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