My Lil Goon blank template is now available for customization.
Grab your blank here:
Lil Goon Blank
Submissions can be sent to TDDK
The home site (http://lilgoontoy.blogspot.com/) will temporarily be a landing page for the blank template until a few submissions are received and a full site launched.
After a couple weeks of releasing Rufus: Flame On! for Glood's first custom series my stat counter has been filled with referring links to the post.
I am very stoked at the response I am seeing and it influences me to add Rufus in more work.
After I get my new template up off the ground (First skin coming by week's end)and invite others to customize the template I will work on a few side ventures for this beloved dinosaur.
Lots of personal projects in the works and its exciting. Can't wait for it to branch out further.
Past few days I have been altering a few sketches into a new model to skin and share.
Still working on minor details for the template before opening up a blank template, but if you are interested I am more than happy to share.
Should be complete and a few personal designs shortly.
I had planned on doing a few customs here soon and I will likely still tackle that feat but inspiriation hit last evening and a new toy design is being born.
No real details to share except a rough draft build of the "head" piece. Still needs some edits for ease of building and structure.
This just may turn out to be my signature design. TDDK Bot was a nice thought, but I had no real design ideas and only one custom submitted. This should push more ideas once I get the other pieces designed, built and smoothed out.
My custom design for Glood's Cutzilla has been completed.
This would be Rufus and his mighty flame.
I redesigned the head piece to give the model an open mouth, eyes and nose that would have backs to them instead of the underside white of the paper. I also scaled the design up just a bit. Unfortunately the weight distribution between the flames and Rufus' body were not even so some weight is needed underneath the tail of the design.
So after fiddling with Photoshop yesterday I got the itch for designing a custom again.
I already have a couple of customs waiting release on NaniBird.com that I did a few months back.
So now I begin throwing my name back into the hat with CutZilla.
CutZilla was designed by young UK designer/paper crafter Luke Glood. This design is simple yet affective and I already have the head slightly redesigned for what I had in mind.
Glood also has a previous toy Gloo-Bear with 2 designs and a blank template for anyone wanting to design.
Visit Glood Paper Toys to follow him at his start.
So today as I was exploring PaperKraft.net as I normally do looking for new interesting paper toys and there it was. The Twitter Beard!
Artist Von Glitschka from Salem, Oregon created this wonderful (half) mask for his love of Twitter. 
His students also created some different designs but unfortunately they are not available for download. The Cthulu head is my second favorite of the bunch. Make sure to check out Von's design blog Art Backwash.
Get your Twitter Beard here! and share your beardy goodness.
Another custom this week. I did this one a few weeks back and finally got around to printing and building.
Krang Sizza!
I must give credit where credit is due as the face was designed by what I can only find as being Berger/Talbot.
Grab yours here.
Hot on the heels of Wave 1, I present Wave 2 of Calling All Cars.
5 more fantastic designs available for free download here.
Get ‘em while they’re hot!
Four of the e440 squirrel's went off on their own and have evolved into something more. Now they are ready to take on their oppressors at the Schiphol airport.
Introducing...
Gorilla: Here
Monkey: Here
Orangutan: Here
Yeti: Here
Grab all 4: Here
Visit Ring's site for other e440 creations at http://alle440.blog.com/
Today I completed my first double-door version of the TDDK BOT.
To Die For TDDK (Who Inspires You?) To Die For Clothing is my favorite clothing company, has been around since 1997.
To Die For Clothing is the product of two brothers love for art, music, and family. More than a decade ago, Jason Welsher, a drummer and staple in the Orange County hardcore, straight edge music scene, and Josh “Deph” Welsher an urban graffiti artist, toy designer, and skater, fused their influences into a tattoo-inspired fashion endeavor.
To Die For’s humble roots began with long nights spent creating T-shirts for local bands on a homemade press in their parents’ garage. Within a year, the brother’s were in a Costa Mesa warehouse silk screening for other companies during the day and designing for To Die For at night. Now, after more than 10 years and many sleepless nights, To Die For is an established Orange County independent fashion company.
Combining their love for music, charity, family, graffiti and tattoo-inspired art, Jason and Josh work hard to make To Die For more than just a fashion brand. Constantly organizing events and concerts to benefit charities close to their hearts, creating custom urban vinyl toys for collectors, bringing together well-known tattoo and graffiti artists for collaborative projects and developing limited edition, special run designs so customers can enjoy their own personal piece of wearable art, To Die For stays true to their roots and is proud to be the original tattoo-inspired clothing company.
Grab yours here.
Horrorwood has an open design project entitled "Calling All Cars!"
Ron Deer is my submission to this project. Template will be available once Horrorwood releases them.
MULLET!
Here is a skin I threw together for my girlfriend's love of plaid.
Grab the template here.
Here it is, the first images of TDDK-BOT blank template. I'm pretty stoked about this first paper toy creation and can't wait to see how people interpret and style this paper toy. I am new to using illustrator so coming up with my own styles is going to be a pain staking process, but hopefully I'll get the grasp of it with a quickness.
Grab the blank template below.
Enjoy!
TDDK-BOT TEMPLATE
Just to give an glimpse at what tools I use for builds.
1. Glue - A no brainer why I have glue in my arsenal. Helps keep the toys together. Of note: I do still glue the glue-less models so they do not come apart in the future. I bought a small container for the ease of use. Most use a brush to brush on glue but I did not feel like I was invested enough in each model this way. I have a giant drawer of refills so I won't be running out for awhile.2. Glue Rag - I don't use a brush like most do while building toys. I use my fingers and the small glue bottle itself. The purpose of the glue rag is simple - wiping the glue off my fingers.
3. Scissors - I have several different scissors that I use. Each a different length, thickness, etc. There is no reason just how my hands are feeling that day.
4. X-Acto Knives - I use two. One is my main blade for scoring and cutting the nooks and crannies in little pieces. The other is an old dull blade for pulling glued pieces to level points of the folds. If I am unable to use my fingers to get a tab in place I use this dull blade.
5. Cutting Mat - Gotta protect the desk from cuts. When I first began building toys I just used a magazine. After I knew I was hooked the magazine wouldn't last and I would have little pieces everywhere so I invested in this mat that "heals" itself from cuts.
6. Light Box - For photographing my completed toys in a universal spot and if I take photographs at night I can get decent lighting. It isn't the most professional or prettiest looking light box out there. You can find several different DIY light boxes here.
I have taken on this project in a backwards fashion.
First I began building other paper toy designs and became hooked on the craft.
Secondly I began creating my own template design which in my eyes failed despite getting a great custom from another artist. I consider it a failure because I myself had absolutely no ideas for the design. I had thoughts of a different creation but I lacked the motivation to get to figuring out the build. I still have the idea in my head and hope to get to it.
Third I began customizing other templates without any design experience. I succeeded and enjoyed the experience. My only down fall there is time and ADD. The time it takes to get things just right would leave me wanting to skip out on my real job and lose focus while there. The ADD didn't help me when I had the time because I was constantly being pulled in other directions when my mind wandered.
Then I began mass building all of the templates I had accumulated and printed. My fiance is happy that I have a hobby and something that keeps me occupied, but I am certain the amount of paper toys piling up on shelves and tubs is driving her batty.
Once I had built a few hundred of these toys I decided I needed to blog my collection individualizing each build with links and artist names. All in good but I had already built about 350 toys and had to catch up.
Now here I am starting to blog about my experiences with these toys, builds, and the community.
I should have done this from the beginning. Time to do some catching up again. It should be a fun next couple of days while I go through and link all these blogs together and talk about the experiences.
