S is for Snout Spout

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Experimenting with a new brush set.

FinnMunny for Munny Munth

In honor of Munny Munth over at KidRobot, I decided to do a custom on their Trikky Mini-Munny platform. The design is based on Finn, the main character from Adventure Time. I sculpted the backpack out of a new sculpting compound called Zubber, which didn't work as good as I would have hoped. Still it was a fun little piece, and adds to my 2 other Adventure Time tributes HERE and HERE.
Vote for my Munny custom here! I'm not gonna win, but it literally takes 2 seconds to click "Like."

Skuttle custom for It Came From Skullbrain II show

This is my custom Skuttle toy, which I did for Super 7's It Came From Skullbrain II art show. The show consists of artists customizing Japanese vinyl toys. Genereally Japanese toys are painted with an airbrush in small busts of color to highlight the sculpt. I chose a clear Skuttle by Tuoma, and painted the inside then added the details outside w/ spraypaint. By painting the inside, the color is a bit more subtle, and still shows some clear when viewed on an angle. I named my piece "Slices" after the record by the band of the same name w/ a turtle on the cover.

Jan 16th 2010 from 6pm - 10ish.
Super7 retail outlet
1628 Post St
San Francisco, CA 94115
www.super7store.com
www.skullbrain.org

*flyer coming soon?*

Misfits Tubby & Couch Slouch Qee

I've been working on a bunch of toys lately, and haven't had a chance to post them, here's what I've been working on for the past month or so,,,
This was originally a vinyl toy of Tubby from the Little Lulu comic. I got a few of these and decided to paint it up in a style of Bounty Hunter, hence the logo on the back. It was mainly influenced by the Misfits fashion sense.
This started out as a blank Pigee Qee, and I turned it into a sad lazy balding dudes who I call "Couch Slouch" (after the DRI song). He's so depressed he just sits around the house watching TV in his underwear and flippy floppies. Poor guy... I painted it pink first, then gave it some light sprays of ivory to lighten him up in spots.

Moonwalker RIP & Samus Glyos

Here's a quick piece I did for the 8 Bit & Beyond show. It's based on Michael Jackson's Moonwalker video game (Genesis and arcade). Back in the 80's Michael Jackson did a movie called Moonwalker, and there was a ridiculous video game based on it. If you don't believe me, CHECK THIS OUT! In honor of his recent passing, I thought this would be appropriate. It was done with stencils and spray paint on canvas board.

In the spirit of the video game show, I figured I would post a pic of a recent custom Glyos Junk Shop Pheyden figure based on Samus from Metroid. Glyos are an awesome new toy where you can interchange parts and create ridiculous configurations. I based the color scheme off of the original power suit from the NES game. It was real fun, and I highly recommend anyone to check out Glyos.

Mega Man and the Robot Masters & Dragon MAD*L

Here's my more complicated piece for the 8 Bit & Beyond show. It's a our old pal Mega Man surrounded by the original 6 robot masters from his first game. I always thought the original 6 some of the best villain characters, especially Gutsman. It's a 11"x14" canvas surrounded by 6 4"x4" canvases. Mega Man is done in spray paint with 5 stencils, and the robot masters are all each one color stencils.

This is a MAD*L custom I've been working on for a little while. I wanted to try something with a little more detail, so I used paint markers for the face using the same stencil techniques I'd been using. I also wanted to play around more w/ adding elements, so I added the beard made out of craft foam and the hair. You can see the added parts better from the side view. I got the toy off eBay as a crappily done custom for real cheap. While stripping the paint off it I noticed the proportions were off, so I guess it was one of the earlier versions of the toy. This is probably one of my favorite customs I've done.

Custom Gwin Trade

Over on the October Toys forum one of the members organized a custom Gwin trade. October Toys produces these penguin shaped vinyl art toys called Gwins. Each participant got an address to mail their Gwin to. It was a lot of fun, and I hope I can do somethign similar again. Here's what my trade partner got:I call it the "Gwin-ball Machine." The design is to reference a gumball machine, and with a little of kaiju influence since I got the clear Gwin and wanted some sort of inner element. Inside is an entire container of beads which I had to shove through the tiny hole in his butt individually.

