Monthly archive August, 2006

ASTERIALAND ANIMAL SERIES

Illustrator and designer Alice Chan has launched her debut toy series – a treasure hunting pirate lion, clutching a giant diamond!

“Alice is like a sparkling star, shining and brighten up the world with her inimitable and distinctive style.”

Alice has been involved in creative work for brands such as Sportmax, Anna Sui, Levi’s, Colette, Canon, MTV, DoCoMo, Adidas, Toy2R,drawing the world’s attention to this young and talented illustrator. Alice’s reputation as a commercial illustrator is worldwide with clients in Japan, USA, France, UK, Germany, Finland, Taiwan and Hong Kong. She is also a widely exhibited artist, with solo and in group shows.

The new figures are part of the Asterialand Animal Series. The pirate lion comes in 3 colors and totalling 500pcs. The lion proudly stands at 6.5″ tall. The “cool” mono is a limited ratio of 1:8. Shown here is also “creamy” yellow, and “mimi” purple.

PAPER WAGON – custom train fun for free

Klim sends us word of the next generation of the All City Style trains project.

This time it’s all about getting everyone involving everyone – as the train is a simple paper model, free to download. Download the paper model here!

The godfather of paper models, Shin Tanaka has already put his skills to the test and came up with a great piece.

LoveOriginal – forcefeed:swede prototype

The more I see of LoveOriginal, the better it gets..

LoveOriginal?

30 global artists were asked to design a character for the largest toy project in the history of vinyl, called Love Original.
Each character is to be produced and sold as a limited edition of 500. 300 in the regular colour, 100 as a red colorway and 100 as an additional artist colorway.

Here’s the latest preview of forcefeed:swede‘s vinyl from the LoveOriginal project in conjunction with Red Magic:
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ya know by now.. click ^

Can’t wait to see more from RedMagic/LoveOriginal

PAINTBALL – UrbanMedium Fatcap


Click for full view

It’s quite possible that each and every preview of the PaintBall we get is going to keep getting better and better. This amazing “Can in a Cage” custom giant fatcap is by UrbanMedium.

Great concept, amazing execution, incredible detail – a beautiful thing!

KAWS – loses his head

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Click either image to see full views

KAWS has produced his second toy with Bounty Hunter, six years after the original hook up.

The interpretation of the Skull-Kun character – titled BXH KAWS-Kun – was launched yesterday in Tokyo at both Bounty Hunter and OriginalFake. The black version was a Bounty Hunter store exclusive and the bone white version was made for OriginalFake.

PAINTBALL – D*face Fatcap

As posted previously here on VA, Kidrobot will soon be hosting The Paint Ball. The “epic benefit party for Save the Children Federation’s Global Education Initiative” will feature 20″ Dunnys and Super Fatcaps.

The super secret NYC location will only be announced on the day of the event – September 7th – but a few parts of the show are slowly being revealed. Including this amazing giant Fatcap custom by D*Face.

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Pasted “Saddam Dollars” and rough spray D*Dogs in camo formation and signature wings make this one of the most powerful of the Fatcap sneaks released so far.

The best of the world’s graff artists were invited to customise a Super Fatcap, with the best of the rest sent 20″ Dunnys.

TADO in LA – Cannibal Funfair

Exclusive report and photos from Pinkus

Behold the Terror! TADO invaded Los Angeles Friday night with the opening of their terrifying show, Cannibal Funfair, to the delight of hundreds of TADO-ites. As the hungry fans waited in line eager to get their grubby hands on TADO goodies, I was given a VIP pass from the Toy Baroness herself, Nichole, with the help of our fearless leaders, Mike and Katie (thank you!), which allowed me inside the shop an hour before the show started. Their artwork was brilliant. It was a night I won’t soon forget.

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ROOM X – sneak peek

appropritate yourself with mutual fondling for closer inspection

We go through the keyhole to deliver you with a few sneak peeks of the ladies who will be presenting themselves at the Room X exhibition at Habitat, Regent St. from the 18th September.

