Double Punched

Little Joe
Originally uploaded by kardinalsin.

There was a mission this weekend, and I think it was accomplished almost too well. Ningyoushi's retail center in Washington Square, Doublepunch is a must visit for any devotee to urban vinyl, or more specifically, Kubricks. Little Joe is their mascot, seen on their home page, and with a purchase of over $30, he was mine for free. Very simple in design, I get a kick out of the wacky smile and beady asymmetrical eyes.

Check out the rest of my haul below.

Latest Kub Additions

Loose Kubs
Originally uploaded by kardinalsin.

Four of these guys I landed on my spree. The others were recently purchased at random places or just in trips to Kid Robot.

There's two on here from a movie, four from mangas, and one from a noted Japanese designer. Click on the picture for more details.

Can't seem to get enough of these. Maybe I'll reach my limit someday, but for now I don't think it's going to be anytime soon...

Behind a Plastic Bubble

Carded Kubs
Originally uploaded by kardinalsin.

I only got one of these while in San Francisco, the middle blister to be exact. Thinking about it a little more, I guess part of the reason I like the Kubricks is because the attention to detail when it comes to their licenses is so impeccable. Batman has his own little batarang for gosh sakes! I'm really tempted to remove Snake from his card, since it can be done relatively easy, but that's the problem I have with the carded guys in the first place: you can't take them out of the box!

Technically, you could, but I'm a little weird that way. Any suggestions?

Evil Toothy Grin

Little James
Originally uploaded by kardinalsin.

Qees, manufactured by Toy2R are something recent that I've posted about before. At least the Knuckle Bear Qees to be exact. This one is part of their original series which is up to their 5th chapter so far. What I really like about them is their hiring of contemporary urban artists or illustrators to design each one of these little guys.

Little James here was designed by Dalek, who I've only just discovered recently, although he's been around for a while. Known mostly for his "Space Monkeys" there's a weird subversive and disturbing aspect to this figure I like. Is it the hideously cute grin he's got, or is it the fact he reminds me so much f Radiohead?

Well, whatever it is, I like it, and will try to find more Qees to build up the collection.

As if it hasn't grown too large already, huh?

Homecoming

Finally back from the four day weekend up North. I do love being able to visit the bay area very much, especially because I'm able to go back to school, eat tons of good food and have a good time in the city. There was much fun at the wedding and also more goodies bought at Kid Robot SF, Doublepunch, and many other places of note. Thank goodness we left when we did, or I'd be broke.

More later...

Classroom Malaise

Firefly
Originally uploaded by kardinalsin.

Every day, during school, I'd be drifting off during class. Not really bored with the material (well sometimes) but mostly because, well, I like drawing. Notebooks from all of my classes, and even now at work, are full of drawings on the back pages and in the margins. Little cartoons, faces, people, animals, whatever, I drew them.

Mostly, it was people though.

Even during my toy design class, I tended to do little sketches, but this is while listening to the lectures. It's something I got accustomed to doing during middle school, drawing while attempting to listen. In the cases where the drawing gets a little detailed, it's obvious that my listening skills aren't that good.

This drawing in particular, didn't start out this way. Well, it did start out as a sketch in my notebook, but it ended up being something of an experiment. See, ever since I started drawing a lot more, I've tried to get used to using different media to get an idea across, or just to see what happens. After reading Paul Pope's graphic novel 100% and then reading his afterword prasing the art of ink and brush, I had to pick mine up again. Pope's words ring true, it has to be one of the best feelings in the world to lay down that fresh layer of ink on paper. There's a certain finality to the act that yields a slight amount of smug satisfaction to me, but not so smug because I know there's tons of practice yet to be done. Future-wise, I look forward to finishing up more drawings like this. Let's see how this turns out.

New Obsession

Knuckle Qee
Originally uploaded by kardinalsin.

I really though that Kubricks would be the only import collectibles I'd be into, but I was wrong. Toy2R makes these little guys called Qees. I actually didn't intend on getting into them, but after purchasing one on a whim, I'm sold. Seriously I should be glad that I'm not hooked as much that I'm going crazy collecting them like the Kubs, so I figure collecting one more little detail is OK.

This guy right here is a "Knuckle Bear" and if you can't tell, there's a little tattoo on his left paw in white. There's tons of other variants, but I believe this is the most common. After getting one at Kid Robot, I found that they had all sold out a short time afterwards. Luckily, Tower had a ton, and this is the result. I'll be on the lookout for more in the future, but don't count on me to go nuts.

Diligence

Finally finished my project and it looks OK. I'm always my harshest critic, so I'm actually not going to post the results. If anyone wants a look, e-mail or message me later.

Back to the Drawing Board

Buckeye
Originally uploaded by kardinalsin.

I'm not talking about this Drawing Board of course, but about having to redraw some of my character designs for class. From the comments I got a few weeks ago, I tried to make my characters a little more uniform, a little more exciting, and a little more stable. In particular, as opposed to the last design of Buckeye, you can actually imagine that this pose could be accomplished by an articulated toy. In my opinion, I liked the face of my last design, but the pose of this drawing is more correct. Well, more structured.

Not much redesign thought out here. Buckeye came out pretty good on the first shot, but a lot of details needed to be added, like the holster. Still more details could make it truly dynamic, but I think I'll stop here for right now. Let's move along...

