New from Fuller: Rebel Western, Mega Munny & So So Happy

 

Fuller shares with us 3 of his most recent pieces: above is a Rebel Ink figure which seems to be a favorite with many customizers. Fuller was given this one as a commission and was tasked with giving it an Old West feel. The other criteria was using the colors red, black, gray and white. I wonder if the customer knew how amazingly bad-ass it would turn out?

The sick piece above is actually a Kidrobot Mega Munny, which means it started out 18 inches tall! And with Fuller's sculpting/accessorizing, it's probably more like 20 inches now. That's a BIG friggin custom. It's like the size of my whole apartment. Here's what Fuller said:

I wanted to do add something to my Black Magic series. I don't do very many Mega Munny so I thought I would make him into one. I did a ton of more sculpting on this than I normally would. I have to say it was really fun. This was my original design of Voodoo from series one, but I decided to do a brown version. Thinking I like this one better. He will be for sale. 

(Watch Fuller's shop- this piece either has not yet been put up for sale, or it has, and it sold in the 5 freaking days it took me to get this blog post up!)

OK, so I'm starting to get this whole So So Happy Qee show. So So Happy has a number of characters of their own, which the artists are incorporating into their work. And to be honest, despite looking at different artists' and companies' characters day in and day out, I have to say that I really enjoy the So So Happy characters. You can see them all here. They're cute, and there's a bunch of them. 

Fuller writes: This is my entry for the SO SO Happy Project. I chose the character TRIBE. I wanted to add a few other characters and what better place than his mouth! 

One of the strongest elements of this piece, and many of Fuller's pieces, is his use of bright colors contrasting with black. I dig that about his work.

Here's a little more about the So So Happy Qee show, which I took from the blog on Toy2RUSA's site:

So So Happy x Toy2R Custom Qee Project

Toy2R is thrilled to jump into 2012 with a new DIY project, especially when it’s tied to one of the fastest growing brands – So So Happy. In collaboration, between Toy2R and So So Happy, an incredible roster of artists have been invited to customize 8” Qees inspired by the So So Happy characters and brand. Over 30 artists are taking part in this project and the Qees will be displayed at venues and trade shows across the country for 2012.

Participating artists include: Albert Art, AW177, Sneaky Raccoon, Chauskoskis, Diogo Machado, Frank Mysterio, A Little Stranger, Howie Green, Fuller Designs, JC Rivera, Jon-Paul Kaiser, Julie West, Ardabus Rubber, Kim Mayhew, Leecifer, DGPH, Matt Anderson, MeSmithy, Mikie Graham, Grimsheep, Pocket Wookie, RSIN, Scott Kinnebrew, Scott Tolleson, Shawn Wigs, Steve Lew, Valerie Bermudez and Valerie Gudell.

JC Rivera Tequila custom commission

I am constantly completely impressed by JC Rivera's consistently excellent customs. I've never seen a poor or even average piece from him. Every single piece is top-notch. 

This is JC's recent commission: a Muttpop Tequila figure. With huge muscles on a fairly large platform, the Tequila figure has always begged to be customized. This character is Albert "El Pheonix" Huertas.  

The undefeated champ fought his last fight at the age of 45 to show the world that he was still the #1 in world. 

Sweet back tat work by JC

Even accessories like El Phoenix's chain and rope belt are intricately detailed.

JC's a guy to watch this year. You can follow him on his website, store, flickr or tumblr.

We also have a section dedicated to JC Rivera. Buy any custom toy from that section of our site and get a free Bokull resin figure with your purchase!

Don P HALO Master Chief and Revenge of the Dead Ninja Dunnys

 Don P flexes his luscles and shows us that he's no one-trick pony: instead of customizing his usual Kidrobot Mascots, here he shows us his 3" custom Dunnys: A Ninja from Revenge of the Dead (above) and Master Chief from HALO. I like that fact that Patrick has made sweet (and appropriate) accessories for these pieces, and that his work seems to be progressing. He's learning and developing his style as he goes. Always fascinating to watch that happen. Here are his links in case you want to follow along more closely:  Facebook - Blog - Shop

Shawn Wigs Silly Rabbits Dunny Series: Wigalicious

These dope 3" custom Dunnys are Shawn's own entry into his Silly Rabbits custom Dunny series. 

Blind boxes from this series are available here.

Kickstarter to fund Tenacious Toys Exclusive Scott Tolleson Uncle Argh NOIR

We are incredibly excited to announce our first Kickstarter project, which is intended to fund our first full run of an exclusive toy: the Uncle Argh NOIR figure is the second colorway of Scott Tolleson's popular 5" Toy2R Mini Qee. Scott is super stoked about this colorway and we are incredibly fortunate and thankful to him for allowing us to take this colorway and run with it. 

