Packaging APPROVED

I hired some lady to do some packaging artwork for me.
the samples came in!!!



We love how they turned out, they are ...

Almost There!

So... i've had my head down...locked in the factory... and here are the results.

parts

signed and numbered

assembled

 

the gang

-The inventory for the strawberry edition of 125  Ice Scream Men is done.

-The package artwork is done and designed by Tamara Petrosino, the dies and printing are being finalized by Kelly Rutherford. 

-The website is up and partially functional, designed by David Ayllon programmed by Brad Johnson.  They make a fantastic team even though they've never met.

If I am you are lucky i'll be able to take some orders and ship something before the new year.

Brutherford Industries LLC

This is an update that's been in the works for some time now.

After many years of working in design and manufacturing it is clear that i am most comfortable in the areas where the two overlap. Outside of my full time job, (which i am still devoted to in both spirit and hourly commitments) i have continually been working on my own personal designs AND collecting outdated, abandoned and misunderstood tools and machinery.

It only makes sense that i now return that machinery to its intended life and use it to mass produce my own goods. I am going to focus on low volume limited runs of fun  objects that make people smile, some will be my own original designs some will be from the fantastic network of artists and designers that i have met over the past 12 years. It's also possible that there are great collaborations ahead with artists i havn't met yet. I'm not really sure how to identify what will be the unifying theme of this project but the simplest explanation is that it will be a collection of goods curated and manufactured by Tamara and I.



This will all happen under the name Brutherford Industries, the website can be found at www.brutherford.com and is currently a place holder accepting signups for our mailing list. The plan is to go live with sales sometime in December. Our first item for sale will be a vinyl toy that some of you may already be familiar with, designed by myself and packaged with an amazing limited edition print by none other than the fabulous Tamara Petrosino.

I present to you you

THE ICE SCREAM MAN

Where does the Ice Scream Man project stand today?
I have built  test molds, run a few batches, found a few adjustments needed to be made, corrected the original sculpt and should be able to finish production molds and start production early next month. We are now finalizing the packaging (a full color box with more artwork from my amazing wife) and should have that ordered soon. The Ice Scream Man will be available through www.brutherford.com and a few other retailers each carrying their own limited colorway (flavor).

We have more toy designs up our sleeves as well as some proper functional items. We will not be limited to plastic goods we have projects lined up in glass, ceramic, metal, wood and various soft goods. Join the mailing list, stay tuned, and get ready for the fun.
 
-ryan AKA Brutherford

i like stickers

BOOM

some big news today...
ice scream man will exist as an actual item that you can buy...

until then...

more melted nasty things

i like to melt stuff

I'm still working on the Ice Scream Man, the updated properly scaled models have just been completed. I have to clean them up and get them ready to mold. I'll spend more time discussing that later. In the Meantime, here's something else cool.

I'm not usually interested in violent imagery but after sculpting the Ice Scream man i have become addicted to melting things. in particular i really like the idea of melting violent, angry, mean things in to gooey, gelatinous loveable puddles. Maybe it's something about taking away their power and making them soft... or maybe it's just fun.

i have a handful of these sculpts in progress right now but here is the first that i actually produced.

 

still a little violent but what about in some fun colors?

once again i am completely unaware of the size of my own monster hands. in the case of the cone i guess i underestimated the size of my mitts, this time i overestimated.

too big!!!

When i was doing the original sculpt for the ice scream skull i wasn't concerned with scale. The sculpting software works with units called vauxals which are similar to a 3-d vector...or infinitely scalable.

when i built the cones i used  a different software that is more reliant on actual measurements and made a guess on the overall size after a few rough calculations using my own hand for refrence.

I finally went out and picked up an actual ice cream cone for reference to start proper scaling for a new model. turns out i didn't exactly factor in the right percentages to make up for the fact that i have gorilla hands.

I was about 30% too big, i expected some variance but not quite this much.