Pieces of Eight

Gumm
Originally uploaded by kardinalsin.

This is a more radical redesign. My instructor and most of the class felt my last design was a bit... I don't know... old? They were pretty much right. I think the supposed age of the original made it contrast a little too much with the other characters, so I aimed a little younger while keeping most of the original design elements. I guess you could say it was "all in the beard?"

This particular drawing, when pressed, I had to admit was my favorite. It's not the design itself, but the fact that the dagger in his mouth gives him tons of character. There's a few spots that I still take issue with, but it's successful for the most part. I guess my main problem is just thinking of it as a toy rather than a cartoon character. Here, I am thinking of creating a world of toys while maybe I should be thinking of creating a toy for the world, if that makes sense?

Champagne Supernova

Reggie
Originally uploaded by kardinalsin.

This is the last character I came up with, and maybe he's not as striking or as full of character as the others, but I think with more development, ol' Reggie here could be captivating. Myself, I think the concept is pretty cool seeing as he's of a more recent era and comes from a time of activism and change. There are others who may more aptly represent that time, but for me, I thought a musician would be appropriate.

I think there's a common link that most of my "historical" characters have been very euro in their heritage. Maybe I should have gone more diverse to begin with, but I think the designs work at the moment, and there's always room for expansion. It'd be cool if all of these became reality some day. School first, realization later, I say.

Fat Yellow Goodbye

It's not quite time for the Summer movie season to start. There's still an entire month left, but it doesn't mean that highly anticipated movies aren't being watched. No, this movie was just a warm-up to the main event that will be Summer '06.

Frank Miller's Sin City, as adapted by Robert Rodriguez with an assist from Quentin Tarantino, is the first movie to actually be marketed as a straight graphic novel to film adaptation. With no needs for storyboards and with the majority of the scenery digitally painted, Rodriguez and Co. fast tracked this film from initial production to release this last Friday. An all-star cast, two renowned directors, and a wholly-involved creator had kept my hopes for this movie high. Going in with much trepidation, I'd have to say it was nothing less than satisfying.

My first exposure to Frank Miller's work was in fact his fan-favorite "Dark Knight Returns." Artistically, it's leaps and bounds above his previous work for Marvel on Daredevil, and shows early signs of what was to come with Sin City. Thematically and verbally, however, it is the closest to Sin City than any of his mainstream work. The early narrative style, the bold character designs, and the graphic action sequences of DKR are all in Sin City, and nothing could prepare me for what I was to experience when I picked up the first collection.

A brutal, noir thriller, Sin City translates to the big screen quite stunningly. Frame for frame, every character, every brick, every shockingingly violent death comes across all the more strikingly in black and white. No more is this apparent than if one reads the novels themselves. The high contrast art style doubles as an exclamation point to the darkness of the city and its inhabitants. Visually, the movie is amazing. I'm all the more intrigued to catch a digital presentation as the movie itself was shot for the format. The visuals aren't all this movie is about though. It's the performances that sell it for more than what it is.

Jam-packed with highly recognizable faces, every actor in this movie gives their all, no matter how small the part may be. There are just a few, however, that I'll touch on for brevity's sake. Mickey Rourke, as Marv exudes a brutality perfect for the role. Clive Owen, as Dwight, keeps his cool and is the confident smooth talker he portrays. Bruce Willis, as Hartigan, aptly plays the former cop with a silent, gritty devotion only he can accomplish. Each of them anchors the movie's vignettes solidly, but without a stellar supporting cast, it would fall out from under each one of them.

I'm duly impressed they were able to stay as faithful to each story as possible. If it weren't for Rodriguez imploring Miller in the first place, this movie would never have happened. In any other hands, one might end up with a Catwoman. Instead, we ended up with what has to be the first great comic book movie of the year.

Overall Score: 3.5 out of 5

The 29-Year-Old Virgin

The only comment I can offer is that I probably followed a lot of these tenets until my senior year in high school. In light of Derek Kim's comic The 10 Commandments of Simon, I checked out the rest of the site, and I really like it. good timing, good layouts, it makes me have hope for independent work at some point. I wish I could say what's holding me back from actually doing hard work on something like this, but something tells me that it might have something to do with TiVo and also might have something to do with confidence.

Some people have referred to me as "arrogant." Some people have referred to me as having "low self-esteem." Truthfully, I'm not sure where I lie on that line of self-worth in general, but lately I'm being pushed to strive for what it is that I really want to accomplish. I'm seeing so much independent work and receiving a heaping amount of praise from both art classes that soon the plunge might actually happen. It's that safety net called income though that scares me most of all I think. I really like stability. I really like being able to enjoy the things that this stability provides and possibly not having that anymore kind of freaks me out. Being stuck doing something I only half-enjoy though freaks me out just as much.

Perhaps I just need that final push from somewhere I guess. Maybe getting more paid work and more exposure in general would be something I'd like. Maybe it's a negative reaction that I fear. With more exposure, something like that is bound to happen. In all, I still have this feeling that I need more artistic education and small batches of experience before I can make the transition. Before then, I'll just have to keep plugging along.

Plug, plug, plug.

Oh, and by the way. If anyone really has any requests for drawings, sketches, etc. feel free to ask away. It's practice and I enjoy it anyway. Don't be afraid to ask.