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May 12, 2008
Touma's Giant Skuttle (18") from Play Imaginative
They're here... Touma's Giant Skuttle measuring in at a whopping 18" tall is ready to be shipped directly from Play Imaginative. Some toys look o.k. BIG, and others look amazing. The big upsize should really accentuate Skuttle's hard-lines and overall 'mean' look. These are available exclusively through the Play Imaginative store for $160 (+ s/h). Now if only we could have a clear 18" Skuttle (I know... talk about being greedy).
Seen: Scion Installation 4 Los Angeles
The last stop of Scion's Installation 4: It's a Beautiful World art tour opened this past Saturday night (5.10) at Scion Installation LA in Culver City. As you might guess, this is the fourth Installation project featuring some of the brightest underground artists working today. Each year's tour is based around a particular theme (subject or medium based). For this year, artists were asked to work with "It's a Beautiful World" theme across one of four mediums - painting, photography, sculpture and collage. As is the case every year, the tour pieces will be auctioned off to benefit a charity. This year the auction goes down on June 1st @ 5 PM and will benefit Art From Scrap. For all the info on the auction and the bidding procedures, please join the Scion Installation mailing list.
Despite the choice of mediums, it's perhaps not surprising that original paintings make up the majority of this year's pieces. There's some really strong work here including pieces from Ron English, James Jean, Kofie, Blek Le Rat and more. The paintings are collectively impressive both for their wide scope of content and style and the uniformity in piece size. Maybe we're just biased towards 3D (ya think?) but the sculptures were really nice including work by Andrew Pommier (love the reverse side), Blaine Fontana and Yoskay Yamaomoto (above). Finally it was cool to see well-known painters including David Choe, Dalek and others presenting photographs.
Before we close this post out, we wanted to gives props to Scion for pulling out all the stops in promoting the tour's artists. Beyond the numerous stops and associated PR, Scion also handed out an impressive perfect-bound postcard book featuring a card for each piece. The show continues through June 1st, go check it out.
Btw, if the space looks rather empty that's because we were fashionbably late (yeah that's it) to the party.
Scion Installation LA
3521 Helms Ave. (at National)
Culver City, CA 90232
310.815.8840
Continue reading "Seen: Scion Installation 4 Los Angeles"
Devilrobots' Mochi @ MoMA
The MoMA Design Store is offering a new Destination Japan collection featuring swanky products not normally available over here. Among the dishware, apparel and clever gadgets there's also the new Mochi figures designed by Devilrobots and produced by Kidrobot. These blind-boxed figures are $10 each and come in four colorways (equal ratios?). Very smiliar to Kiiros but targeted towards a slightly different market (do I smell 'gateway' toy?) . While they're currently back-ordered, it looks like the store is still accepting orders. Go get 'em. [Spied on Joshspear.com]
NVC and Tyson Summers - 'Killer' Moody Customs
Don't Cry Over Spilt Vinyl featuring custom versions of the Moody from Bovinyl is going strong @ Pravus with a scheduled second opening on Friday May 16th featuring a personal appearance by Moody creator Ted Stilson. While there are lots of excellent pieces in the show, two 'killer' Moodys demand a special spotlight -- Bao and Spive's (NVC) Mad Cowboy (below) and Tyson Summers' Oderus (above). Mad Cowboy features the meticuluous custom sculpting and deceptively realistic painting we've come to expect from NVC. For Oderus, Tyson let it all 'hang out', literally, with his tribute to GWAR. It's over-the-top with no apologies -- just like the band. Click through for more pics of each custom.
Pravus Gallery
501 E. Roosevelt Street
Phoenix, Arizona
Continue reading "NVC and Tyson Summers - 'Killer' Moody Customs"
B09 Hand-Made Resin from BlackOink
Singaporean Simon Kang is readying his first designer toy... B09. This bovine with "a passion for graphics and cars" is based on his BlackOink design firm's mascot. B09 is a one-man operation, Simon's doing everything - design, sculpting, casting, sanding, painting, etc. What you see here is the unpainted version featuring the pig with a 'tude in his racing suit. The plan is to release a total of 10-20 pieces of the 4" figure in three colorways. Since this is his first figure, Simon's kept things straightforward with one point of articulation at the head. Pricing and release date are still TBD.
Props to Simon for following his passion with the time and energy necessary to produce this figure with his own hands. For a follow-on project, we'd like to see Simon work on a version that recreates the cocky outstretched arm pose of his original 2D drawings.
