People are RAD!

i made this ice scream man for NYCC 2012

     I have been going to NYCC since the first time it happened at the Javitz center in 2006 but this is the first year i've attended as a participating artist. I had an absolute blast although i spent most of my time limited to the hall known as the Block and only ventured on to the main show floor once. I nearly had a panic attack when confronted in a hallway by a gang of costumed thugs threatening me with free hugs and had to rush back to my safe space behind the Clutter booth.

i made this resin baby head 20 years ago

     

I have been collecting toys since i was about 15 and making my own strange sculptures and toys for almost as long but the past year has been a whirlwind of excitement for me as both an artist and as a fan of this designer toy community. I have had the opportunity to not only meet many of the people i have admired over the years but also to work with them and that still blows my mind every day. 

     

Shortly after i launched the Ice Scream Man i was contacted by some people from Clutter magazine, and a short time after that those people, Josh, Miranda and Erica came to my house to interview me and see where Ice Scream is born. Since then i am proud to say these people have become great friends to Tamara and I. We have had a few occasions to work together and more occasions to hang out together and they are all awesome and amazing people. I later met Jim Crawford  or as he's known in Hollywood , "J Craw". also a totally rad dude. Then finally the Nicks, Curtis and Carrol these two totally suck.... SIKE!!! Guess What? They're rad too!

J-Craw, Lana, Miranda, Erica, Nick, Josh, Other Nick,  The King of Toys

The amazing Clutter crew graciously invited me to not only show my wares at their NYCC booth but also allowed me to make myself a fixture in their booth and have a safe space to hideout when the crowds became too overwhelming for my delicate social insecurities. It was in this safe space that i also had the opportunity to spend time with Matt aka SekureD and Lana "plushinator" Crooks more great people that helped make the entire experience fantastic.

So, THANK YOU Clutter Crew, you're all RAD!

the setup at the MPH booth during my signing. photo courtesy of MPH

 New York Comic Con opened to the public on a Friday October 12th and at 12 noon I had my first signing. Vin at myplasticheart has been another person that reached out to me early after the initial release of the Ice Scream Man and has been amazingly supportive ever since. Vin asked if there was something we could do together for NYCC and we came up with the Asian inspired multi pack of Green Tea, Red Bean and Black Sesame bite size Ice Screams, i covered that process in my previous post . The MPH booth looked great, the signing was awesome and the exclusives moved well. This was really the first opportunity i've ever had to interact with fans of my work in real life and i've got to say, it was pretty cool. It's amazing to receive orders and money to enable me to continue doing what i do but to meet the people behind those orders and realize that i am not just spewing my thoughts and images in to an anonymous internet and that people are actually receiving and embracing that information is both humbling and an incredible point of pride for me. I am certain that many of those people that i met at NYCC will no longer be just orders or fans but friends.

So, THANK YOU Vin and MPH, you're all RAD!

KRNY 10th Anniversary show, photo courtesy of TRAMPT

 On Friday night after Comic Con I headed over to the Kidrobot 10th Anniversary show. The show looked great but was super crowded and i hit the panic button an retreated outside which turned out great because i ran in to Kirby and Whitney Kerr from Rotofugi. Kirby was the very first person from within the designer toy community that reached out to me as an artist. When the Ice Scream Man was just a couple photos on instagram Kirby sent me a message of encouragement and basically said he was willing to place a wholesale order as soon as they were in production... and he did and that was incredibly motivating to me.

So, THANK YOU Kirby and Whitney, you're RAD!

Saturday night was the 2nd annual Designer Toy Awards, an event organized by the previously mentioned Clutter crew, this years event was hosted by the Sucklord and held at the Providence night club. I thought the event was absolutely fantastic. The venue was the perfect size, the ceremony well organized and Sucklord delivered a fantastic bit of theater by taking seriously what needed to be and using his wit to diffuse any glitch that did pop up. It was the perfect combination of professionalism and "i don't give a fuck" that came together to make the event feel like it represented a real community of serious professionals that don't take themselves too seriously... and that's definitely how i roll. I was nominated in three categories, Breakthrough artist, Best Self produced and Toy of the Year .  All quite an honor but the category that meant the most to me was Self Produced... AND I WON!!! The award was presented to me by Gary Ham, last years winner in this category and another artist that both Tamara and I have been fans of for quite a while. So that was a pretty amazing experience. I can sum up my experience at the awards and over the past year by pretty much repeating my acceptance speech. Clutter is cool, the other artists in this community are cool and all the fans in this community are cool. 

So, THANK YOU to everyone i've met through this awesome community.

 

I'm not done naming Rad People yet.