With names like “Honey Au Lait” and “Coco du Bois” how could you resist?

For a more intimate inspection visit The Room X site, where you can download wallpapers of the first four females to present themselves full frontage (all with absolute class of course).

Red Magic – Love Original Project Exhibition

Click for full flyer

Red Magic have collaborated with more than 30 artists around the world. They are known as one of the biggest artist toy project teams, creating figures with unique colors and designs. From each figure, you can feel the soul of the artists. In this exhibition there’ll be figures created by a variety of artists from Red Magic’s special toy figure “Love Original Project.

featured artists are:
777 RUN / Ah Bin / HelloBard / Bloo Empire / Block20 / Bwana Spoons / Caroline Kha / Cupco / Daim / Dave Burke / DGPH / Edik Katykhin / Evil Design / forcefeed:swede / Frank Kozik / Hinson / Jeremyville / Kanardo / Kika / Kerb / Liz McGrath / MAD / Mark Chang / Matt Sloane / Meomi / Mimic / Nada”One / Otter X / Phunk Studio / Playskewl / Rolito / Roy Miles the Ghetto Geppetto / Richard Wong / Superdeux / Sket One / Tristan Eaton / Turtle Kid / Yumiko Kayukawa

August 23, 2006 – September 10, 2006
At Gallery LELE
Daikanyama, Tokyo

..those links took ages, phew

Monorex – Secret Wars, round one – heat one

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What is Secret Wars?
Started up as a friendly battle between Monorex and Jon Burgerman’s Black Convoy, things have gone from strength to strength. With the crowd hungry for more we decided to drop a whole load more…

Roll up, Roll up! And bear witness to a spectacle like no other as design behemoths (Sickboy, Koa) take on young upstarts (Fybe, Alfamale, Kept, Gustav, Cpt. Buckio, RichT, Teck 1, Squid Inc and more.) in an art battle to the death. Armed only with an arsenal of pens, paint and stretched cloth these mighty crews will duel live at the forthcoming sensory spectacular we know as ‘Secret Wars’ at Juno Bar, Shoreditch.

The first round sees Gustav Dueling with Meek and VA forum regular and favourite Okkle vs Cpt. Buckioe which is sure to end in something spectacular. So why not head down to Juno Bar to back your favourite and just join on the fun of these live art events.

Visit the Secret Wars website for info on upcoming rounds and further info such as the amazing prizes for the winner.. one of which is a Sega Megadrive!! love it.

ThisNext Launched

It’s technically not vinyl or design related but here goes..

VA was invited to a beta of ThisNext and have been setting our page up behind the scenes, but now everyone can go check it out for themselves and add their own stuff. By now you’re probabaly wondering, “what the hell is ThisNext?”.. well I’ll tell you shall.

ThisNext is a shopcasting network where you can discover, recommend and share things you love. Everything on ThisNext was recommended by real people. So if you’re looking for that certain something.. be it art or vinyl or whatever, ThisNext’s growing list of product listings will help you find just what you’re looking for online in an easy to use interface and friendly community like environment.

Check out our page Here as we’ll be listing more vinyl and other related goods. You could also sign up and get adding your own stuff

PICTOPLASMA CONFERENCE

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The 2nd Pictoplasma Conference takes place in October, from the 11th to the 14th.

A great list of guest speakers, presenters and general hang arounders is already confirmed. The international line-up includes Tim Biskup (USA), Jon Burgerman (UK), Gary Baseman (USA), Doma (ARG), eBoy (GER), Sune Ehlers (DK), Friends With You (USA), Furi Furi (JP), Nathan Jurevicius (AUS), Akinori Oishi (UK), Passion Pictures (UK), Pete Fowler (UK), Rinzen (AUS), Fons Schiedon (NL), Studio aka (UK), The London Police (NL) and so many more…

VA is hoping to attend, and is planning a little get together one evening for all you toy fans and doodle obsessive compulsives! Let us know if you are going – add your name to the list on the VA forums.