There’s an interesting lecture coming up at The Society of Illustrators (128 East 63rd Street) on Wednesday, November 5th from 6:30-8:30 PM. It’s called “Character Design, Animation and Toy Design”. The speakers are Paul Budnitz from Kidrobot and Mark Graham from ilovedust.
Kidrobot is famous for manufacturing and distributing high-end collectible toys and other consumer goods. They ‘re also in the animation business; Wild Brain studio in San Francisco now owns a major chunk of the company. Nickelodeon recently announced that they plan to turn Kidrobot properties into a series of feature films that blend animation and live action.
ilovedust is an English “design boutique” that has developed toys for Kidrobot–keeping it all in the family! This Zulu Dunny would fit in among his fellow premium plastic pals in any designer toy collection:
The San Diego Comic Con has come and gone. It was pretty busy, with the entire show selling out. Preview Night was just as busy (if not more so) than any other day. I would love to see some sort of expansion of the Con to cut back on crowd size. Maybe a professionals only night, or perhaps making the Con a full week?
As the hoards converge on Comicon this weekend (and I sit in sticky, hot Brooklyn, recalling the days when the Gaslamp District was still scuzzy and you didn’t have to book your hotel room two years in advance) let me tell you about an upcoming, far more intimate event that promises to be fascinating: Pictoplasma NYC: Conference on Contemporary Character Design and Art at New York University’s Skirball Center, from September 5-6.
Described as a “character design Mecca”, Pictoplasm will spotlight “the importance of character design in contemporary visual culture.” Today’s popular graphic personalities cross cultural and commercial borders and it’s becoming commonplace to see the same character on both museum walls and pencil sets. This is an opportunity to learn, talk, and schmooze with some of today’s most innovative icon creators.
The world of designer toys often overlaps with animation these days, so I thought y’all might be interested in Plushform. Shawnimals makes these blank, customizable, plush figures that you can decorate with pen, paint, and just about anything else you can think of. The basic form costs $20 a pop. They’ve invited over 60 international artists to take a crack at creating their own personalized plush and the results are currently on exhibit at the Rotofugi Gallery in Chicago, through Saturday, July 15. Anyone can post a picture of their customized Plushform on this Flickr group. If you have questions about materials and how-to, the Plushform website has a helpful tutorial.
The toothy creature above is by artist Cameron Tiede. See some more of my favorites after the jump… [Read more…]
*I meant to have this up yesterday, but when I posted an embed it looked like it broke the fredblogs. I’m glad it works now, and thankful for youtube.-JX
Apparently, sometimes when women give birth (some women), a tiny bit off poo squeezes out along with the baby.
Such is the premise of our pals Mukpuddy’s new “nutty” pilot, It’s the Pughs. [Read more…]
Here’s some of the loot I got from the great Mocca Art Festival this year in NYC.
First off, here’s the cover to the mini I printed up to hand out to people. I guess I was inspired by Stephen Levinson’sgun-toting, wise ass Skunk, Prikk. The comic was called, Box Assassin Hitman: Box of Danger!!!
People seemed delighted to be given a free mini about a cardboard robot who can transform into a box and is a deadly hitman assassin. [Read more…]
This past Wednesday I attended a panel discussion entitled, Cross Cultural Traffic: Toying with Brands, Borders and Bootlegs.
It was hosted by The Korea Society and was a lively talk on and about Korean Toys, their origins, how they interrelate with Japanese, American, and their own Korean Pop Cultures.
“The robots and such brought out a generation of creatives. Imagine a filmmaker like Joon Ho Bong, who made the Host. Did he watch monster films as a kid? Did he play with toys? Of course he must have. The geeks who collected toys are now in power at creative places, and look at what they’ve brought forward? A new world of creative minds.”
Of course, I eagerly took down notes and snapped a few pics. Enjoy!
