Space Case Androids Blind Box Series by Menace Inc

Menace Inc has revealed the colorways for their Space Case Androids Blind Box Series that will be released on June 21st. The release date coincides with the 8 year anniversary of the first private space flight that happened back in 2004. The Menace Inc store is here: http://menaceinc.storenvy.com/

DIY Zukie coming May 25th

Over the last few months we';ve been posting a lot of work from Alison Perez, aka Miss Zukie. Alison's signature character, a simple little creature named Zukie, has been popping into our inbox regularly as Alison creates Zukie over and over in the form of custom toys and figures. At first, her pieces were almost dioramas, even terrarium-style pieces, incorporating found objects in enclosed environments, under glass. Then Zukie began hanging out with other cool platform toys like David Choe's Munko figures. Always inviting and colorful, Alison's custom work sold quickly. It seemed like Alison always had another trick, another idea, up her sleeve for the next piece. Zukie began to be available in many sizes, from super minis up to a few inches.

So to be honest, it was not a big surprise when Alison let it slip that she was having her Zukie character turned into a 4-inch DIY figure. After making a splash on the scene with a signature character, that would be the logical next step. Introducing DIY Zukie- a clean, simple and well-made DIY figure:

DIY Zukie has one point of articulation (neck) and is just as clean as can be. Certainly a great platform to customize. With a price point at $9.95, this figure directly competes with Kidrobot's Mini Munny and the Mini Qees from Toy2R.

Whoever produced this figure for Alison did a great job on packaging, with plastic inserts in the box just like the big boys use. 

Zukie art all over the box is fun and works well with the DIY nature of this figure. I've seen a bunch of artists posting on Facebook that they are excited to finally get their hands on a DIY Zukie.

You can secure your own on May 25th at the following link:

http://zukie_art.storenvy.com/

I am really happy that Alison got this sample Zukie to me when she did... a day later, Arqball visited us in our warehouse and took an interactive spin of the DIY Zukie figure:

Resin is King reveal, series drops Friday May 18

Resin is King Series 1 is a blind-box resin figure series developed by Dead Hand Toys and Tenacious Toys. We called in 7 talented resin artists to contribute new sculpts to this series. Each piece is just under 3 inches tall, and each blind box will retail for $25. There are a total of 40 pieces in this series. The release date is this Friday, May 18th at 8pm EST on our Resin is King page.

Above is the first time we've publicly released real, full-color images of the pieces in the series. Note that this picture only illustrates one colorway for each sculpt/artist. Each artist did in fact submit pieces in a variety of colorways- every piece in this 40-piece series is uniquely painted, so in reality the image above is not even close to a full reveal. The ratios indicated show the chances of pulling a piece from that artist.

Each blind box will contain one 2.75" tall figure, a sticker and a ratio card. The artists in Series 1 are: Motorbot, Jay222, Matt A*, Brian Ahlbeck, Dave Bondi, Rich Page and Bad Applez Inc.

Below is the Golden Ticket Teuth figure by Brian Ahlbeck. The Golden Ticket will be randomly inserted into one of the blind boxes. GOOD LUCK!

Sons of Anarchy Clay Morrow custom by Task One for As Seen on TV

photos courtesy of Brad Topolewski

 Task One just dropped a sneak peek into our inbox: his custom sculpt of Clay Morrow (played by Ron Perlman in Sons of Anarchy). This piece was done for Task One's solo As Seen on TV show at Plastic Chapel on Saturday June 9th, 2012 in Denver, Colorado. Thanks Task for the peek! This is a SWEET piece with an accurate portrayal of the distinct grill of that Perlman dude! What a face on that guy! (Nice gun too, Task!) Follow Task here:

www.taskoner.com
http://www.taskonernews.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=701977835

Toy Invaderz custom show June 30th in Chicago

We've been working with Emmanuel White Eagle (Cyberphunkk) for some time now, and it's finally time for him to curate as he puts on his very first group custom show: "Toy Invaderz" will take place June 30th in Chicago!

Emmanuel says: 

I have spent the past year and a half networking and admiring the works of artists in the toy community. From across the continent- US to Latin America and in Chicago itself- delving into the world of custom and original toys, enjoying and loving their creative input and determination, seeing and becoming a part of this art and its community and where it's headed. So after being around it and making toys myself, I decided in 2011 to start looking for a space to curate and launch an independent toy show in Chicago. I wanted to showcase customizers and independent toy makers from all over the world that are up and coming.

The idea is to bring more exposure to the Chicagoland area of the toy scene and the artists working in toys. I wanted to introduce more people to the movement in Chicago since there is not much of a custom toy scene here.

This event hasbeen created and curated by yours truly (Emmanuel L White Eagle, aka cyberphunkk). I recruited some very talented artists- from already established to up-and-comers.

 I have partnered up along with our beloved Tenacious Toys (www.tenacioustoys.com) to host and blog our online gallery and toys, exposing this show nationwide & worldwide via the web.

And this event will be hosted in Chicago thanks to the support of Quennect 4 Gallery who are the ones hosting our event, partnering up with all of us artists to help us bring this toy show to life..

The event will be proudly exhibited at the fresh and collaborative gallery space RGB Lounge.

 Toy Invaderz

June 30th, 2012

RGB Lounge

1420 North Milwaukee Ave 

Chicago. IL 60622  

phone: (312) 880 7421

 We are honored to have been asked to participate and lend our ecommerce abilities- to that end, we will be setting up a page to host and sell the customs in this show. 

Stay tuned for more details.

Chevy teaches us all how to stunt | BoomBotix SkullyBlog

Chevy teaches us all how to stunt | BoomBotix SkullyBlog

... with a little help from Jeff Soto and a robot...

Arqball Spins: 3D spins of designer toys & the Arqball Kickstarter

Last night I met up with Dave from Arqball at our warehouse so he could demonstrate the capabilities of Arqball's product. Arqball has created a hardware (rotating base) and software (iPhone/ iPad app) combo that allows the user to quickly set up and capture moving images with iPhone/iPad camera. The app then takes the image and creates a "spin" which you can see below:







The spins create a much more informative visual display for the product in question. I think it's perfect for designer toys! Above is a spin of Evilos' Tron Mini Qee custom (from my personal collection). The actual creation of the spin takes about 1 minute from the time you set the object on the base to the time the app is done creating the file. Really, super incredibly fast. The spins are currently hosted on Arqball's servers, and you can access them at any time online via a link or by embedding a short line of HTML code into a web page or blog post (as I have done here). So easy, a toy-obsessed caveman could do it.






Above is a Pink Feather HoodZomb from 3A's Adventure Kartel series of 1:6-scale figures.






Above is our exclusive David Horvath Strange Beast Bossy Night Stomp edition.

Although we didn't do it with these spins, the Arqball software does come with a background deletion feature which allows you to record the spin in front of a white background and with one click, remove the entire background and base so it's pure internet white.

Arqball is really easy to use, and you can get a jump on your competition by supporting their Kickstarter here. I'm a backer. Expect to see more spins incorporated into Tenacious Toys blog posts and product listings soon. I'd recommend this system to any toy shop or manufacturer that would like to more easily and completely reveal all the details of the products they carry or manufacture. Even great for bloggers who frequently review products online. No more photo shoots followed by editing multiple images! One Arqball spin takes care of every angle.