SDCC 2015 DEBUTS AND EXCLUSIVES

SDCC 2015 starts in 2 days and I can't believe I have so much new stuff. Even more unbelievable is that everything showed up in time. So here are the main Debuts and Exclusives for SDCC 2015.

These are zapper keychains that I made a couple months back. I'm finally gonna sell them at SDCC. They're "Made in the USA" Woot. Always happy when I can say that. These were even made locally in the LA area and go for 5 bucks each..

 I submitted my Mech Cyclone and Cyber Demon art for the Capcom Fighting Tribute book. Still can't believe they included both illustrations. If you buy one, I'd be happy to mess it up with my signature. Ha. 

 This figure only exists because I submitted art for the Capcom Fighting Tribute book. The guys over at Udon like my 10-Doh! figures and wanted to collaborate on something. They got Chamba to do the art and is guy is the result. Hopefully, it's just the beginning, and we'll do more collaborations in the future. It's limited to 100 units and goes for 20 bucks, so get them while you can.

I've collected playing cards for decades. I love playing card games, or even just shuffling cards. So, this is my favorite new item I'm debuting. I don't know if other people want to buy playing cards, but I usually just make stuff I want anyway. I'm kinda selfish like that. They're 10 bucks each or 3 for 25.

 This guy is the main exclusive for SDCC 2015. I made 300 of them, so there's a chance I'll have some left over after the Con. They're only 20 buck and I never know what's gonna sellout or even sell at all. He is the 1st new production figure that I've done in a long time, so don't miss out on him.

I have a couple other small things I'll add on later tonight. They involve sketches and such. 

I hope to see lots of friendly face this year. We'll be at booth #5051 this year. Stop by if you can.

STUD SQUIB JOKER SDCC 2015 EXCLUSIVE

I drew Stud and the other Ante Ups figures way back in 2008. I modeled the bodies digitally in Rhino. I made some large resin figures back then, but never sold them. I decided to develop 10-Doh! and So Analog 1st, so these guys took a back seat for a long time. 

In 2013 I finally got around to reworking Stud, Craps, and Short Stack. Mana Studios and I produced 10 Preview sets of all 3 figures for Dcon 2013. The wonderful folks at Designer Con also let me do the artwork for that years program. I took that opportunity to "officially" announce Ante ups.

A big project fell through earlier this year, so I decided to finally make Stud happen. At the top are some of the comments I made about the Engineering Model from the factory. I made some other comments using my Rhino file as reference. This figure had a very quick turn around time, probably too quick.

Manufacturing is very expensive, so I try to divide up the large MOQ (Minimum Order Quantity) into smaller amounts by using different colors. Soooooo, that means you'll be seeing these other colored backs at some point soon.

This is one of the 1st mockups I sent to the factory to get a cost estimate. They mainly need to figure out how much the deco would cost, but I also wanted to make a Comic Con exclusive that tied into comics in some way. The SDCC version ended up having more colors and a more complex design. Of course, that means it ended up being more expensive. 

It didn't take too long before I thought about doing a Joker card that used The Joker colors. A white Squib worked as the white face, and used red splatter to represent the grin. Then, I used green and purple splatters to hint at the hair color and suit color. This shows the progression of the art from sketchbook, scan, print, clean up, oops forgot details, vector, to full color. Am I efficient? Probably not.

 I had originally planned to use this Joker card in the real deck of playing cards. Unfortunately, once I finished all of the art for the deck, this art didn't match very well. So, I designed new Jokers for the playing cards. It just makes this guy even more exclusive to SDCC. Right?

 I originally showed this guy off online, just to see if people would like it. I wasn't even sure if I could get it done in time. The response was positive, so I got busy trying to make it happen. The factory did a great job, even with a couple bumps along the way. I had to call in a couple of favors to get them shipped in time, but they arrived safely. I still can't believe it. Ha.

It feels great to finally get another figure out there, other than a new version of 10-Doh!. Now, people just need to buy them, Ha. They'll only be 20 bucks at our booth #5051 at San Diego Comic Con July 8th-12th. I hope they sell out, because SDCC is crazy expensive and it would be nice to actually make it worth our time. I'll put any extras up on http://squidkidsink.bigcartel.com after the con.

ANTE UPS X SQUIBS PLAYING CARDS

I've been wanting to design a deck of playing cards for years and years. I mainly grew up playing War, Slap Jack, Poker, and Black Jack. Now I mostly play Egyptian Rat Screw, Hell, and Bush Hog Rummy at family reunions and the occasional game night. I've also been collecting playing cards while on vacations throughout my life. I finally got around to making my own. Woot!

 I'm not sure why the 1st Ante Ups card deck also became a Squibs Deck, but it did. These are the rough sketches for the card back and the suits.

Designing the suits to be unique, but still easily recognizable was more difficult than expected. I wanted the cards to be more than just a decorative deck. I play a lot of games that require fast reaction times, so they needed to be instantly recognizable.

I probably could have found a font that would have work well enough, but I like doing things the slow painful way most of the time. I sketched up all these on graph paper, then scanned them in. I tried making it a functioning font, but that's trickier than expected. I couldn't figure out how to get the kerning right, but I didn't need to type an essay. Someday I'll be able to type an essay in my awesome Sharpie written words. Ha.

This is the refined Squib that I went with,  but he still went through a lot of digital revisions. I also wanted the back to look similar to traditional Bicycle and Hoyle playing cards. Red, Blue, and Black are common card back colors, so I wanted to make some of each. You'll notice that I ended up using a darker Red and a lighter Blue for the final art.

