craftastrophy

New things here

2011-06-09T08:46:00.000-07:00

Just a few things I finished before a new batch gets underway. I have about six new zines in the works. Of the sixone is fully complete while two of them are close to being finished. At the end of June one shall be released. Here is the cover of the new zine.

It is a bunch of plush characters i made interacting with backgrounds from various Nintendo games. The combination of two things that i enjoy, making dumb toys and playing Nintendo games. Below are some of the plush characters you will find inside the zine.

1. Efron I made him out of a High School Musical sock I found at the dollar store.
2. A pumpkinhead with skeletal body, made from felt.
3. Random big mouth monster.
4. Secret one eyed ghost made from a semi rigid foam block.
5. Silas was made from two car scrubbers used for cleaning your car, also found at the dollar store.
6. Nimoy was screenprinted on the material. He makes sounds, video coming soon.
Thank you.

Nippon Red

2011-06-08T09:40:00.000-07:00

I recently got pulled back into the world of the 1/6th scale. I bought a few Dragon model 1/6th scale bodies, and started creating custom action figures. This is Nippon Red. Bandai toys in Japan have been making these awesome miniature helmets from various Sentai television shows. Mainly all the red helmets. They have also been making Ultraman and Kamen Rider helmets too. I bought the Nippon man helmet from Battle Fever J and used it for the head. I stitched up the uniform and spray painted the boots and gloves.

Now I have my own Sentai hero Nippon Red. Thank you

small heart pin

2011-05-23T11:16:00.000-07:00

Here is a small pin you can make using perler or hama beads. here is a picture of the heart on a grid.

You need to create the heart on the peg board. Iron it down so the beads fuse. Let it cool. You will need to use some sort of pin backing, you can pick them up at most craft stores. Once the heart has cooled, using a hot glue gun, or some other strong adhesive, glue the pin back to the back of the heart.

yeah it is a craft pin.

Heads

2011-05-19T09:30:00.000-07:00

It's been awhile, sorry. I have been making a few new heads for 1/6th scaled action figures. I first made a mold from a Neo Henshin Cyborg head. Here is the mold.
I use resin to create the heads. Sometimes, the mold doesn't line up right and the head is shifted to one side. I use super sculpey to create a neck and add parts to the heads. Here are a sampling of the first six heads.

The first head is like an ape who lives outside the Ape city near the grassland where the humans live. I made the hair out of yarn. The second head is AERO X, a replacement head like the old Henshin Cyborg costumes. I wanted to make a bootleg Henshin Cyborg character. Third is a villain snail head, I am still working on the body. Fourth is like Moss man, I flocked him with grass used in model train scenery. Fifth head is what the Neo Henshin Cyborg would look like with flesh tones. The last head is the Neo Henshin Cyborg painted silver like his Microman cousins. I still need work on my mold making skills. Thank you

april fools

2010-04-19T14:53:00.000-07:00

i made a small video for a cassette i am working on. beats by psticks, sax composition by sid redlin, i just tape scratched it. here is link to the video.

psticksmakestapes from psticks on Vimeo.

or you cn go here to see it.http://vimeo.com/10988682
thnk you. new zine coming at end of april, Stallonial Times.

i went to two shows on saturday

2010-02-15T15:16:00.000-08:00

i travelled outside on saturday, i went to two galleries. it was fun and a good wake up call.the first gallery was the hibbleton. their show was shuffle interpreting music into visual art, a collaborative playlist.

two out of three of the Martine Johanna pieces.

one of the Jaw Cooper pieces.

a chris umana. they moved the divider to the front near the window. it opens the gallery up. the pieces were great. here is the hibbleton website.
http://www.hibbleton.com/old
the 2nd gallery i went to was the rothick art haus. the show was called laundry service. it ws showing for lundry themed rt by jophen stein. the pieces were amazing.
a working clock. the little charcters remind me of oompa lumpas.

this figure was painted onto an old cello.

this is a detail shot of what was sitting ontop of a cabinet in the middle of the first room. all the text and details were hand painted. the rothick also had a room with some chris umana work too. here is their web address. http://www.rothick.com/index2.php#/home/
i got some new goods in the work, and a couple of how toos. thanks

cyclops squid

2010-02-04T13:01:00.001-08:00

i made this kaiju. he was once a fisherman lost at sea. then he got merged with a squid and some harmful toxic by products. now he wants to find his family that has long forgotten him.

