Check out these awesome super deformed or “Chibi” style MOTU sculptures by Bryan Wong!  These pieces are 3-5 inches tall and typically have a few points of articulation.  It’s cool to see characters that already have such strong visual identities re-envisioned in an even more hyperstylized manner.  But what’s extra crazy is the fact that Bryan has made these things with Crayola Model Magic clay!

From Bryan’s deviantART page:

Bryan takes on… Masters Of The Universe! Just face it, everybody loves He-Man! Yeah you do! Seriously the 80s was an atrocious era in pop culture but He-Man saved the day. In one way or another you have probably begged, borrow or steal a MOTU action figure or watched an episode of the cartoon after school with its silly PSAs at the end! Don’t deny it. We’re all guilty. In it’s hey days MOTU was Mattel’s biggest cash cow in the boys department. It was the Pokemon of the 80s, so many characters to choose from but you can never catch ‘em all. At least I never did. So what can I say, I grew up with the franchise and it will always have a special place in this little planet of mine. To pay tribute to this “on again off again and then on again” 80s fad, I’ve decided to re-envisioned these great characters in stylized “SD Chibi-like” collectible figurines! I’ve seen countless of fanart drawings of this style and it would be just uber awesome if Mattel would do a line of mini collectibles of MOTU like Hasbro did with their Superhero Squad and such.

OK back to the Mini Masterz Unleashed! Project. All the figurines you see or about to see are all made from Crayola Model Magic. What?!!! That kiddie play doh modeling compound? Let me tell you something it’s a great modeling material that air dries, light weight and ready to paint. I’m not promoting the product here it’s just that I find it to be very user friendly for people who find regular clay messy to work with. That’s right, this is to prove that one can use inexpensive materials to make something great! Every character is sculpted from scratch, no customization work here. All figures are 3 inches in scale and poseable, with 3 points of articulation on the neck and arms. Body parts are swappable. These are just fanart pieces and are not for sale. All characters are property of Mattel. Well I hope you’ve enjoyed browsing this little corner of my gallery. Check back soon for new figures and exhibits! Feel free to download any of the images, I won’t hunt you down just give me some credit if you’re posting it on another website. He-Man thanks you for not eating, smoking or use flash photography in the gallery!

More pics and links after the jump. (more…)

The exciting news is that Royal-T (Royalt1us) and Gatchagrey are announcing a poll in which you can choose which one of the creations from Gatchagrey’s fan-created Bug-Shido world, Royal-T will make into a mini-statue.

From Gatchagrey:

To my delight, fellow fan, Royal-T has agreed to make my dream come true
and create a mini-statue of ONE of my Bug-Shido Characters. But with over
55 characters to choose from, we thought we would hold a little character
contest and let all of you help decide which character that will be.

The contest information, rules, and polls will be posted soon. We want to
invite all of you to join in the voting, and post ideas, and even designs.
Because, just like Royal-T’s own contests, when all is said a done, the
winning character will be sculpted, cast, and made available to everyone
who wants one.

Stay tuned for more info and get ready for an Royal Battle of Insect
Proportions. I hope you all have fun with this as much as I plan to.

To keep things simple, this is a contest to decide which Bug-Shido character is worthy of being sculpted into a mini-statue. To do this we are going to organize the 50+ characters Gatchagrey has dreamed up into four groups. Each group will be made of similar characters; for example Big Guys, Females, Winged, and Non-Winged characters.

In Round 1, you will be allowed to select your favorite 4 characters from each group.
In Round 2, you will select one of 4 Round 1 favorites (one from each group).
In Round 3, the Final 4 characters will go head to head to decide the 2009 Bug-Shido Champion.

For each poll, we will post the artwork Gatchagrey currently has for each character. For some this will only include his original design. For others this will include commissioned, and non-commissioned, works done by other artists. We hope each design will be given equal consideration, regardless of the artwork presented. Vote for the concept of the character over any of the art that may or may not be available.

We also invite anyone at anytime to post their own art of any of the characters in order to bolster support for their favorites. The Final Four will be drawn up by Royal-T to demonstrate his initial take on the design for the sculpture.

