Posts Tagged ‘toys’
Fresh Felt Mistress Collabs for Lossy Botany Lab
Felt Mistress shares some sneak peeks of the work she’s been doing recently for Jon’s upcoming show, The Lossy Botany Lab, at heliumcowboy artspace in Hamburg. One thing about FM’s plushes, they kill in color (above) and they’re bad in B&W (below). [Quick translation for my mom, who dutifully reads Doodlesplatter: In youth parlance: "kill" means to reign supremely and "bad" means good. Crazy, I know!]
As always, looking forward to more! Stay tuned to DS for sneaks from Jon this afternoon & tomorrow AM as the The Lossy Botany Lab grows closer…
Doodle and Scrawl Signing at Kidrobot NYC
Jon will be live doodling and signing toys at Kidrobot New York next week on Friday, June 11th. He’ll be signing for fans from 6-8PM. Heroes of Burgertown mini-figures and blank DIY toys will be available at the event.
Munnyworld Customs: Where Are They Now?
Jeps, leader of the Dutch Posse and half of the music duo known as Darker, is now also proud parent to two of Jon and Stu’s recent Munnyworld customs. I was such a fan of “Tim-Sam the bad kitten” that I must salute Jeps with a hearty rendition of South Park’s “You bastard!” But there’s no such thing as bitterness in Burgerland. These customs couldn’t have found a better home. Jeps also sent in this animation of the new fellas breakdancing with some pieces by Felt Mistress and Joe Ledbetter!
Tea Bear Dunny Tribute by WuzOne
Jon released the 8-inch Tea Bear Dunny with Kidrobot in 2008. Two years later, toy customizer, WuzOne, has painstakingly recreated the details of the 8-inch figure (above left) on a 3-inch Dunny (above right). This is a hand-painted tribute to Jon’s Dunny by another artist. It would be a unique piece to add to your collection of Jon’s three 3-inch production Dunnys, and is currently listed on eBay here.
Kidrobot Munnyworld One-Off Customs
Following up their 2008 Heroes of Burgertown Dunny/Munny Mashups, Jon joins forces again with Stu Witter on these one-off Kidrobot Munnyworld customs. If you know only three things about me, you probably know that 1) I love the color green, 2) I dislike the majority of platform toys, with a particular disdain for Munnyworld and 3) I am a huge fan of Jon Burgerman. With the #3 bias noted, I can say that Stu’s sculpting and Jon’s doodles have made these the first Munnyworld customs I have seen and liked. Perhaps its the clean solid application of color that reclaims them from the saturated dismal domain of stark white DIY toys? (Read a little thought-provoking article I wrote about all that here). Or maybe doodles really can fix even the most problematic platforms?
This blogography had its beginnings in Jon’s toys, and now, nearly 600 posts later, I’m still digging them. Writes Jon of these toys:
They’re just some customs made for fun with my friend, Stu Witter who I’ve done a lot of customs with in the past. And now we’ve made them. We want to offer them to anyone who’d like to buy them.
These are all one-off, custom pieces. If you’d like to get one, please contact Jon directly: http://www.jonburgerman.com/contact Blank Munnyworld figures cost between $7.95 and $9.95 and are available here.
Click through for extreme (cuteness) closeups. Read the rest of this entry »
Pickle Pig Plush With Felt Mistress
Awww…check out the latest plush mash-up between Jon Burgerman and Felt Mistress! It’s a pickled pig (duh) and at £95 (~ $146 USD) and almost 16 inches, it’s a good way to get in on the usually-exclusive-to-art-shows collabo action. The hand-stitched pieces are “very limited” and come with a stitched label. Naturally, I adore this, but I’m tapped out this month. Make me jealous by getting one of your own right here.
[UPDATE: This just in from my man Jeps, ambassador of the Dutch Posse: "If people respond positive to them, they will bring them to production. Quoting Felt Mistress: 'We only have 3, and these are to decide if we should make more!'"]
Custom Vinyl Rody
Everybody at Doodlesplatter is always excited when there’s the potential for a new Jon Burgerman toy. We think that the rumored collab with Amanda Visell may have been just that (a rumor), so the current fate of new JB toys lies in the hands (hooves) of an Italian horse named Rody. Rody was licensed by a Japanese company called Jammy, turned into a vinyl toy by intheyellow and is now the subject of a group custom toy show sponsored by the great folks at Paradise Toy Land in Taipei. Jon is representing all of England amongst an excellent roster that also includes Bwana Spoons, Uamou and Tim Biskup (and Tim Biskup’s daughter). The show is currently up and running (trotting) in Taipei.
For those of you keeping count, this is actually Jon’s SECOND custom horse toy. The first was Pizza Face Pony for the My Little Pony Project in 2008. Perhaps if Rody is successful overseas, we’ll eventually get a production version. But let’s not put the cart before the horse. OK I’ll quit horsing around with the puns now!
Shapeways Hoodie Toys Revealed!
We can now present a few images of the previously-blogged Customizable Hoodie Toys from Culpritart/toys and Dotsan produced by Shapeways, the company that uses a 3D printer to “turn your designs into reality”. Two things you’re bound to notice right off the bat:
- These toys are TINY. (The green one pictured taps out at 2 inches/5 cm. The red one stands a bit taller at 7cm. This may seem small for $25.)