The Kickstarter campaign ends on May 1st. Our goal is to raise just enough money to fund the entire 500-piece run of toys, plus the fees associated with Kickstarter campaigns, and the shipping. To that end, we have made this Kickstarter an easy one to fund: a $30 pledge gets you the Uncle Argh NOIR figure ($30 flat, including shipping, no matter where you live!). Lesser pledges get you a sticker pack or a Tolleson print. Higher pledges get you orginal Scott Tolleson sketches, paintings, or even a custom Mini Qee which Scott will make specifically for you using the Mini Qee platform of your choice!

Once May 1st hits, assuming we reach 100% funding, the money is charged to your credit card. Then it goes thru Kickstarter to us, and we send it along to Toy2R to get production started. After that, it takes about 2 months for the figures to be produced and shipped to the US. So we are looking at an arrival in July/August.

As I type this, we've already scored our first $100 pledge! I'm so excited I think I'm going to pass out.

Please click here to donate to this Kickstarter project! And please share the project online whether you donate or not. I've spent 2 years pounding this keyboard, helping promote up & coming artists, startup companies and even OTHER toy shops, so I know very well how incredibly important it is for all of us to share information on Facebook, Twitter, etc. Please help us get this project funded!

Shawn Wigs Silly Rabbits Dunny Series: Fuller

These supremely evil-looking custom Dunnys by James Fuller are a part of Shawn Wigs' Silly Rabbits Dunny Series. You can purchase blind boxes here.

Argonaut Resins 8" HellCat release TONIGHT

Argonaut Resins has again teamed up with Robbie Bush (aka DJ McBoing Boing) to start the launch of the all new 8 inch Tuttz artist custom series. In this new release Robbie continues his hellish flame theme carried over from his custom run on the Pharaoh Hound resins with these all new 8 inch Tuttz Hell Cats. The series will include a Mono gray tone Hell Cat, a Hell freeze over blue Hell Cat, a Hell Cat light and 2 Hell Cats dark. 

These 5 customs will go on sale Tuesday March 6 at 10PM Est. time in the Argonaut Resins online STORE. That's TONIGHT. Set your alarms.

There will a lot of other uber talented guest artists invited to take part in this 8 inch Tuttz custom series throughout the year and we will do our best to make it fun and exciting. The Tuttz figurine now comes in three sizes - 3.5 inch, 6.5 inch and 8 inches.

Ghostface Killah custom Dunnys for Shawn Wigs' Silly Rabbits series

This is Ghostface Killah of Wu-Tang- GFK designed and signed these custom figures for Shawn Wigs' Silly Rabbits Dunny Series. Nice to have famous friends! 

Blind boxes from this series are available for purchase here.

Bugshub Bugsta resin figures available now

Michael Krenzin (aka Bugshub), an artist from Berlin, shares with us his newest resin figure: Bugsta! This 4 inch tall resin piece is handmade, handpainted with a gloss finish, and signed. You can purchase Bugsta in several colorways here! 

Also, keep up with Bugshub on Facebook here and on his website here.

New MCA mini figure series & Sun Min Spider Boom Series 2

Incoming this year from Toy2R: A brand-new blind-boxed 3" mini figure artist series based on the new 3" MCA Ape platform. Lookit all those names!

Also, a second series of Sun Min's ridiculously cute Spider Booms. Spider Boom Series 2 will also be an artist series featuring the work of some of our favorite toy artists and customizers! How killer is this news? 

We will be stocking both series; email us if you're interested in them as we'll be filling orders for early inquiries first. Toy2R lets us open the blinds so we'll also be selling open-box once these arrive.

SNEAK PEEK: Rab_beatZ DIY figure in development

Andrea Mancuso sends us these images of her upcoming DIY figure called Rab_beat. 

Here's what she said:

I'm a 3d character designer, and I've started the production of my DIY toy. I'm already waiting for the prototype and soon I'll start the production, so i thought to spread the news about it. You can see the project on my behance profile and soon i'll update the toy pics. Hope you'll like it.

Info: this is the solid and rounded version of my rab_beatz papertoys. The first version was made of one piece and after morkone's and seacreative's "custom-test" i decided to split it in parts to let the artists free to paint and customize it in any way they want.I plan to make this figure around 7.5” tall.