 

The next big event after NYCC is Designercon, Unfortunately i can't make it this year.

The Ice Scream Man will be there though, Julie B at Pretty in Plastic has offered to show my stuff.

There are no Dcon exclusives but if you just need to pick up some regular Ice Scream or Melt Knuckles swing by the Pretty in Plastic Bazaar... Actually, swing by even if you don't want that shit Julie B is Rad and there will be plenty of other awesome stuff there.

 

While you're at Designer con, you're definitely going to want to stop by Spanky Stokes Booth for two reasons. 1 because he is RAD! 2 because he is giving away a ton of awesome shit and all you have to do to win it is visit his booth and get a wrist band. I should also mention that some of the awesome shit he is giving away is a huge Brutherford Industries prize pack loaded with awesome goodness.

So... Yeah... i think that's it for now.

OH WAIT... There's also this!!!

New York Comic Con 2012

This Thursday you'll finally be able to get your hands on the Brutherford X myplastic heart NYCC 2012 bite size multi pack that i mentioned in my last post. Available exclusively at myplasticheart booth #3313 at NYCC 2012. As a set they’re $52 (special NYCC only price) or you can grab one for $20, limited to only 50 sets.I will be on hand for a signing of the pieces Friday at 12pm.

Vin and MPH have been amazing supporters of what i've been doing with the Ice Scream Man since the beginning so when he asked me if we could do a NYCC bite size exclusive i was all "HELL YEAH!". At first it was one flavor, green tea, then he realized how cool it would be to do an Asian flavor inspired multipack so he asked if we could add red bean and make it speckled, once again i was all "HELL YEAH!". Then a little while later he realized we had better just go for broke and add the black sesame flavorway too.  This time i was all "ok dude, this is getting a little crazy" ... SIKE!!! ...  i was all "HELL YEAH"

When it came time design packaging i was concerned with my own incredibly western point of view and i was a bit scared that i wouldn't be able to achieve the level of sophistication the pieces deserved. (basically i was afraid i'd just end up pasting a bunch corny of dragons, Buddhas and koi fish all over the boxes). I voiced my concerns to Vin and he said he'd handle it... i think the reulting packaging is ACES!!! and exactly what i wouldn't have been able to come up with on my own.

Earlier this year when it first crossed my mind that i might be able to do a piece for one of the Comic Cons it popped in to my head that it would be really cool to incorporate a cone wrapper as a platform for some graphics that referenced vintage comic books as a nod to the origin of the shows. Then as a goof i worked up a domino mask.  Originally i thought the Ice Scream man was probably a bad guy, then i thought he looked a lot like Waldo but that all changed after the phrase "Dork Knight" somehow entered my psyche.

Comic inspired Ice Scream Men was a hard sell, possibly because it was a triple stacked reference of ice cream, skulls and comics that bordered on meta nonsense and partly because i probably sounded like a crazy person while trying to explain it to people. I had no takers for SDCC and it was looking like no takers for NYCC either, then the good people at Clutter Magazine offered me the opportunity to put whatever i wanted in their booth (that's way too much trust) I knew i could forge ahead with THE DORK KNIGHT.

 

 Limited to just 30 pieces The Dork Knight edition is full size (7.5" tall ) and will sell for $110(tax included) available at NYCC via the Clutter Magazine booth #3004 starting Thursday October 11th.

I will be on hand at the Clutter Booth for a signing on Friday, October 12th from 4 pm to 7 pm and on Sunday, October 14th from 12 Noon to 5 pm. I

I will also make a few pieces available on the brutherford webstore on saturday afternoon for anyone who needs one but can't make it to NYCC.

Last but not least we have the Mega Bling Ice Scream King halloween mask. 5 pieces will be on hand at the Designer Toy Awards ceremony on Saturday night. These are not the cheap Chinese masks you remember from the 1980's these are brand new Cheap American masks from 2012 complete with toxic paint and tetanus inducing staples to hold the crappy elastic strap on. Although they are completely wearable they are not what i would call "comfortable". These are mostly for people who are too cool for school and wouldn't be caught dead putting any real effort in to a Halloween costume but still want to show they've got that Halloween spirit. This is a good mask for wearing on the back or side of your head for giving of that super cool-guy vibe. If you do prefer to wear it proper, please note there is no lower jaw on this mask so it leaves your mouth totally accessible to that strong alcoholic beverage you'll be carrying around all night.

There might even be some non bling versions available at www.brutherford.com very soon .

It's been about 1 year

 Tomorrow October 3rd i will finally be releasing my Melt knuckles along with the silver and gold Ice Scream Pendant. One of which had a relatively long lead time and one that was a recent concept whipped out in a single day.