I got this Gwin done by the artist Smove from Germany. His name is "Om," and I think it rules!

Darth Vader and Bax Bear

This is my Darth Vader piece for the 100 Ways to the Dark Side book project, it's based on a Virgin Mary of Guadalupe tattoo design. I tried some different techniques to get it a softer tattoo look to it.
Here is my piece for the Bax Bear custom show @ the Artist's Eye in Smithville, NJ. It's supposed to be a Mexican luchador character of a bear that was shaved to wrestle against humans with some sweet tattoos. The snake on his back is the same snake I have tattooed on my arm, and referenced my old band, Snakebite. The gallery is also letting each artist display a work of art pertaining to your bear, so I drew up this using their template character.

Family Guy and some toys

I had this idea one night watching Adult Swim, and decided to work it up. Sometimes you have to actually follow through on dumb ideas. For those not in the know, it's based on Black Flag's not so classic LP, Family Man. I'm moderately happy with it. Raymond Pettibon's original art's human proportions were pretty crappy to begin with, as well as the Family Guy's human proportions being off as well. Consider it "pop art."
Here's a project that took me a while, mainly because I was avoiding doing it. This is the Mini Munny Mobile DIY vinyl toy. I added the wings on the back and did this sleek paint job on it. The character is basically a cross between Lando Calrissian and a stereotypical 70's pimp. If anyone can hook me up with the windshield accessory, I'll gladly trade. The paint job kinda fades from black to blue, which was kind of an accident, but I think it rules. The blue metallic paint was a lot thinner than I thought, and mixed w/ the orange under it. I used a textured paint on the guys hair, then painted it back also.This last guy was made from a Dunny body, and a poop accessory from a full sized Munny. I thought the poop was kinda a lame accessory, so I turned him into a sort of living ice cream cone. It's blue because I had an awesome blueberry cheesecake flavored ice cream a few weeks back that really left an impression on me.
Hope to meet a bunch of you at the Joker show next week!

Christmas in March?

So it's only 3 months late, but I finished my Munny ornament that I got for Christmas this year. I was aiming for a Grinch look. The white parts are made of felt, which gives it a cool texture. Now I just have to wait another 9 months to properly display it.

JOKER piece and new custom toys!!!

Here's my piece for the Joker show. The real painting is 16"x19", and was done entirely with spray paint and stencils. Below you can see my original sketch in Illustrator, which I use to break down the colors I want for the stencils. I haven't done a straight stencil piece in a while, so it was fun to go back to that. Can't wait for the show!Here's a bunch of custom toys I've done lately:This character is called a MAD*L, and I got a pre-made yeti designed figure and stripped it down to customize. They sell a blank, but it's $50 and twice the size. The design is influenced by the record cover for "Trapped Inside" by Lack of Interest. Here's a little animation I did of my process:Here are some MiniGwins I did recently. These are real tricky to work with since they're only 1" high. CyclopsGwin, MonkeyGwin (he's bummed because he has a banana on his head) and KoalaGwin are their names:This next guy's pretty fun, it was made from a Toy 2R ToyerQ DIY figure. I made it into classic 80's looking Hulk Hogan. This figure's pretty large, like 8"high.The stick on the Hulkster's flag was from a wooden tulip set from AC Moore. I really just needed the stick, but it was like 59 cents and I couldn't just throw out the tulip part. I thought that upside down it looked like a Pac-Man ghost, so I painted it. Front side is normal ghost, but when you flip it over, it the blue ghost for when Pac-Man gets the big power pellets!Lastly, here's a family portrait of all my customs. I've only been customizing since October, and I'm pretty proud of what I've done so far. I've got 3 blanks sitting in my room waiting to be painted...

Commercial Work

I've posted these on and off before, but here they are for good. These were all produced for different clients I've worked for the past two years. Some have been published and others just shelved.

