EXTRA LIFE REVEALS!!!

This post will show all 12 figures from the Extra Life Series. I'll update it each day until they are all revealed.

My buddy @llexileon was learning game coding a couple years back, and he actually made a Space Invaders style game with my Squib artwork. That's pretty much why this label exists. It also ties into the Squib skateboard that @finessebrand made for me. 

This figure only exists due to a happy accident. It was originally one of the Ultra Rare figures in Series 2 as a silver P800 figure. For some reason, the factory included these gold labels with all the other Limited Edition labels. Andy Poon did the art work, and you can follow him on Instagram @andypoondesign.

Way back when I was doing Mini 10-Doh! Series 1, SpankyStokes suggested I contact @hydrosevenfour to do a label. I love his art and his work ethic. This is his 3rd Mini 10-Doh! label. One was a limited edition figure, and the other was in Series2. This label was an option for Series2, but I chose the Snow Owl instead. It's not exactly "family friendly", so you might want to display it up high.

I made these labels during the Loot Crate production run. I used to take a blank grey Mini 10-Doh! with me while traveling and take photos of them. New York City, Hong Kong, Death Valley, and New Zealand are some of the places I did this. I also made specific labels like this for NY, HK, and SD, but I'm not sure if those will ever be released.

I've known Jerome Lu almost a decade. We used to work at the same toy company and I was even his boss for a short period of time. We also used to share booths at conventions, and he had a figure in Mini 10-Doh! Series 1. We just never found a good time to release this figure, so the time is now. You can follow Jerome @jromonkey on Instagram and check out his work at www.hyperactivemonkey.com

I haven't made too many Glow in the Dark figures and haven't had a lot of lady designers do artwork for 10-Doh! figures. This one just so happens to checks both of those boxes. Cat Sze did the art for Hong Ly, the creator of Tofu Girls. You can keep up with them at https://www.facebook.com/tofugirls and @tofu_girls on Instagram.

This label was first seen as a Grey label in the DIY Mini 10-Doh! Series. I also posted an image of this Red guy years ago, along with a Black and a Blue version. Those probably will never be released though. Mini 10-Doh! figures can't hold a lot of things, but they can hold a business card. So, you can use this guy as a name plate and a single business card holder. Ha.

This figure really shouldn't exist. I had another gold figure all labeled up, because the factory printed a gold version on accident. Buuut, I jumped the gun, and the timing of this release didn't mesh with the artists timing for his own projects. Oops. So, Linda Panda (my wife) stepped up and cranked this beauty out at the last minute. This Series has had quite the journey. Ha. You can follow her @lindapanda on Instagram.

Spanky Stokes (@spankystokes) supports our little slice of the Toy Industry as much as anyone else out there, and has been a huge supporter of my stuff from the beginning. Alex Rivera (@playfulgorilla) did the illustration and we originally release this as a black figure at Dcon way back when. So, this label is truly getting a second chance.

This guy was originally an Ultra Rare gold figure in Mini 10-Doh! Series 2. It's based on the question mark block from classic Mario games and little bit of Brad Pitt from Se7en. Now he's a platinum mystery box, so pricey.

Way back in 2013 I did a Design-A-Label contest for Mini 10-Doh! Series 2. There were 70 entries by 49 artists. Crazy! There were tons of great entries and this one by Reno Msad (@renomsad on Instagram) was one of my favorites. I had it printed to be a Limited Edition figure, but once again, I could never find a good time to release it. It's great to have it be part of this Series. Maybe I'll have to see if there is something I can do with some of those other entries. Ha.

Obviously, a homage to Mario Boo characters, but Simpsons fans will appreciate his name a bit more.  This is a brand new figure designed specifically for this Series. He is replacing the mini version of my 10-Tris! figure. I forgot that the factory only sent me the back labels of 10-Tris!, so I had to come up with another replacement figure. I'd never done a transparent label and wasn't sure if it would look good. Luckily it did and now we have a transparent figure, instead of another grey figure.

So, there they are. 12 new figures that got a second chance in the Extra Life Series. Hopefully, people enjoyed seeing them revealed and appreciate the insight into the series creation. They'll debut at SDCC 2018 booth #5150. They are extremely limited compared to previous series, so get them while you can.

MINI 10-DOH! EXTRA LIFE SERIES

So this is the "kinda big announcement" I was talking about. It's a new series of Mini 10-Doh! figures. WOOHOO! It's not really Series 3, because it doesn't really follow the same formula that I used in Series 1&2. I don't plan on going back that formula, so maybe this is Series 3. Ha.

