of in depth essays looking at the rhyme and reason for these high end 'art toys' and packed full of images and illustrations used in the development of the vinyl toy. Only negative is that its pretty geared towards the japanese market, we'll let em off as it kind of originated from there.

But what do these all make?

Hammer horror set

Decided to go for a 'hammer horror' sort of vibe for a college project on myths south of the river ( I got to camberwell so everything is south london centric). Mine was the vampires spotted at st.giles church.

Have a cinema room at home so what is more fitting than a bunch of B movie style horror posters?