 The face cards were by far the most work. I sketched these out in January, but stopped shortly after. After I flipped the art, I realized that I left out a ton of details in the sketches.  It was a daunting amount of work, and took me a long time to get started again. I only recently finished it all and it took way longer than expected. 

 I wanted to try and keep all the traditional elements for each card. The characters had to face the right way, hold the right weapon, be in profile or front facing, and of course commit suicide when appropriate. It took forever to fill in all the designs. Originally, the only Squib was supposed to be on the King of Clubs. As I worked on the art, the deck became more of a Squib deck than I had planned.

I had never printed a deck of cards before, but this is the basic info I sent to a couple place for quoting. There were a couple false starts and plenty of wasted time, but that's bound to happen on a new project. I ended up using a place in Texas that was able to match China pricing and even delivered ahead of schedule. It's so nice to be able to make something domestically for a change.

 The shipment arrived on a nice mini pallet that we'll either turn into a table or have a nice fire at the beach one night. It's crazy how heavy a bunch of card decks can be, but that's the same for most paper goods.

The printer was also able to send me some uncut sheets that I requested. I'm gonna frame some for myself, and might make a couple available for sale. 

I'm still amazed that I was able to finish 52 unique cards, 2 jokers, and 2 extra cards. Not to mention the back design and packaging design. 

These will be available 1st at San Diego Comic Con 2015. We'll be at booth #5051, so stop by if you can. I also hope to have another special item available for the folks that buy the 3 for $25 deal. 

OKI DEBUT AT WONDERCON 2015

Oki is the 1st toy produced by Squid Kids Ink that isn't my original design. The guys at Robotoki had a rough digital model, but I re-sculpted it Rhino. It was just easier to do that, than to make production comments and have them change their model. 

Mana Studios did the output for Oki. 

Here he is mostly cleaned up. Cleaning up a perfect sphere is much more difficult than you want it to be. 

This is the 1st prototype done in China. 

This is the final Engineering model that the molds would be made from.

Roto vinyl is a crazy process. I'm amazed they get pretty uniform wall thicknesses and can get such a big object out of a small hole. 

So much work goes into even the most basic projects. Here you can see how they have to clean up each eye and spray each pupil.

 The body goes through all the same steps, until you have a mini army of Oki's.

Packaging always needs to be bigger and costs more than I expect it to. Of course you want to make sure the product arrives intact.

The packaging was designed to line up well next to another Oki. He also sits a bit lower, so he's lookin up at you like a puppy. Aaaawww. 

 Oki is a super simple figure, but I like him a lot. I'm anxious to see if people will customize him or just leave him as he is. 

Robert Bowling has been kind enough to have been buyin my stuff since the debut of 10-Doh! at Designer Con 2010. He asked for my help to produce this figure and I'm really happy with the results.  I'll have some available at Booth #1548 during WonderCon 2015. They'll also be available online and in stores sometime after that.

SKI x LOOT CRATE = AWESOME!

 The guys form Loot Crate approached me at WonderCon 2014. This is a "little behind the scenes" of this project.

This is essentially a brand new Mini 10-Doh! figure. New hands, new shoes, and they include an accessory for the 1st time ever. This image shows how some of things changed throughout development.

Here are the mockups I did to show Loot Crate what I was thinking of doing. I wanted the labels that I created to be based on Zapper games. The Gumshoe/Bladerunner got replaced with Drx. Who, and the Gold one hadn't been thought of yet.

We also decided to do some new packaging. It's based on the original 7in 10-Doh! figure packaging. I'll probably continue to use this shape for future Mini 10-Doh! figures.

I made one trip to China to do final approvals for this project. I'm never there during actual production, so I always ask the factory to send me some photos. These images were amazing to me. Sooooooo many pieces. Ha. 

Here are a just a few of the steps in the process like assembly, applying labels, and packing. It's always cool for me to see progress shots of my products.

Most people aren't aware, but there's been huge delays importing stuff for a variety of reasons. My stuff got delayed and flagged for a US customs inspection. The image on the right shows all of the products in January's Rewind Crate. Due to the delay, it has a red "X" where a Mini 10-Doh! should be. It was crazy stressful, but it all worked out.

This was by far the largest project I've ever done for one of my own products. It was crazy to see all of these boxes in person at the Loot Crate warehouse. 

This label was done by my good friend Chito Arellano, aka @kwestone on Instagram. I have a ton of his work hanging up at home and I wanted other people to see it as well. He's obviously a fan of rabbits and Back to the Future.

If you couldn't tell, this is a mashup of Wild Gunman and Mars Attacks. This one is probably my favorite.

I wanted Loot Crate to design a couple of the labels as well. They know their fans well and I would have never done a Dr. Who mashup. I've just never got into the show, but I do like Dr. Mario. Ha.

Firefly is one of my favorite shows of all time, and almost everyone owned Duck Hunt. It wasn't easy to make Serenity all pixelated, but I think most people get it.

The Fifth Element is a polarizing movie. Some people love it, others hate it. I happen to love it and when I looked at the Hogan's Alley label, all I could see was a Mangalore from The Fifth Element.

 I left the gold design up to Loot Crate. I've already designed at least 3 gold 10-Doh! figures, and nothing popped into my brain right away. It's a great fit, even though there are 2 BTTF designs in the assortment. You can never have too much BTTF. Ha.

I also subscribe to Loot Crate. This was only my 3rd time receiving one, but I thought it would be cool to open it up on a Toy Brief with my friends at Toy Break. You can watch it here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpLfZFrG80o

It's been a crazy experience working with Loot Crate and getting these figures made. Overall, the response has been very positive. Of course, there are always people that don't quite understand what I do or why I do it, buuuuut who cares. I like what I do, and I plan on doing it as long as I can.