http://www.artdenka.com

ARTDENKA can be found on myspace at http://www.myspace.com/artdenka
satoshi tsukaya (illustrator/CEO)
shigeta tanaka (illustrator)
yoshifumi okita (web creator)
maki nobe (director)

VINYL TOY “SKULLBOX” He has 7 moveable joints & evil mind…

Skullbox vinyl character by Artdenka

Kathie Olivas is a multi-media artist who lives in Tampa, FL. Her work has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions across the US.

Her current work is entitled the “Misery Children”.  This series focuses on the social desire to assign “cuteness.” This often serves to make something innocent and more appealing, and as a result non-threatening. The characters evoke a reaction that reflects isolation, fear, and an uncertainty. This series presents a satirical look at how fear affects our sense of reality. 

Inspired by early American portraiture that often displayed children as small adults in an idealized new land, the characters parallel this vision within their own sense of post-apocalyptic conformity, uniquely documenting their own stories in a mysterious brave new world.

From her bio:

2000: Independent Study under USF Professors Bradlee Shanks and Victoria Hirt in experimental printmaking and photo-based processes
1999: University of South Florida, Bachelor of Arts Cum Laude
1997: Residency at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC (with Graphicstudio)
1996-1997: Elective studies at Graphicstudio: The Institute for Research in Art, Tampa, FL

Kathie is married to Brandt Peters .  They met at Ybor City’s goth club The Castle. Brandt grew up in Los Angeles and has worked in the movie industry as an illustrator and animator. Olivas received her MFA from USF and managed a gallery where she showed and collaborated with a group of “Lowbrow” Tampa artists. The two were living and working together within a month of meeting, and married within a year.

Not only do they live and make art together, but they have day jobs creating sets and props for the same theme park design company. The connection with their art has deepened in the work they have created since they met.
Cartoonish animals and children are common themes for Olivas. These bunnies, boys and girls may have started out cute, but modified to add muzzles and dunce caps, limbless , or with mouths zipped or bolted shut, they are ultimately repulsive.  We want to look away.

Munny is a vinyl toy made by the American designer toy company Kidrobot. 

Munny is an action figure which can be decorated using paint, markers, or any other sort of artist medium. The figure has moveable joints and is made out of vinyl. Early Munny action figures were white, and they are now offered in other colors such as black, blue, pink, and glowing green. The figure comes with accessories that vary across the different series (1 through 4, 4 being the most recent) which are a variety of things, such as a carrot or a hat.

variations of Munny:

Mini Munny- Just like the original Munny, but stands about 4 inches tall (vs 7 inches), originally released in February of 2008. Mini Munny came in three different colors; Blue, White & Pink. These figures listed for $10 US.

Mega Munny- Just like the original Munny, except it stands about 18 inches tall. Mega Munny is somewhat expensive, around 200.00 USD, and comes in White, Pink, and Yellow.

Munny Zipper Pulls- Basically the Mini Munny with a clip at the top of the action figures head.

Mini Munny Mobile- This is a car with one White Mini Munny. The figure and the car are made of vinyl and can be decorated.

find Munny’s here

I really like this Munny which I found a picture of:  This was in a post about Uberbot Munny show

http://www.litwack.org/articles/kaws/

His common theme is X  X for eyes.  Some of his most famous vinyl figures are: The Companion, the Accomplice, Chum (very Michelin-man looking figure), the Be@rbrick Companion, Kaws X Pushead.

Kaws himself says

My first interest in graffitti came when I was in grammar school, around ‘87 or ‘88 I was about twelve years old. I did not know much about writing, I just knew that I liked to write my name everywhere I could in my neighborhood. At that time I knew nothing about the world of graff that was happening in New York. I just knew the few names I saw around my area. Later on, around ‘91. I started getting into bombing on a more serious level,trying to cover larger areas of Jersey and Manhattan, especially Soho.

His real name is Brian Donnelly; from Jersey City, born in 1974.  He worked some for Disney as a animator after attending New York’s School of Visual Arts.

I really envy anyone who works at what they love.  I like my work but would leave it if I found a way.

Once you see what a vinyl toy is, one of the questions you may ask is “how can I make a vinyl toy myself?”. 

To start with, you need to create a sculpture of your concept.  Some people may make a sketch of the concept and have a sculptor create the 3D version, but that seems like missing part of the fun of the process!  It seems pretty common to make your sculpture out of Sculpey (same as Fimo).  It is a material which is easy to find (craft store), easy to mold (never dries out) and easy to harden (in the oven).  After you make your sculpture, you will make a mold of it.  It seems that silicon mold material is a good choice.  After that, you can make a resin version of your toy.  You can make a few copies with the same mold and paint them a variety of ways until you settle on what you like (or keep them all).

If you truly want to get into making vinyl toys, you would then send your painted model to China to get your toys made (more info).  Vinyl toys are created using a metal mold and a spin process that results in the vinyl on the surface of the mold, but hollow inside (think rubber ducky).

Here is a list of sites where you can get resin and silicon rubber (for mold making):-
Alumilite
Smooth-on
Bentley Chemicals
4D Model Shop

Heres a list of tutorials for making molds and using casting resin:-
Creating a Mould
Resin Casting
Quite an Interesting Mould tutorial.
Tesselate Toys have this really nice tutorial on there site as well as some really nice toys.
http://www.hobbycast.net
http://www.johnburn.co.uk
This is a reference list for materials and other things:-
List of things.

I found several of the mold making materials (silicone) and the casting resin on Ebay.

Dunny Series 5 coming Sept 4

The artist list includes: Amanda Visell, Aya Kakeda, Clutter, Devilrobots, Dirty Donny, Frank Kozik, Huck Gee, JMGS//Jellymoon, Jesse LeDoux, JK5, Junko Mizuno, Kathie Olivas, MAD, Mad Barbarians, MISHKA, Reach, Sneaky Raccoon, Steven Harrington, TOOFLY.

You can get blanks of some of the figures so that you can paint them yourself, or if you can get a hold of a figure for a reasonable price, you can remove the paint with sandpaper (very light abrasive) and paint it yourself (I’ve read that enamel paint works). 

We have vinyl toy figure blanks on our site.