A melancholy little animation by FLA from Sticky Monster Lab. I love the environment that’s been created and the gorgeous style!
The Loner by FLA
Archives for posts with tag: Character Design
Some of my favourite custom vinyl toys are created by UK artist & illustrator Matthew Plater, aka MAp-MAp. His quirky collection of characters often have a cool little backstories to accompany them. I love seeing the designs at the just primed stage because it gives a great insight into how much painstaking sculpting goes on to create these customs and original pieces.
WIP Custom Dunny Sculpts by MAp-MAp
Painted Dunny Customs by MAp-MAp
'Gaff' by MAp-MAp
'Rebirth' by MAp-MAp
'Chef Branko' by MAp-MAp
'Quinjo' by MAp-MAp
MAp-MAp’s customs and original paintings are usually sold through his online shop – http://maptownsqr.bigcartel.com/
'The Blooze' by Kelly Denato
'The Dropsies (1 of 4)' by Kelly Denato
'Rabbits and Ribbons' by Kelly Denato
'Split Ends' by Kelly Denato
Above are my favourite 4 acrylic on wood paintings by Brooklyn based artist, illustrator and animator Kelly Denato. For some reason I’ve picked a lot of the dark coloured paintings, but you should check out her blog or Flickr photostream because her style is really varied – she also creates soft plush sculptures and custom vinyl toys and has a great selection of colourful character sketches too!
'Crybabyvanilla' by Kelly Denato
Character sketches by Kelly Denato
I’m a big fan of Helen Dardik‘s illustration – I especially love her colour combinations! Here’s a lovely new fabric design from her called Beautiful Weirdos featuring those gorgeous colours and some quirky little characters!
Beautiful Weirdos fabric by Helen Dardik
Beautiful Weirdos fabric by Helen Dardik
Beautiful Weirdos fabric by Helen Dardik
Wow, I haven’t posted anything for a while! It’s been a bit of an eventful month that involved my old computer finally dying on me and taking most of my files with it (note to self : back work up more often) and the resulting frustration in trying to get the new computer set up, do some data recovery and catch up with the backlog of work waiting for me.
Being without computer for a bit did allow me to finally finish a resin model I’d been working on though. Here he is, I’m calling him Moriz.
Moriz by Kookizu (Front View)
Moriz by Kookizu (Side View)
Moriz by Kookizu (Size comparison with custom 3" Dunny)
This was a project I started because I’d been so impressed with what artists like Paul Shih were self producing that I wanted to have a go myself. I chucked myself in at the deep end a bit, having never sculpted or made a mould or used resin before; but I tend to be a bit over ambitious at times so that’s nothing new ^-^ Sometimes that doesn’t work out and sometimes it’s kind of okay…
Here are some work in progress photos of the various stages that went into making the final model – including the really annoying and slightly depressing stage when I pulled the first resin model out of the mould I’d made only to find the arms and legs had huge air bubbles in them! Luckily I had some fantastic advice from Twitter and Flickr friends Tesselate and Muffinman amongst others, who both have years of experience and some very handy tips to pass on for things I could try to fix the mould. It’s all about the air vents!
Moriz by Kookizu (WIP)
Once I had a model that was hole free came the frankly terrifying prospect of painting it. I put that part off for so long, worried that after all the hard work to make the model I’d ruin it the second I touched it with a paintbrush! I’d been chatting with artist and toy customiser Squink during the time I was working on the model and had sent him a few models to paint in his style when he had some time – I’ve seen a sneak peak of a WIP and it looks really cool – and he kindly sent one back painted with my design, which was a lovely surprise! So impressed with how they looked painted I thought it was only fair that I stopped slacking and at least attempted to paint my model myself too. I’ve a way to go before I have Squink’s toy painting skills, but I didn’t do as bad a job as I thought I might, and was able to use my version for some photos (minus the orange crosses on the cheeks that I chickend out of doing and the fancy typography of the Squink version – learn to walk before I can run and all that) ^-^
Moriz (Squink Version)
So, that’s my first resin toy made. A few hiccups along the way but I ended up with something I was pretty pleased with for a first attempt and I learned some stuff that will hopefully make any future attempts a bit easier!
I can’t help thinking of Tim Burton’s stop motion animations when I see New Zealand born artist Seymour‘s quirky, dark Victorian influenced characters. I mean that as a big compliment though, in fact it would be great to see them bought to life in an animation…Seymour could even make the models himself because his sculpted work is great with lots of amazing decoration and detail. If you are reading Mr Burton ( What? You never know, hehe ) have your people call Seymour’s people and make this happen please!
I particularly like the Retired Wrestlers – see more of them here.
'Animal Autonomy' by Seymour
Seymour's Retired Wrestlers - Tony "The Crippler" Santoro
'Snapshot 3' from Seymour's Snapshot Series of Giclée Prints
'Sherman Swindlers Sideshow' by Seymour
'The Mad Potters Carriage' by Seymour
A selection of Seymour prints are available to buy here.
A fantastic animated music video by Oneedo with additional character animation by Rodney Selby. I love the illustration style and the 3D cylindrical effect – really effective and fits the track so well!
There’s a post on Oneedo’s blog about this animation here.
I’m a big fan of Mexican illustrator Cecy Meade‘s cute retro influenced style. Actually it would probably be more accurate to say styles, as she produces great vectors, paintings, screenprints, plush toys and more!
Illustration for Picnic Magazine by Cecy Meade
'La Muerte' screenprint by Cecy Meade
'Ukulele Girl' by Cecy Meade
Painting for 'The Tummie Friends' exhibition by Cecy Meade
'I Love Bunnies' by Cecy Meade
I’m in love with the gallery of surreal, colourful alien monsters created by Japanese artist Yoko D’Holbachie. There isn’t much information about the artist on her website yet other than the fact that her work is currently part of an exhibition in L.A, but the fantastic gallery of work speaks for itself!
Yoko D'Holbachie
Yoko D'Holbachie
Yoko D'Holbachie