Links to the polls will be posted as soon as they are up and each poll will last 10-14 days. So stay tuned for updates and look for the battle to begin sooner than later.

(more…)

Direct Youtube Link

Last month, Hell came to Chicago, courtesy of Frank Kozik and Rotofugi.  Nerd City was at the show and had the chance to have a brief chat with Mr. Kozik, himself.

Your recent Hell Comes to Chicago show at Rotofugi was a shift back to more 2-D/ painting-type work from the extensive amount of toy design that you had been doing for quite a while before that. What is the transition between these two mediums like for you, artistically?

Not much…I always draw and paint analog, and do all the packaging layouts for the toys, so it is always a mix.

How do you feel about the emerging philosophy that the designer toy is a small piece of art?

Personally I feel its quite important..basically ‘underground’ pop sculpture..before this its always been either 2d , film, audio or live performance. the sculpture thing is novel.

Political icons like Mao and Ho Chi Minh appear throughout your work. What is your fascination with these figures and what do you feel they represent?

Just look at it as my ’self help’ manual. all those dudes went from zero to a hundred in record time.

Punk imagery is another recurring theme in your work and you obviously spent years making music posters/ prints. How does music continue to influence your art and what are you listening to at the moment?

Music has almost no effect on the current toy design. I mostly listen to nothing at work. I like no noise.

What’s on the horizon for you, artistically?

More of the same, forever.

Thanks, Frank!

Atari’s booth for the new Ghostbusters game was sweet, featuring playable demos, sweet proton packs, and this kick-ass Slimer ice sculpture. Check it. By the way, the game looks sweet.

Check out this amazing light up custom Munny by Scottoons! About his Munbot, Scottoons says:

Munbot is my second custom Munny. I made him out of found objects attached to a decapitated blank Mini Munny. The inside glowing piece is from a trade show swag pen which had a light up barrel via LED and fiber optic ribbon. Acrylic paint with oil paint rust.

For bigger images of this badass custom, check out Scottoons’ flickr here.

Also, for more Scottoons sculpture, customs, illustration, and games, go to his website here.

From Super 7:

Killing You Softly with our Song

Brian Flynn & Martin Ontiveros
Blue Bottle Gallery, Seattle, WA

Jan 2nd – 31th, 2009

Martin and Brian don’t draw the heroes they draw the bad guys. They can’t get enough of giant monsters, ghosts, robots, the characters that play the villain. Both artists pull their imagery from similar genres sources where the character they connect with is the destructive element within the scene. In “Killing you softly with our song” Brian and Martin alter the context of their beloved characters and bring to light their more admirable qualities.

I’m a huge fan of Martin Ontiveros’s work. If Brian Flynn started a cult, I would join it.  Judging by these preview images of both their prints and wood sculptures, this is going to be a totally kickass show!

The Bluebottle Gallery website is here.

So this guy Jason Hackenwerth is a friend of a friend of mine. He is famous in the art world for these elaborate/amazing/beautiful balloon sculptures. I got to hang out with him once when he was in Chicago for a show and he is such a nice, down-to-earth guy. Check him out on this episode of Science Friday.

Direct Youtube Link

You can see more photos of his work here at his site

Also if you still aren’t convinced that balloons are ridiculously neat, check out this other cool, balloon-related site: BalloonHat

Its a collection of photos from the adventures of these people who basically travel the globe making balloon hats for people. (You can get more detailed/accurate/true information on the site, because I generally have no idea what I’m talking about.)

Amazing! This gigantic sculpture is the work of fine artist Glenn Kaino and was created with a grant from the Heinz Endowment Initiative to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the city of Pittsburgh. The sculpture will be curated by the Andy Warhol Museum.
Please check out Eric Nakamura’s interview with Kaino in this month’s issue of Giant Robot Magazine.
Images from Eric Ennio’s flickr.

Next month, August 14th, will see the return of the I am 8-bit art exhibit.  This art show features some fantastic paintings, sculptures, dolls and other art related to video games.  Our friends over at Joystiq have much more of the art on display from last years show.

Keep an eye on I am 8-bit for updates and I of course will be providing images here from the show next month