ARTWORK 4-24-11

The month is almost over so I thought I'd share my April artwork.

First I wanted to do an update on my Fisher Price chatter phone that I've been constructing out of 100% recycled paper (scraps from the recycling bin). It was a bit tougher than I thought it would be! Almost finished.







One of the hardest parts of this project was searching for paper scraps that matched the original colors. If they were off by the slightest bit it looked goofy.

The wheels took two days to create. I wrapped the paper around tubes to glue and dry, and tried to do my best to duplicate the outer indentations. Anything curved is hard to replicate.







The last thing I have to build is the receiver which may take a bit due to the semi fluorescent red paper I'm going to be keeping my eye out for. It would be a lot easier to go out and buy some, but I've come this far and I'm determined to use only recycled paper.

Most of the drawings I've done this past month are just doodles in my sketchbook (which is almost full). I started the sketchbook in early July 2010 and am now on page 109. About 340 sketches so far. Not too bad.





I was in a Ghostbusters mood that day.







Easter coming up and all.









When I have drawing slumps (like writer's block) I draw designs.



I'm working on a monkey project.



One of my favorite Garbage Pail Kids!



I'm making a happy meal box for my next art show. I just got started. I changed the arches on the handle to my initials S P.



This is a character from Masters of the Universe named Rio Blast.

Nothing too spectacular but a lot of times it's the little drawings and doodles I do when I'm bored that people seem to really dig.

I'll post some more next month.

WHAT'S IN THE BOX? 2-23-11

In my previous post I promised to reveal the remaining contents of the shoebox (80s time capsule) that I bought from the thrift store.
Along with the stack of Atari catalogs and manuals, there were 81 mini-comics. The majority of these came along with action figures during the 80s and contain stories regarding whatever character they were packaged with.

There are:
57 Masters of the Universe
7 Sectaurs
2 Robo Force
3 Captain America
and 2 Transformers

Most of these have some sort of ads for the other figures/vehicles/playsets in the series and fan club mail-aways.

Here are scans of the Masters of the Universe comics:













Here are the back covers with pics of the other toys in the line.













I never had any of these as a kid. I remember going over to other kid's houses and playing "HeMan" but I didn't know anything about the characters and I only watched the cartoon a handful of times.
In the late 80s they had a "white elephant" sale at my school's fall fun-fair and I traded in a bunch of tickets for a huge box of Masters of the Universe figures. My best friend and I took them back to my house and spent the rest of the afternoon on the roof of my bike shed dropping large rocks on to them.
It makes me cringe every time I think about how much those things are worth now. Ughh.

Like most toys I lost or broke (or never got to get as a kid) I've amassed quite a collection of them as an adult and still pick them up if I run across them at garage sales or whatever.

The next set of figures I found mini-comics to I vaguely remember...

Sectaurs which are genetically mutated characters mixed with bugs. The story is really windy and it's hard to tell who the good guys/bad guys are or what the plot involves but pretty much they are just bug-people with their own powers and a personal bug creature that comes along with each one. According to the fan site there was a short-lived cartoon (5 episodes) and a line of comics.

http://sectaurs.fansector.com/

Here are the mini-comic scans (missing one I forgot to scan)









In a stroke of coincidental luck, I actually found one of these action figures at the thrift store a week ago still in the box!? I bought it for $3.



It has a beetle that you can use as a grappling hook. I thought about taking it out of the package to play with it but I saw on Ebay that it's worth $30-40.

Another toy series I remember but never got into was Robo Force. There were two mini-comics in the shoebox for this line.





I do remember my brother got one of these for Christmas one year but we didn't really know anything about them. I thought they were made by Tomy but I guess not.

I didn't scan the rest of the stuff but there are duplicates of the majority of these. There was also 3 copies of Captain America meets the Asthma Monster, some Transformers comics magazine, and manuals for electronic handheld games (M.O.T.U., Double Dragon etc).