i made him out of super sculpy. i first built a skeleton out of wrapped up tape. then i covered the form in sculpy. thank you

cardboard cut out ideas

2010-01-29T20:18:00.000-08:00

2010 is here. here is a little project you may want to try. it uses cardboard. i made these robots, first i drew out the pieces, arms, legs, torso on cardboard.

then i cut out the pieces using an x acto knife. i then cut small slits at the joints where the pieces would connect, example being end of arms for elbows, hips.

last i assembled the robots by joining the slots together. you may want to add a little bit of adhesive so it can hold together.

thank you, next month i 'll have new links to new pdf formatted zines i made. thank you

Lost data and new adventures

2009-12-19T21:25:00.000-08:00

my laptops hard drive went out and i lost about a years worth of projects that i was working on. a tough lesson learned, frequently back that junk up. not your backside but your data. sorry. i lost three zines i was working on, ugh. my mother made fruity pebble treats recently. they are sweet and very colorful. the recipe is the same as rice krispie treats just substitute rice krispies with post fruity pebbles. here is a link to a recipe.
http://www.ricekrispies.com/recipes/the-original-treats.aspx
use a whole box for mass consumtion. here is a visual taste.

next she is going to try coco krispie treats. with a tall glass of milk. here is a disaster photo of something i am working on enjoy.

next month i'll focus on some projects. enjoy the last bits of 09. thanks

biketraffic video

2009-12-03T16:00:00.000-08:00

here is a link to the biketraffic video i made for the band Post It Toast It. it took me a couple of days. it was fun. thank you.
http://vimeo.com/7950994

thanks giving

2009-11-27T15:46:00.000-08:00

i hope everybody has been enjoying themselves. here are four new paintings i finished a week or two ago.

you can few them bigger here
http://www.flickr.com/photos/psticks/4109947249/
i have been trying to wrok on a few videos. here is a sneak peek picture of the three that i started filming.
i made the red monster suit out of four rugs. it waqs hand sewn and weighs a ton. the red is for a video for the band pOSTit Toastit!!!
the blue monkey my mother made the body and i made the head.
The last is for another video for PostIt ToastIt!!! hopefully i'll have the videos completed by next week. i have also been experimenting with stop motion techniques using various toys. i need to try some more tomorrow. here is a sneak at the next zine. Teenwolf Blitzer.

hopefully i'll get this done before christmas. here are some of my experiments with light painting. on my camera i just set it on a tripod. then use a slow shutter speed, then with a flash light i try to draw or make shapes pointing the flash light at the camera. the slower movements seem the best.
thank you and keep on exploring.

Gone for awhile

2009-08-21T14:55:00.000-07:00

Sorry i am going to be gone for awhile. Here are things to keep you busy. Sorry if the link to my zine is off. My html is rusty. You can always paste the link in your browser window, then save it from the acrobat reader. Here is the second zine for download. Bel Biv Devour, contains an interview with the talented artist Zoso
http://www.zoso1.com/ the zine is thirty pages. enjoy

here is the link to cut and paste into your browser. enjoy.
http://www.freewebs.com/basura81/bbd.pdf
Here are some plushes to leave you with.

Thank you I got a japanese copy of Hootie Mack.

zines soon to be downloadable

2009-08-13T20:12:00.000-07:00

Here is my first zine, Color Me Malo. It is 26 pages of just random things. I plan on trying to release my zines into pdf format. Hopefully it will work. I thought i'd start off with my first zine. the link for the pdf is here
http://www.freewebs.com/basura81/colormemalo.pdf

thank you and enjoy.

New fabric

2009-08-03T13:48:00.000-07:00

I tried to make my own unique fabrics by using prexisting fabrics that i had. A remix of fabrics if you will. I made interesting shapes and designs and cut them out of freezer paper, making a stencil. Freezer paper is great, it is somewhat stiff, and one side gets sticky when you heat press it. I cut some fabric then ironed on the freezer paper to the fabric.