Anyone who has been following my work  has likely seen images of the melt knuckles just as early as they saw images of the Ice Scream Man. There was a time a little over a year ago when i was developing a lot of images of melted stuff... Ice cream, skulls, knuckles, grenades, bombs, switchbades, guns, all sorts of ill melted shit.

 The Ice Scream Man was the first piece i tackled as a production project, it has been an absolute blast and i am continually humbled by the support i receive for this piece. It has also been an incredible learning experience in materials, process and even customer relations. This single design has taken up way more time than i could have ever expected and that is not a complaint... i am incredibly thankful that it has been successful enough to allow me to pay off my initial investment in machinery and fund the purchase of more. For the record, Brutherford Industries now has 2 rotocasting machines, 1 small injection molding machine, 1 thermo-forming machine, a complete vacuum/pressure casting setup and a bunch of other crap. 

All of this brings me to my point, it's about time to show you all what i've been using that stuff for and release some new product. Tomorrow at noon EST CMYK Melt Knuckles will be available for $40 a piece and Silver and Gold Ice Scream Pendants will be available for $75 at Brutherford.com

If you've been paying attention you might also know that we are releasing an Asian inspired 3 pack of Bite Size Ice Scream Men at NYCC with My Plastic Heart. Green Tea, Red Bean and Black Sesame, I'll be at booth 3313 on Friday October 12th from 12-1pm for a signing. If you're in town come on out and boost my ego a little more you might even find that i've got some other wacky shit for sale that you just cant live without !?!?!?

 

Jinxed Munnyworld Custom Show

Tamara and i were asked to participate in a custom toy show hosted by Jinxed and organized by Chris Holt . Here are the pieces we each created.

Crepundia Felis Monogrammus by Brutherford

Cataver by Tamarapants

Both Pieces started as a 7"  Kidrobot Trikky .

Tamara's piece is called "Cataver", this is a character she has been sketching for a long time now and the Trikky platform was a perfect base for executing the concept in 3d. She started her process with a pencil layout then heated the vinyl and cut away the portions where she wanted to expose a skeleton.

Many of the pieces that had been cut away were then recessed in to the piece and glued in place to give the illusion of an underlying secondary surface. A boney tail and other small details were then added with polymer clay and the piece was finished with acrylic paints.

My piece was a slightly different process. I want to start by saying that I love the idea of using a platform as an inspiration for a new piece. I enjoy custom toys that are purely graphic as well as those that are sculptural. For me it's fun to look at a sculpted custom and be able to see the artists impetus and process although sometimes platforms are so transformed that the base part is completely hidden or totally removed as a reference. It is that last bit that inspired this piece. I wanted to see if i could literally completely remove the physical pressence of any of the base platform yet still maintain a very literall relationship between my final piece and the initial platform.

 The skeletal construction was designed and built to fit within the given frame of the Trikky platform. The piece was constructed using various techniques starting with an 360 degree image capture of the raw platform.

 

Then a 3d model was constructed to those shapes and proportions. The next step was to 3d print the parts many of which were further carved and sculpted by hand. The individual parts were painted with monsterkolor paints and a patina was added with a few layers of brown and black shoe polish. The framework for this piece is soldered brass, it took two days to construct, mount and securely fasten all the pieces in place. The piece is housed in a glass bell jar with a hand turned base and custom dedication plaque.

 

So if you are in the Philadelphia area on August 4th, come out and check out the opening.

 

Bite Size Update

It took a little longer than expected but we are finally wrapping production on the BITE SIZE Ice Scream Men. I'll be spending the weekend packing out and if all goes according to plan we will start the sale next Friday June 29th at 3pm est. Orders will begin shipping the following week.

This is a blind box release available in individual units for $15 each or in  sealed cases of 12 for $165.

There are only 45 cases available and every single Ice Scream Man was made by my own little hands.

Spiteful Strawberry, Villainous Vanilla, Malevolent Minstachio, Badass Brown, BOMB POP, Beelzebanana, Oil Slick, Grotesque Gold, Blackberry, Grape Ice, Aqua Glow, Strawberry Ice, Ice and the Super-rare-mega-awesome, never before seen golden ticket chase.

A long wait for a long update

For those of you following along, we have been swamped over the past few weeks. Tamara and I both still have full time jobs that we go to 5 days a week so we are operating Brutherford as a 2nd full time job. Due to the success of the Ice Scream Man, we have had to focus on production, packing and shipping far more than we expected at this stage. I was hopeful that more projects would be rolling out by now but i am very grateful for the incredible response we've gotten on the one product we are actually shipping.

Speaking of... The mint Ice Scream Man is now in stock, and ready to ship.

GET SOME !!!