- Gone is the smoothness of the figure and blister packaging envisioned for the prototype shown here.
If you can get past those factors (I can in this particular case), it’s a cute little toy which presents the unique opportunity to customize the colors of a Jon Burgerman hoodie. Unlike the sandy texture of the figure itself, the process of working with Shapeways was extremely smooth. I emailed Dotsan my preference for green. Within 24 hours, he had uploaded a model to Shapeways. I purchased it, and Shapeways sent me emails when it went into production and when it left the Dutch facilities destined for California. The figure arrived safely packed, but the “packaging” was just a plastic bag.
At first I thought the sandstone was weird, but Greta (often the voice of reason) pointed out that “weird is good.” Doodlesplatter is, after all, not just a project to chronicle every waking move of the artist, Jon Burgerman, but also to showcase the different canvases that are possible for art. 3D printing will probably not win any fans among the hardcore art toy collecting contingency (yet), but if you have a spare $25, you can get a pint-size figure custom-made in Burgerwear tailored to your liking. I like my little dude. Get the 5cm (2 inch) figure (currently the only customizable size) or the 7cm (2.8 inch) figure. Click through to see my guy digging some coconut juice and Jeps’ figure hanging with a Yami.
Customizable Hoodie Toys from Shapeways 3D Printers
Head’s up! Remember this Hoody prototype from 2008? Matt Pattinson (Culpritart/toys, an illustrator based in Edinburgh) and Vijay Paul (Dotsan, product designers based in Glasgow) are producing the figure through Shapeways, a company that uses a 3D printer to “turn your designs into reality”. Culpritart and Dotsan met Jon at the seminal Free Lunch exhibit at Analogue Books, and the seeds for Hoodie were planted.
I dropped Dotsan a note to try to understand the technology of this new toy. He promptly responded:
As product designers, the challenge for Dotsan is to help creative people realise their ideas and introduce them to a new medium and dimension whilst keeping their artistic intent. The photorealistic computer renderings are great for visualising concepts without the expense and time of traditional sculpting and manufacturing processes. Computer modeling allows for many quick amendments and when applying textures and colours there are no limits because you don’t have to worry about manufacturing constraints. The 3D full colour printing allows for complicated artwork to be created. The surface is like fine sand paper and has a waxy matt finish. There are many ways the CAD model can be materialised, Shapeways offers reasonable prices and ordering. No need for tooling, Far East mass manufacturing or stock; the figure gets made on demand and delivered in 10 days.
[Jon's] illustration would be very difficult to create using traditional methods such as painting, decals etc, the 3D printing method works brilliant at this size. To have something that small with that amount of detail gives great pleasure. On Shapeways there is an option to customise the colours or submit your own pattern for the hood.
Culprit and Dotsan are waiting to see the response to Hoodie. This is a new process, and there is lots to learn and understand about how best to use it. Dotsan are working on creating new Culprit characters. There is a large body of work to choose from, the most exciting challenge will be to create Culprit Tech stuff: the renderings and models will be mind blowing.
Well, to be honest, my mind is already kind of blown. I had a second round of emails with Dot, in which I asked about the potential for color customization. He wrote back immediately with a link to the “Jeremy Hoodie” colorway, which features matching green hoodie and green trainers! Well, color me stoked! Naturally, I purchased one immediately. The material is listed as sandstone, which is a new one for the artkive, so that’s exciting. The 5cm (2 inch) figure (currently the only customizable size) costs $23.06 and the 7cm (2.8 inch) figure is $25.76. Shapeways has a minimum order of $25, so if you buy the 5cm, you eat $1.94. No biggie, since you’re already committed to spending this much on a tiny figure anyway, right? There’s all sorts of other fine print about VAT and taxes, that I probably should have read, but really, you had me at “Jeremy Hoodie.” Jeps ordered a 7cm Hoodie, so we’ll post updates when the figures arrive. The Shapeways site says there’s about a 10-day turnaround on production + shipping time. Stay tuned! Lots more photos after the jump.
Rotocasted: The Toy Collector’s Database
I want to take this rainy Friday and remind everybody about one of my favorite websites, Rotocasted. The toy collecting database is being developed by talented toy designer Sergey Safonov, and I help out as a “volunteer librarian”. I like Rotocasted for the fact that I can show my Collection to anybody with a computer, and by extension, I can share my Wishlist with just a link. It’s also extremely addictive. Want to see (almost) every toy that Jon Burgerman has ever made? Or which of Jon’s toys are the most wanted? How about what people are saying about Jon’s Kidrobot figures? Or maybe you just want to see every toy in the database that happens to be green? You can leave comments and make trades. It’s a lot of fun, and like most passionate side projects, it’s always evolving. You can tell Sergey has his heart in this project and really believes in trying to do the impossible: create an accurate, visual encyclopedia of art toys. Every time we upload toys and enter data about them, we’re helping write toy history. Check it out and claim your Burgermenos! One of Jon’s Dunnys is on the Most Popular page; let’s get the Heroes of Burgertown to join him! I wrote a bit more and posted some other screengrabs on The Neon Monster Blog.
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