Then using one of those spongy brushes and some fabric paint, I filled in the designs and shapes. I did this numerous times to get an interesting result.

thank you

ghost board

2009-07-21T11:23:00.001-07:00

I made this little felt picture of a ghost. You could do the same if you want, or go in a completely different direction. What you will need to make your own type felt and wood piece.
A board or some type of wood panel.
Material, fabric of your choosing. It should be cut at least an inch larger then your board on all sides. Example, if you have an 8inch by 10 inch board the material should be at least 10inches by 12inches.
Felt of different colors.
Staple gun and hot glue gun.
Marker light color or vanishing ink.
Instructions
Place the material face down. Put the board on the center of the fabric. Fold up the over hanging fabric tight against the board. Using the staple gun, attach the fabric to the board. The board is set.
Draw on the felt you character, mine is the ghost. I drew it out onto the felt. Cut from felt.

A suggestion would be to piece together the character first before gluing everything together. This way you'll have a grasp of what the character will look like. Glue on the parts to your character. I glued on the ghosts mouth and eyes.

Last bit, glue the character to the board. That is it. You could hammer on some sort of mount so you could hang the board up.

May craft

2009-07-07T13:40:00.000-07:00

May past with no post. It doesn't mean i wasn't building or working. here is what i did in May.
I had to take a guitar on board an aeroplane. The only thing was that the case was not finished. It was bare, there was no padding to secure the guitar. this is what i did. i first made a template of the guitar by tracing around it onto cardboard. then i measured the lid of the case and purchased foam from Jo anns. the top was easy, i just cut the foam to fit. the bottom on the other hand was a bit tricky.

I cut and formed pieces to allow the guitar to fit snug. if i had to do it again i would have bought a yard and a half of 5inch foam and cut to fit the guitar in one piece. it would have been easier and tooken less time to complete. I hot glued some of the pieces together. It worked very well. thank you

end of the month push

2009-04-30T13:48:00.000-07:00

Here is the new one shot zine for May,

I have been working hard on some new goods. Here is a monster i made. when you push a little button on his clavicle his mouth lights up. he spits fire and has teeth. see for yourself.

Chompsky from psticks on Vimeo.

here is a full body photo.

thank you.

Megaman 2 Portraits

2009-04-20T13:41:00.000-07:00

I just completed the 8 robot portraits in perler beads. the middle square is a winking Sailor Venus. i am still not sure if i want to make a Dr. Wiley logo yet. The hardest was Woodman because of the browns. the next group, Megaman 3 robots. I am about 3 down so far.

a deluge of junk

2009-04-16T14:19:00.000-07:00

There is a backlash and a time away, this is the catch up, sorry.

First off, new one shot mini zine MAS is out now.

Here are some of the paintings i have finished the past two months. Feb samples

The top painting of the bear and robot I sent to my friend author Becky Cooper. Here are some of the paintings from march.

The bottom plaid type character i made and traded with YTEK. I traded her some art goods. She sent me a wonderful box full of art goods. Here are some of the panels from the box.
I really like her line work. Here is my favorite panel from the box.
Awesome, the Nah na na nahh is like the chorus to the Master P song "make em say uh". here is a link to Ytek's sketch blog.
http://www.ytak87.blogspot.com/
I also traded gooods with Rachel a photographer and execellent knitter. Here is the Cookie monster she sent me. Here is her flickr page. http://www.flickr.com/photos/photowhore/
I have some more sewing to do. sorry for all the mess.

Goldchain

2009-02-25T15:19:00.000-08:00

I made this ugly trunk chain for my friend the z man aka Zehnertron. It was really simple. I bought a foam letter Z at Michaels then i painted it a couple of coats gold. then i cut up a toy gold chain i bought at the dollar treewith wire cutters. Final step was the hot glue gun action. glueing the chain to the letter, that is it. ready for some yo! MtV raps cards.

NEW ZINE COMING SOON!

2009-02-02T15:08:00.000-08:00

Fine Young Cannibal Holocaust is almost complete. It will be released the first week of Feb. Here is the cover. Thank you

i have much i still need to work on

2009-01-26T15:31:00.000-08:00

I am trying to finish a few things this month. sorry for the mess. this is but a test.