Custom Toys, Spade-Skulls, Totem Art and Much More : Reactor-88 Blog

Here’s a pic of my submission for the Crazy 4 Cult Custom show going on at Gallery 1988 SF this Saturday, Sept 4th. He’s my take on Scary Teddy, one of the classic characters from Nightmare Before Christmas.

Some things to note with this custom- it’s the first time I’ve modified the original shape of a toy for a custom, and also the first time I’ve used a sewing machine since junior high school. I planned to use a Munny for this custom, but since Scary Teddy has such big rounded face and his ears are on top of his head I knew I would have to do some modifying if I wanted to use this platform. So my plan was to rotate the head around and use the back for his face (since it was nice and rounded), remove the ears from the sides of the head and relocate them to the top. After a few applications of Magic Sculpt and lots and lots of sanding it started to look the way I wanted. The paint application on this guy is slightly different as well. I wanted the piece to still be easily recognizable as Scary Teddy, but still wanted to inject my personal totem style into it. So I did a very subdued/ghosted totem pattern into the body and head. And last but not least, it wouldn’t be Scary Teddy without a cape, so I cut out a piece of felt, sewed a little border on it and with that, Scary Totem Teddy was complete. For a few more pics, head over to my Flickr page.

So if you’re in the San Francisco area this Friday night, be sure to check out the show- from what I’ve seen so far it’s shaping up to be one of the best this year…

Here are a couple of pictures of the 20-inch custom Dunny I just finished painting. I nicknamed this guy “The Beast”- not just because he’s huge, but also because it’s taken me roughly a year to complete. Yes, I’m serious. Granted I took many breaks away from this piece when I was working on shows (which was most of the time), but it still seemed like this took way too long. The last month seemed especially long- I layered so many extra coats of paint on this guy it was ridiculous. Obviously since this was a commission it was holding up my list, so now that it’s done I’m hoping that starts moving along a bit. Note- this will also probably be the only 20-inch Dunny commission I ever do, unless someone wants to throw some serious money my way…

Here are the full-reveal pics of my custom Totembot from the Sketchbot Custom Show. So if you can’t make it over to check him out in person, this is the next best thing.