This was one of my favorite paintings I brought to SDCC; I've forever been into drawing and painting animals with anthropomorphic attributes--but I am compelled to stress I am NOT a furry-- and I dunno, a rat in a hat just seems adorable to me. I feel a little hokey admitting that yeah, I did like this thing I did... I'm not trying to toot my own horn. I just sometimes surprise myself-- I'm a huge critic of my own work.

A girl bought him along with 2 or 3 other pieces, much to the detriment of a guy-- from Baja California, if I remember his badge correctly-- who came looking for it literally an hour later. I sold him a print I just happened to have made of it for a chunk less. He said he would like to see more like it, and I said, "Sure, check my website and blog". So maybe he's seeing this now.

So if he is-- hey dude! I'll paint some more stuff quite soon and put them on my etsy shop! So check back. Now that SDCC is over, I have a loooot of free time on my hands with which to focus on projects and artwork.

No rest for the lazy, am I right?

I'll recap more thoroughly later...

....as it stands right now, my brain is incredibly fogged up. It's no secret that every year I go to Comic Con, I leave with some sort of cold or sinus malady. I guess it's going from a hot, humid climate (NYC and now Louisiana) to a dry and more mild one. And then sitting in stale, freezing air conditioning for the extent of the con. This year was no exception but somehow along the way I also developed a helluva allergic reaction. It started on Saturday and I basically itched through the end of the show and a plane ride until I went to the doctor, who declared I'd come into physical contact with something.

I've come to the conclusion that it was one of those scratchy, blue, cushioned chairs I hijacked from the concession stand to use at the table-- I did in fact touch it on Saturday. It's really the only thing I can think of. With the thousands of people coming into contact with those chairs I wouldn't be surprised if Freeman sprayed them down with heavy duty germ-killing chemicals.

So anyway, I'm totally hopped up on industrial strength antihistamines and prednisone and we came home to discover the AC was not working so... let's just say I'm out of it.

But I wanted to say, for any of you checking in, that Binkus will be going into a second run soon enough. We were a couple dolls shy of selling out completely but had a lot of interest online before the show, so we're going to be putting information up soon enough on how to buy one. Just FYI.

Binkus Featured Elsewhere

The designer toy website, Plastic & Plush has a little blurb on Binkus in advance of SDCC. So that's awesome. It's cool to be featured elsewhere... and while I admittedly was not 100% familiar with the site before, I've come to realize it's a pretty great resource, especially to the collectors updating their "Must Get" list for San Diego.

Sculpting Binkus

I've about had it with polyresin today. I got it all over my pants, got it all over my leg, my arms, my fingers, maybe on the dog, and it kind of smells like a musty basement while the liquid is curing.

I mean, that said, it's awesome to be learning a new craft, despite the learning curve. Despite the hideous, off-putting feeling of a thin layer of plastic surrounding your thumb that you just cannot scrub off. I think I'm going to stop at 30 plastic sculpts. This will be a Comic Con ~exclusive~ if you will. Each one takes 30 minutes to cure (harden) in its mold, then you must meticulously break each one out. Then comes the dremel fun, the sanding, the priming, and the painting.

This is not to say it's not fun. It is! Mostly! It just is time consuming. Limiting the number of sculpts makes them a little more special. I will perhaps, after Comic Con, continue to produce them, but between now and Preview Night, I'm unsure if I can really breach the 30 mark. I also have mini paintings and cards to paint/print/etc.

Cramming for San Diego is like having a freelance job with a breakneck race to a deadline, which I appreciate. Since I'm totally unemployed.

Anyway, here's a grainy iPhone pic of most of my sculpts of the little critter.



I'm already thinking about my next possible sculpts, and other designs I could possibly work from. It's.... it's pretty rad.

When we have a nice, finished, painted one, I'll post that. So you have a better idea of WTF you're looking at.

If they weren't so alienating and profane, I'd have half a mind to do a bunch of decorative prints with the Mel Gibson hate rants on them to sell at Comic Con, but I think I'd have to apply for a special "Mature Content" card or something.

Project Time.

not my (big beefy) hand




I make no promises about the outcome of these photographs. I know what I am aiming for, and I have a fair amount of faith in that outcome. But I also know that jinxes exist so therefore I shall not get into the details.

But I'll know more about how it's turning out in say, 48 hours.

In related news, I have a LOT of stuff to do for Comic Con. Just over a week left. Yoinks.

4th of July, 2010.

Whatever you did on the 4th of July, I think we will be able to agree it probably wasn't this epic.







The 4th of July is a big deal to some people down here. This year's theme was "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots"-- an homage to Flaming Lips.



Basically we just blew stuff up. No one died or was maimed.