Quick pics!

Took some nice photos this weekend and I thought I'd share them with you...

But first, I want to send a big shout-out to Nicole and Jim Shea of FOE store and art gallery in Northampton, MA. Friday night, they hosted an opening party for the "Summers Cauldron" art exhibit, featuring toys and artwork from Paul Kaiju, Rich Montanari Jr., Elegab, and Eric Talbot...and I was there to troll the inevitable parade of hipsters! Ha! For real though, I was urged to come through by my local vinyl cohorts...and I didn't really have any excuse *not* to go, seeing as how my girlfriend lives a block from the gallery. :P

Nah, it was really good to support Nicole and Jim. It was also great to meet some new heads who'd made the trip--chilling with Phil "hellopike" was an especially nice treat as I've always admired his Glyos-customizing work. Other east coast skullbrainers were there as well. For instance, meeting Rich "LASH" of Mutant Vinyl Hardcore (MVH) for the first time was cool since we'd only previously known each other online before...despite his being from Connecticut. Oh, and knocking heads with mecha-madman Todd Robertson is always a good thing!

Like I said, the local crew was there--atease, wingnut0, Prometheum5, David White of Mechazone, Jake of Pioneer Valley Roller Derby, and others I'm probably forgetting. Don't need no excuse to chill with those lads. But I think the big draw for me was meeting Paul Kaiju, finally, in the flesh. The man's been a member of our own ToyboxDX since 2002. Not too many folks know that! Well, the man's a scholar and a gentleman...and it was an honor to close down a local watering hole with him and Nicole and Jim Friday night.

Gallery openings, as you can imagine, just AREN'T my thing. But I was able to suck it up and ignore all the frothing about who was trying to score what exclusive. In fact, I ended up using my ironically great lottery pick (yes, there's a damn lottery to determine what order one can purchase exclusives in--otherwise, there'd be chaos) to throw down for the Mock Bat toy you see above. It's a vinyl kaiju toy Paul sculpted and had slush-cast in Japan using traditional methods. He hand-dyed the figure and added accent paint afterwards. I told him I didn't care about how R@R3ZORZ the toy was...but the fact that so much work--really, so much of himself--had gone into the toy, I was quite happy to buy it.

Anyway, I now REALLY wish I'd taken more pics at the show...but just google "Summers Cauldron FOE"--there should be plenty of coverage on the internets. You can see some of the art and toys here. And once again, big up to Nicole and Jim for putting on such a solid event!

...

Now for those quick pics I promised!

First up, the lighting was just crazy-good one morning so I decided to snap just a couple shots of the East Coast Chogokin Summit AshuraShine figures Alec cast specially for the gathering. There's hot pink, crystal clear(!), and a medium pink (not pictured) that's about halfway between traditional MUSCLE pink and the hot pink of the other figures for the event.

That clear is NO JOKE. I mean, Alec's casting is already flawless. And his plasticized rubber feels incredible. In my opinion, the clear just adds another level of professional quality to my man's work. Oh, and make no mistake about it: that hot pink will melt your eyeballs! ;)

Next, I just couldn't resist taking a couple Gin Gin shots in that same lighting:

So basically, it's like this: that body you see is the polished alumide print from Shapeways I've been talking about. Same with the head; however, it's starting to look like the final production heads will actually be straight-up printed in polished polyamide (along with the arms). And, yeah, those arms don't even match, but they're all I had laying around. Still...groovy pics!

And finally, the Spinshine prototype came in:

That thing *sucked* to photograph! All the details are microscopic...and the material (3D Systems high-res SLA) is translucent, so with light bouncing around inside, everything looks washed out.

Oh well...no big. It's already on its way to Alec's, so we should be getting test castings soon enough! ;)