So far we have shipped Ice Scream Men to 30+ states, and 9 countries and i think the Ice Scream Man that is furthest from home is one that now lives in New Zealand.

Aside from Brutherford Industries, you can now purchase ice scream men from:

Rotofugi in Chicago

MyPlasticHeart in New York

Dragatomi in Sacramento

Playlounge in London

Atom Plastic in Bassano Del Grappa, Italy

 I have made a lot of progress on melting knuckles, the process and mold configuration is finalized i just need to build more cavities so i can reproduce them efficiently.

 

One of the things that has pushed back the timeline on the knuckles is an overwhelming request for a mini-figure follow up to the Ice Scream Man. My original plan was to distinguish the mini version from his big brother by unifying the cone and base and producing in a single color, i also wanted to the whole thing to have a matte texture.

 

I think it made more sense in my head than in realty because i wasn't quite as happy with the final product as i thought I'd be. I reworked the pieces and came up with something i like a lot better

The other issue that has pushed back new projects is that i have a few orders for exclusives flavors!!!

I'm not going to announce the partners or release dates yet but i assure you they're going to be awesome.

Isn't there some big event happening in July?

Here's a quick peek at another project i'm trying to get some forward motion on. I'm trying to capture my logo in plastic! It's huge and i think pretty awesome so far but it has been interesting translating the proportions of the 2-dimensional graphic in to a physical piece. As you can see the exageration of features is much more pronounce in the physical piece but i think i like it. It's a little goofy, a little creepy and a lot of fun. Next i need to work on the execution of the key.

I've also entered a sort of diary of the birth of the Ice Scream Man and Brutherford Industries in the Instructables Make It Real Challenge. The Grand Prize is a pretty kick ass 3-d printer, I can't tell you how much having a 3-d printer of my own would increase the number and frequency of absurd objects that i'd unleash on this world. So... like... even though the rules clearly sate that winners will be selected by judges there is a "vote" button, it might still be cool if you wanted to go register and vote for me?

Ice Scream Man on Instructables

THANKS YOU GUYS!!!

It's been 1 week since we officially opened our doors and i am completely overwhelmed...by the amounts of praise and support i have received. For those who weren't paying attention, we kind of soft opened the site to do some testing and before we were paying attention some people spotted that we were open. Then someone blogged about it, then someone else, and the next thing i know, Frank Kozik is telling people that the Ice Scream Man is available in Russia because this cool dude Den blogged about us in Kazakhstan!!! AMAZING!!!

This has been a wild ride, at some points i felt like the project was moving backwards and nothing was ever going to happen.  Looking back now it seems completely insane that the Ice Scream Man has gone from a digital goof to the anchor product of a new small business in only  6 months. 

So thanks to everyone who has been blogging about us:

toysRevil

spanky stokes

the blot

vinyl pulse

man-e-toys

six and 5

streets of beige

clutter

diecut stickers

atom plastic...italy

Vinyl Toyz...Kazakhstan

vinyl chiles...mexico

vinyl monster...france

 

thanks  to everyone who has sent compliments and thanks most of all to all of you who have made a purchase. You're all awesome!!!

and here is what our logo might look like when i make a toy out of it.

Sorry for the delay

To everyone who has shown support to this project, Thank You!
Seriously... Thank You!

The support and positive feedback i have received from complete strangers has provided motivation that i have not felt in a long time.

I want to to give a quick update on why there has been such a long delay in the initial release of the Ice Scream Man. I am sitting on inventory, i have my pricing structure nailed down, i have my shipping worked out. The hold up at this point is my ability to process orders.

When i started this project i want to be sure that all aspects of the project were carried out with the professionalism and  level of detail that i have spent the last 10 years perfecting. I wanted to produce quality toys in mass quantities, so i bought the necessary equipment. I wanted the packaging to be beautiful and efficient so i spent a month requesting samples and test fitting materials from different suppliers. I wanted the purchase experience to be easy, safe and fluid without the need to transfer to external websites so I've partnered with two people who i know and trust to develop a beautiful and functional webstite.

December and January have been very tough months regarding the progress of the website. Between all the people involved in bringing the site to life we have dealt with a list of  experiences that cover the entire emotional spectrum from Super-Awesome to Fucking-Terrible. None of those issues will bring the project to a halt but all them have added little delays that we were not expecting or prepared for... because... well... that's how life works. Right?

So again... thank you for the support and patience.

-ryan

One of the things that Tamara and i have been dealing with is the recent  loss of our good friend Little Ray. She was an amazing friend, a fantastic cat and sometimes even a good hat. She kept me company in the studio and proved to be a great model of ice cream cones, we miss her every day.