Soopa Coin-Up Bros.

(via infinitelives.net)
Now this is how you do a blank figure ripe for customisation. Erick Scarecrow molded the 7" Soopa Coin-Up Bros. sculpt and offered up a limited edition vinyl run for sale for the paltry sum of $30 through Esc-Toy (sadly no longer available through official channels, but UrbanRetro is selling the white edition for £22.99 while supplies last). The blank comes packaged with a hoard of stickers for the screen, marquee and cabinet.

The Soopa Show was held in April at Concrete Jungle in NYC and the pieces on display were impressive, to say the least. Click on any of the images below to bask in the glory of full-size.

"Archadic", Andrew Scribner

"Centipox", Brandy Anderson

"One-Armed Bandit", Bucky Lastard

"Battleship", Diego Paz

"Game Over", Doktor A

"Dug Rush", Dynomight NYC

"Toy Break", George Gaspar

"Soopa Koopa", Jared Deal

"Cock Blocker", Jude Buffum

"Chicano-Up Bros", Marka 27

"Bello Bello Beeeeh!", Massa Mas

"Soopa Boombu, The Vinyl Toy Killer", Matt Beers

"Keep Your Day Job", Steff Bomb

More photos over at Vinyl Toy Freaks and Esc-Toy's Flickr stream.

Miscellany.

. Tony Millionaire, comique artiste extraordinaire, has just released Der Strewwelmaakies, his third Maakies collection (and the followup to When We Were Maakies and The House at Maakies Corner.) If you've never opened your town's local independent-press news-rag and have thus deprived yourself of the chance to experience that which is Maakies, you could do worse than to pick up a copy. Unless you have an aversion to drunkenness, bodily excretions and the nautical life, that is.

. Electric Tiki is releasing a limited-edition 3-D sculpture (a full dimension higher than the two you are currently experiencing reading this!) of Ragnar's "The Maltese Chimp" - in four delicious flavours, no less. There's nothing like a drunk monkey harrassing a hot skeptical chick to liven up your work-station. You lily-liver.

. Displaying depths of hitherto-unknown hipness, "Weird" Al Yankovic has hired a number of very cool animators to create videos
for many of the original songs on his recently-released album, Straight Outta Lynwood: Bill Plimpton tackles "Don't Download This Song", John Kricfalusi and Katie Rice accomplish the astonishingly unlikely and "sex up" Weird Al in the video for "Close But No Cigar", and the kids behind Robot Chicken try their hand at "Weasel Stomping Day". All of these videos (and more!) are available on the DualDisc edition of the album currently for sale on Amazon, along with a Dolby 5.1 mix of the entire album. Sweet, sweet parody never looked, or sounded, better.

Greg Broadmore and Weta Workshop

"Act Now!" Poster
(Click for Larger Version)

Manmelter 3600ZX
Sub-Atomic Disintegrator Pistol
(Click for Larger Version)

Goliathon 83
Infinity Beam Projector
(Click for Larger Version)

FMOM Industries
Wave Disrupter Gun
(Click for Larger Version)

Introducing Dr. Grordbert's Infallible Aether Oscillators, for all your pachyderm-vaporising and martian-defying needs! Designed by Greg Broadmore at the Weta Workshops (the same guys who did all the creature effects and design for the Lord of the Rings and Narnia films,) these alternate-history rayguns are absolutely crammed full of steampunk goodness. They don't appear to have been released to the general public yet, but once they are, you'd better believe I'm going to be doing whatever it takes to get my hands on them.

Really detailed and inventive prop design is an art-form unto itself. While I must admit that I have a bit of a weakness for functional art and Broadmore's rayguns are pretty much the anti-thesis of "functional" (...unless they aren't, in which case I'm definitely buying them,) this is some of the best prop work I've ever seen - which should come as absolutely no surprise, considering the source. While effects houses like Industrial Light + Magic are known for the sheer overwhelming bombast of their mostly-CG design, Weta stands head and shoulders above anyone else working in the industry on the combined basis of realism and imagination: they don't just design a sword, they design a sword with bits of rust flake on the hilt and chips and cracks in the blade and possibly weathered fabric from an old tunic wrapped around the handle. There's a lot of enthusiasm and care put into everything they produce, and I can't help but admire them for it.

Jim Woodring

I apologise for the lack of updates over the last week or two, and I have no excuse other than the fact that I've been very busy and very disorganised. With luck (and maybe some concentrated application on my part) I'll be able to stick to my 2-3 posts-per-week schedule, because God knows, there's enough going on to justify it.

Pictured above are forthcoming figures from Press Pop, based of course on Jim Woodring's Frank, Pushpaw and Pupshaw from his long-running and wonderfully weird "Frank" comic. I first encountered Frank about ten years ago, when a girlfriend who was taking a course in Comics As Literature lent me her "textbooks". I remember spending hours sitting in a park on a warm May morning, endlessly fascinated by Woodring's wordless, Dali-meets-Felix-The-Cat illustrations. Even now, I can't help but be amused by Frank's constant hand-to-the-mouth shock as he encounters a parade of bizarre entities, whose occasionally bad-acid-trip appearances run perpendicular to their oftentimes friendly temperaments.

The figures above will be available in June, and while colour versions are currently available via the Press Pop website, I think I'll hold out for the monochromatic ones. After all, the comic is published in black and white, so why should the figures be anything other than that?

Parastone - Mouseion Collection

(left: Original Bosch detail; right: Parastone sculpt.)

Dutch design house Parastone create what amount to action figures (although I'm sure they would prefer the term "sculpture" or "miniatures") based around famous works of art. While it's hardly notable to base a miniature around Rodin's "The Thinker" or Dürer's "Hände eines Apostel", you gotta throw it up for anyone who successfully attempts a three-dimensional undertaking of M.C. Escher's illustrations. My favorites, of course, are the Bosch miniatures -- that's class right there.

All of these figurines are available for purchase, but I'll be damned if I can figure out exactly how to order them. If you manage to do so, let me know - my life is severely lacking in Salvador Dalí miniatures. And you know yours is too.

Kropserkel Designs

A quick update for you today, since I'm right in the middle of exam week: a couple of steampunk-inspired rayguns, and Captain Nemo's "light blade", from Kropserkel Designs (makers of the renowned severed horse-head pillow.) Besides their incredibly detailed replica work, Kropserkel have done some really beautiful original designs, including their "Robots"-looking mechanical men and my personal favorite, the Peter Pan series.

Link to Kropserkel Designs website.

(All images © 2006 Kropserkel Inc.)