1. Cover Illustration for talking toy, "Mumbles." (not used)


2. Vampire, Witch, and Werewolf characters for a candy company. Haunted House background by Peter Wonsowski. (Released in 2008)



3. Farm Board Game Cover Concept (not used)



These and more at my blog, chogrinart.blogspot.com

Land Shark and Warlock Munnys

This first Munny was one I bought on eBay super cheap because someone had already done a crappy job customizing it. I stripped off all the paint, and decided to make it my experimental Munny. I had never tried sculpting components or cutting the vinyl before. I found cutting it to be a little difficult w/ an Xacto, so I made a V shaped cut w/ a coping saw, and was able to cut the teeth the rest of the way w/ an Xacto knife (of course I sliced my finger open in the process). For the fins I used Sculpey, and rolled if into a flat sheet to keep the thickness consistent. I attached the dried pieces w/ a hot glue gun. I sprayed the mouth black, then stuffed paper towels in there once it dried before doing the rest. Overall it came out much cooler than I expected, so I may be sculpting more.
This Munny is a blank glow in the dark Munny. I decided I wanted to paint him based on the old New Mutants character Warlock. The character was made out of living circuitry, so I used a lot of circles and square shapes. I used a similar technique I used on another Munny I did a while back, where I masked out the designs in tape before spraying the whole thing black. I wish i could take a good pic of it glowing, but you can imagine how cool it looks.

This was my first time working w/ the full sized Munnys, and I noticed that the sculpt is different from the Mini Munnys slightly (aside from the scale). I got a ton of blank ones for Christmas, but I want to finish up my piece for the Joker show first.

Custom Fatcap and Minigwin

I know I've been doing a lot of these, but I've had way too much free time. This time around I worked way smaller. I made an R2-D2 based Fatcap and a winter hating MiniGwin. The Fatcap was a little tricky since I had to get a regular one and strip the paint off of it. They don't make blanks of those, but Goof Off took the paint off real easy. The figure's also only 2.5 inches tall, so it was a lot smaller of a surface to work on than I was used to.



Doing the Fatcap prepared me to work on the MiniGwin, which is only an inch high. I found out about there being an art show called Choking Hazard, which would feature customized MiniGwins. Naturally I was up for the challenge, and mailed this little dude off today. It was a little tricky to work that small, so I kept it simple. The sign was made with a drill and a toothpick. The MiniGwins are only $2 each, and the shipping's free, so I got 5. I'm sure I'll be posting the rest once they're done.

Custom Mini Skully

This time around I customized a Mini Skully by Urban WarFair. The basic theme is based on the Mexican holiday of Dia De Los Muertos (Day of the Dead). The back is meant to reference the paper cut altars, and the yellow rose is a flower commonly placed on the alters.

another custom Munny

This week I made another custom Munny. I picked up a blue one this time. I had an idea to make a stencil with the blue painter's tape, and make a pattern that would knock out of the color. I went with a simple diamond pattern, and sprayed a flat black over it. The 2 pictures below show it in the process of being done. I made the diamond into a stencil so that the diamonds would be the same and I wouldn't have to freehand it. I taped off the pegs so that the joints wouldn't get screwed up by the paint; I also put tissue in the holes.

I've got another blank vinyl toy coming in the mail, so that'll be my next project...

custom Teddy Troops

Expanding on the other post I made about my Custom Munny, I recently got a blank Teddy Troops to customize. I based the design off my Build-A-Bear teddy bear, which I affectionately named "Thrash Bear."

The Teddy Troops figure has a lot more detail than the Munny, which made it a little more complicated to paint. Again, I painted this one using spray paint and paint markers, using painters tape to mask off the solid colored areas. The arms and hat are not removable, which would have been nice. Overall, I like the end result, but probably wouldn't do another. I'll definitely be doing another Munny soon though.

Custom Munny

I don't know if anyone on here is a fan of Kidrobot's Munny or Dunny vinyl toys, but they sell blank ones for you to customize. A few weeks ago I picked up a white one to play with, and here's the results.



Not too bad for a first attempt. I painted it with spray paint by masking out areas with blue painter's tape. The head and arms come off, which made painting a lot easier. I found that the gloss finish paint dries real slow, but the flat black I used went down easy. It's supposed to be sort of a self portrait. The spray can accessory was from a Simpsons toy, which fit perfectly in his hand. I really want to customize another one soon!