Makara

Jesse Moore brings another beast to life for Peter Kato's Astromonger's Monster Challenge show sponsored by Toy Tokyo. The gallery will be open Jan 16-18 at Toy Tokyo's Showroom in NYC. If you're in the city make sure you check it out. Special thanks to Megan and Peter for hooking this up!

Core Phanost

Scars

Exclusive Escape

NYCC???

Callgrim.com

Banimon.com

Many Mey Custom

Put this custom together for Japanese toy shop Pop Soda's Many Many Many Mey Dynamite Custom Show. The industrious Datadub of Fig-Lab got us involved with this very cool project, he is always looking out for us! Thanks d! The original form of this guy was a sinister looking beast meets Oliver Twist looking character. It was cast in GITD and had a movable waist, shoulders, head and hands and a removable hat and cane (again, forgot to take a pre-chopped pic). He was pretty tall as well. After tinkering around for a bit and playing a bunch of Metal Slug, this thing manifested. Nicknamed the "Many Machine", it can be flipped upside down to form either a "PopDuster" snub fighter mode, or the "SodaCrusher" hovertank mode. Piloting this rig is the Pheyden known as "Hades". After playing with this thing for a night I really want to make a vinyl vehicle for our little guys to pilot. There might be something at NYCC to illustrate this thought. Speaking of which, this show is supposed to be on display for its USA leg of the tour at Mishka's new store during NYCC (Feb 6th -8th at the Javits Center). We will be set up at Rocket North's booth (thanks Boris!) in the Small Press area with new stuff (Buildman?!). Hope to see some of you there!

Real X Head Inspires

Real X Head, one of the most forward thinking Japanese Vinyl companies out there, always inspires me here at the workshop. During the trip to Japan last September I personally got to meet Mori , the man behind RXH, and spent an evening talking toys and work (huge thanks again to Don "Datadub" Kratzer). Mori is a one man super machine, absolutely dedicated to his business and family. It's pretty incredible when you look at what he has accomplished in a relatively short amount of time. He was also insanely generous, piling his figures on us as gifts and allowing us access to his then unseen designs. Just an impressive person. Which leads to this entry. I have become slightly obsessed with his mini figures. Something about the proportions and feel just seem right to me. I love the big boys, but those damn minis make me crazy. So I had to cut up my favorite one, mini Hone Borg, and make an endoskeleton for him. Being that I'm a long time customizer it just always sorta happens that I end up doing this kind of thing. Now that I have access to piles of junky Glyos parts I can make some strange inner mechanics to suit up. This figure was created by carefully cutting the original mini Hone Borg on the seams and then building a basic endoskeleton out of Glyos parts. Half of a quarter muncher bubble was also used to keeps that big head sturdy. The figure can now move quite a bit, is very playable, stays together... and may even breakdance. It is with the highest level of respect to Mori and his amazing creations that I post this little custom here on the blog.

Instant Sarvos

Big thanks go out to our friend and super talented artist Vince Chui for creating this cool rendition of Sarvos. Vince recorded his process and put together a very cool video of it. It reminds us of a sci-fi Bob Ross... with less afro. Awesome work Vince!

The Nibbler

Check out this insane custom sent over to us by the infamous Tarantulas of the UK. With 6 access points and a nasty appetite, "The Nibbler" has come to take a chunk out of the Glyos System! Take a look at what The Tarantulas has to say about his latest creation below.

Facts & Illustration Backstory

The Nibbler
Age - Approx 7000
Physical Strength - 3
Special Powers - 9
Weapons - 7

In the abstraction of galactic consciousness the diminutive, gnawing Nibbler increases his physical size a million fold to snack on spicy planetary systems.

Exploiting the infinite potential of thought, mysterious cosmic traveller Pheyden uses the same trick but instead duplicates his material form a million times. Bloated by over indulgence, the Nibbler is overwhelmed by the swarming collective of Pheyden and shrivels to normal size...

Nibbler Rational

If I was to create one new piece for the Glyos system I wanted it to be versatile & have more than one use.. Plus I was into torso-head type characters like Modok and Arnim Zola. I'd noticed that the features of a torso - chest & abdominal muscles could easily represent a face - this was the starting point. The sculpt hopefully works both as the Nibblers head & also as a beefy torso for any Glyos figure, hence double arm holes and a hole in the top of his head. As a companion to the figure I created an artwork showing Pheyden battling the Nibbler.. Since Jack Kirby is both creator of aforementioned 'torso-heads' and a continuing inspiration, I aped his style for the piece.

The Tarantulas

Toward the end of a decade plus at Hasbro I started working as The Tarantulas - now like many others I'm balancing art projects with corporate freelance work. Its a familiar situation but the projects I'm working on currently - from commercial toy work to TV formats to sculpture - are so diverse I feel like I need to focus ! Since leaving Hasbro I've tended to prefer working in 2D - a reaction to designing 3D for so long..but I've recently started playing around with sculpting (thanks to Matt ) so I'm having fun with that. My work is influenced by a lot of the same stuff as everyone else.. Star Wars, Jack Kirby, EC Comics and so many people around today. I think a lot of us are trying to find our own style & shrug off the influence of the 80's. Next for the Tarantulas? More sculpting - hopefully more toy releases & some cash so I can move out again!

Huge thanks to The Tarantulas for sending over such a cool character with so much thought put into the design and execution. We're humbled to have this little guy sitting on our desk.

Cypser Greetings

Big thanks to Will Cypser for this great Holiday Card.

In the Air and On the Road

Our friend, JediCreeper, recently took a trip out to Disneyland in California and then Hawaii. While on this great excursion he managed to take some very cool pictures of Dimension Pheyden and Spirico Exellis! We have all been looking at these shots for the past week and wanted to share them with you guys. The Hawaii shots in particular are really wild looking. It actually looks like some of the sets we build over here. Great job on these Mr. Creeper, we really appreciate you taking the time to do this!