I also recieved a very exciting delivery last week. a rotational molder!!!
Now i'll be able to make my little dudes in small production volumes on my own.
I'm a long way from being ready to start production but i'm still pretty excited.
The next step is to make a wax prototype of a true scale ice scream man and experiment to find the most viable way of producing my own molds for use with the rotational molder.

here's a video of the molder doing it's spiny thing.

Look Who's Melting

 

 

 

 

THE GANG'S ALL HERE

Here comes the I Scream Man!!!

Working on a fun new project...

 

What flavor would you like?

a steve chuck update

back in may i posted about a photo studio in Asbury Park that asked some friends and i to pose for some free portraits so they could practice on us and help get some shutter time under their belt since they were a newly opened business.

yesterday Tamara and i were wondering around the Asbury boardwalk and happened in to a store selling picture frames among other things.


we found one frame with a particularly interesting demo photo.

I'm that random, anonymous guy in a new picture frame!!!

Always remember, nothing in this world is free.
The portrait actually cost us our souls as we have now become unwitting tools of the capitalist machine... OK maybe we are just TOOLS.

Rendezvous 2011

This past weekend was the annual Citroen Rendezvous in Saratoga Springs, NY. An amazing event organized by amazing people.

In preparation for the event Tamara and I made some Citroen soaps and shipped them up to the Springs Motel and asked the owner to sneak the bars in to rooms before the guests arrived. We also made a couple hundred extras to sell at the event, we sold out in no time and donated the proceeds to Drive She Said.

the molds

the soaps

some close ups



the labels

the sales table


Tam and i brought along our parents it was a great weekend with both friends and family. We borrowed Kim's Ami8 so the Ami6 would have company on the drive up. The 8 was piloted by a first time citroen driver (my mother) and the two are now best friends.


I'm going to go ahead and say it... these are the two greatest cars that were in attendance.
I'd say third place was a tie between Greg Long's Red DS cabriolet and Carter's 1955 truckette, i saw Greg's car last year and although i recognized it's beauty i didn't quite  appreciate it as much as i did this year SINCE GREG LET ME DRIVE IT!!!


The Longs are apparently  a family that appreciates esoteric automobilia, Greg's brother John brought an amazing Bowlus trailer. Here's a link to John's site about Bowlus trailers.

My favorite detail on the trailer is the handle on the back, someone would stand on the rear bumper and hang on to the handle to help move the weight (a massive 1100lbs.)around as you were trying to mount the hitch.

I guess the rest of these cars didn't suck too much.








look at all these amis


the rest of my photos can be seen here

one thing that i can depend on

SOUND SYSTEM!!!

Since the original door cards in the Ami had already been cut for speakers and i like music...
i decided i needed to install an absurd system.







I custom built the "head unit" to run and charge an ipod, there is a standard ipod cable wired to the car battery with rca line outs. the line outs are split to 3 line level control knobs to control my front and rear channels along with a subwoofer. all five speakers are coming from a single 5 channel kenwood amp with crossover control. My front speakers are a set of 5.5" kenwood components with an in-line high pass filter. In the rear is a pair of kenwood 3 way 4x10" speakers and in the trunk is a pioneer 10" subwoofer in an enclosed box with the amp and a capacitor mounted on it. By using this speaker configuration and amp along with three separate line level controls i can simulate having basic audio controls. I can adjust the crossovers to send more highs to the front and all the lows to the sub so i can manipulate the  bass and treble controls by adjusting the relative volume of those speakers i get the same fader control to the front and rear channels but what i do not have is a balance adjustment. That's not all that important since the cabin is so narrow. Between these basic controls and the built in eq settings on the ipod i think i am getting very decent audio quality.

I enclosed the line level controls in  a plastic box that i designed and built in solidworks and then printed the part on a dimension 3-d printer in black ABS. I adapted the controls to run correct ami6 knobs along with a proper on/off switch and a later model oil pressure warning light to indicate power on.


driver's door

passenger door

view of the rear speaker box and subwoofer

chevron details on the ports.

under the back seat

in the trunk

I am very happy with the project it looks and sounds very clean...it's also very loud.




the new emblem installed