This is a very honest explanation of how this Series came to be. I'm not one for hype or spinning the story to sucker people into buying my stuff. This time around I'm folding all the boxes, applying all the labels, it's not easy being a one man assembly line. Ha! I hope you like the figures and appreciate the stories behind them.

Making toys is expensive, and it can take years to see a return on your investment. Especially, when the money that trickles in slowly, goes to paying monthly bills. I could have done another Kickstarter, but they take a lot of time & effort. I want my next Kickstarter to be for a new figure, not just a new Series. This Series was only possible because I had a bunch of extra blank figures and wide variety of extra labels. I just needed a way to tie them all together.

These figures were never intended to be in a Series. Most of these labels were printed during the production runs of Series 1&2. They were intended to be Limited Edition figures, but for various reasons, the labels sat in a drawer for years. 

You might be wondering what's different about this Series. There are 3 major changes in this Series.

PACKAGING SIZE

I decided to use the Limited Edition packaging proportions, but as a blind box. This reduces the amount of packaging required, which reduces cost and waste. Woohoo!

QUANTITY PER CASEPACK

Mini 10-Doh! Series 1, 2, and DIY all had 20 figures in each casepack. The Extra Life Series only has 12 different designs in total, compared to 16 in previous Series. This is partially due to the amount of labels I had to work with, but it also leads into the last change. 

RARITY

I eliminated the rarity scheme completely. If you buy a casepack of 12, you'll get the complete set. No commons, no uncommons, no rares, and no ultra (your never gonna complete your collection, unless you buy it on eBay) rares. There's only one of each figure in a casepack. 

This guy kinda had to be the 1st to be revealed, because I used the graphic for the packaging. On the right you get a hint at the figures that will be announced over the next 11 days.

Like I mentioned, this isn't Series 3, but it still needed a name. I wanted it to have a name that hinted at the reason it exists. This is essentially a second chance for these figures, and I felt that "Extra Life" fit pretty well. A couple of them you may have seen before in some form, but most of them have never been seen. One was a happy accident, and there are to 2 that were created specifically for this Series.

Another side effect of this being an unintentional series, is that almost half of the designs were done by me. Usually, I only have 1-3 designs out of 16, but I only had so many labels on hand. People will either love, hate, or not care about this. I just thought I'd explain why it is the way it is. 

SDCC 2018 10-FINITY EXCLUSIVE

These guys are ready for SDCC...pretty much. Ha. There are bound to be a ton more people out there that will recognize him after seeing Infinity War. Hopefully they sell well. 

I've been a fan of Thanos and Silver Surfer since back in the early 90's when the Infinity Guantlet was 1st introduced. I definitely don't buy every figure. I buy the ones I really like, and the ones I can afford. Ha.

The one on the left was a test print I did at home. I wasn't sure if I could get good metallic labels printed, but they turned out great.  

This is the final version. Applying the labels has been very difficult. Any imperfection on the surface or even a spec of dust can cause an ugly bubble. I've done my best to make them the best they can be.

 It's always great to have finished stacks of figures. I'm essentially a one man assembly line and doing anything 100 times takes a bit of time. Podcasts and music make it much more tolerable.

LONG TIME, NO BLOG

Apparently, life got busy. I got married, helped make another human, and recently had to deal with some minor health issues. Soooo, here's the 1st of several announcements that I'll be posting over the next couple of weeks.

 I can't believe it's been 7 years since these figures debuted. There were a couple minor issues that bugged me about the packaging, so I finally got around to fixing them.

 On the left is the new packaging and on the right is the old one. Like I mentioned, I was never completely happy with the packaging. It was a bit too small, so the hands and feet made it bulge out a bit. It opened from the sides which made it easier to bulge and deform, and it was glossy. Booourns.

So, this is a bit of a refresh for the Large 10-Doh! figures, which is long over due. The factory that produced these figures did a great job for the most part. Unfortunately, some labels were poorly applied, which was really annoying.

  The other issue was that they continually mismatched the hands and feet. This has been such a pain. It's not like they made more lefts than rights, they were just careless. I estimate the mismatch rate could be as high as 20%. It's also been expensive to send out a replacement hand or foot to the customers that got a duplicate part.

Now, I have stacks of these new pretty non-shiny boxes, and it will be a long so process to swap them out and fix all the mismatches. Fun times ahead. Woohoo!

Of course, I didn't have to put more money into an old product. Buuuut, I have to double check all the hands and feet anyway. I figured that updating the packaging would differentiate the figures that are good to sell, and it might help me sleep better at night. Ha.

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.