A little while ago I got an email that had me excited. None other than Jason Washburn had contacted me with the prospect of contributing a set of illustration to their famed book series “Color Ink Book”. These quarterly publications are an interesting marriage of two concepts in the world of illustration: The DIY mentality of the children coloring book and the appreciation of the wide range of artistic styles in illustration art. Combining the two results in black and white periodicals celebrating famed and new artists while the print on high quality vellum paper invites people to interact with the art on a more personal level.

As Halloween approaches the 13th edition is not only timed well but it also features only horror illustrations. There is plenty of blood, gore and zombies, of course. I contemplated something different though. Recently I have been infatuated by old medical illustrations and journals – books such as Ernst Haeckel’s “Kunstformen der Natur” or “Human Monstrosities” by Hirst and Barton Cooke. These inspirations fell on fertile ground as I was rethinking my earlier ideas of the “Netzwerk” universe.

In my mind all these freaks of nature are a result of fungal infections combined with a kind of digital corruption that affects all living and synthetical matter. This fungus feeds on available information in its surroundings and recombines it with the existing material…

Make sure to get yourself a copy of this awesome book: Color Ink Book Store”

When I went to work in India for my first time a few months ago I planned on hunting down some original Indian toys for my collection and/or customizing. It may have been due to the city that I went to (Bagalore) or my lack of hunting skills but it turned out to me more difficult that I thought it would be. Chinese bootlegs of western pop culture were everywhere sadly though there seemed to be a distinct lack of toys based on Indian culture.

Finally, after a few weeks of searching I came across some very cheap Indian toy cars made from vinyl. The production quality was so low the flashing was visible everywhere without any cleaning of the seamlines after casting. One of the toys that I bought even had a hair of an Indian factory worker sealed inside the bag! What were these? Small reproductions of the omni-present auto-rickshaws. Perfect for a little custom mash-up run.

Initially I had planned to turn these into some kind of transformer-like toy but it soon turned out to be a very difficult thing to do. Mostly because I had grown fond of the bad production quality and I did not want to try to make it look better than it actually was. Let alone cut the vinyl pieces apart to make the transformer work.

In the end I decided to give the toy four arms as a little nod to the Hindu religion while at the same time transporting a feeling of the ever present trash flying around in Indian cities. The God of Trash is a conglomeration of all the cast away useless junk come to life to haunt those that believe that there is always someone that will take care of things left in the gutter.

All in all it is silly mash-up of an Indian vinyl toy auto-rickshaw and resin parts. A little stab a low quality productions juxtaposed with intentional free-form texture sculpting (I made that up).

First revealed at Toy Karma 3. Get it here: Rotofugi Toy Karma 3 Exhibition

Each colorway is limited to two pieces. Six colorway are planned.

And finally, it is finished.

The piece I have been showing off in the posts below is a custom toy version of my Charlize Harlow character. It is a mash-up of several toys including Emilio Garcia’s Jumping Brain, Camille Rose Garcia’s Lulu, Ashley Wood’s Bambaboss, Ultraman Astromons and a Rolito bird. It will be on display (and for sale) at the upcoming Brain Evolution custom show at the new exhibition space of LA’s Toy Art Gallery – Friday, September 16th, 2011.

With a height of 38cm (ca. 15″) this is my biggest custom toy sculpture to date and due to the materials used it is probably also the heaviest with a weight of 720g (ca. 1.5 pound).

My Jumping Brain custom is shaping up to a rather big one. Here are two more in-progress pictures. Tentacles and transforming arms included. As you can see, I have thrown a few more toys into the mix since my last post.

Emilio Garcia’s Jumping Brain vs. Ashley Wood’s Bambaboss extremities and some more? What is it going to be? More soon.