This is the link of the squared paper version project

 https://www.facebook.com/pages/rab_beat-invasion/133940993287321

here is my behance project page:

 http://www.behance.net/gallery/Rab_beatZ-DIY-ver-02/3086027

Here are some customs based on the platform:

Paulyvinyl Paul Kaiju show at TAG open now

Toy Art Gallery is proud to present “Paulyvinyl State of Mind” by the legendary Paul Kaiju! Paul’s work needs no introduction; as a top-notch painter, sculptor, and toy designer he has taken the toy world by storm with his extremely original designs that are influenced by everything from Japanese Kaiju to 60’s Sci-Fi to cheap squeaky toys. Be it Japanese soft vinyl or hand-casted resin, Paul’s creations are truly unique and exquisitely crafted. He now brings this expertise to his first solo show at Toy Art Gallery with a multitude of his various characters in one-offs and editions in vinyl and resin, along with some big surprises!

“PAULYVINYL” is a limited engagement runs through Mar. 18th.

Toy Art Gallery’s new showroom is located at 7571 Melrose Ave. Hollywood CA 90046.

Shawn Wigs Silly Rabbits Dunny Series: BALD

These sweet customs are BALD's entry into Shawn Wigs' Silly Rabbits Blind Box Dunny Series. 

Blind boxes from this series are available for purchase here.

TYO Toys' MQ Chevy Van

This is a 1:64 diecast Matchbox Chevy Van with MQ artwork on both sides. 

Originally cast in 1979 by Matchbox/Mattel, these blank vans sat for years forgotten in the stock room of a warehouse in New Jersey. TYO discovered them in 2011 the VanDal series was born.

The first participating artist is MQ, see more of his work at http://mqism.com and http://tyotoys.com/graffititoys/mq-van. 

I really dig this type of piece- way before I discovered designer toys, I used to collect Matchbox and Hot Wheels in a big way. Apparently my Mom potty-trained me by bribing me with a Matchbox car. Seriously. I couldn't even make up a story that embarrassing.

Splurrt Ugly Unicorn Exclusive Series

Splurrt has been working closely with Jon Malmstedt of Rampage Toys lately on a few cool toy projects. These are Splurrt's exclusive custom Ugly Unicorns:

Is the Ugly Uniorn crazy, angry, extra hungry for cupcakes? Who knows, but one thing is for sure, he's uglier than ever.

I've sculpted the pupils and tongues onto every Ugly Unicorn by hand using epoxy resin. Every expression is 1-of-a-kind, They are finished with air brush sprays.

You can purchase the Splurrt Ugly Unicorns here.

Back to Daylight custom Munny by Los Agge

 Just got these images of a cool custom 7" Munny by an artist I had never heard of Los Agge (aka Aggelos Gargavanis). Back to Daylight was painted with acrylics and it's for sale here. 

Love discovering new artists to post about!

'Nam Dunny Series by DCAY

'Nam Dunny Series, originally uploaded by DCAY574.

Matt "DCAY" Melville sends us images of his newest work: the 'NAM Dunny Series! 

Matt writes: 

I'm an artist from South Bend, IN (real close to Chicago). I have a background in graffiti and other forms of art. I have been customizing since 2007 and I feel that I am ready to show my stuff to a bigger audience now.
The fist pics are of my newest series 'Nam, a set of four 3" Dunnys. If I get enough positive feedback or if people what another one, I will set up a "draft" and enlist new troops.

To see more pics of this series, and other work by DCAY, click here.

Droid Uprising custom Android by nati513 in stock

Our first custom toy by Bengi (aka nati513) is this Droid Uprising custom 3" Android figure! 

Click here to go to Bengi's page and buy the Droid.

Scott Kinnebrew Fang custom Qee for So So Happy show

Scott Kinnebrew sends us his submission to the So So Happy custom show, which involves custom Qees from over 30 artists. I must admit that despite keeping tabs on almost everything that Toy2R does, I had no idea who or what So So Happy was. So I went to their website... and I still have no idea. Apparently they are a California studio that makes stuff and donates to charity. They seems to have many characters that they license out. I DID manage to figure out that Scott's Fang custom is based on one of their characters, which is available as a plush here. Of course, Scott stuck Fang in a Stormtrooper suit! Cool custom. Here's more pics of Scott's custom Fang:

Scott writes:
Here's the Qee I'm dropping on the Toy2R / So So Happy show.  He started out as a Pig, but got a few mods and some homemade armor to wrap up the look.

I picked "Fang" after I read all the different bios because he looks like a devil, he's into custom toys, loves Mongolian BBQ, and he dresses like a Stormtrooper at Renaissance Fairs...seemed like my kind of dude.  I haven't done a Qee in a while, and it reminded me of how much I like the platform.