Put that new monster fur to use, oh and MERRY CHRISTMAS

There's a whole lot more pics over @ the Mad Artisan Labs Facebook page, check them out there.

This batch of Zippermouth Nomsters were made as part of my gifts for relatives. I gave a Cuponk Game to each of my Aunts/Uncles and their Families, the Nomsters serve as ball holders for their extra Cuponk Balls.

I Absolutely love this fur. It took me a bit of time to get used to working with it, but now that I kinda have the hang of it I'm super excited to do more with it. It looks super cool and seams blend exceptionally well between two pieces of the fur. I think for now I'll stick to using it only as an element, rather than the primary fabric on my characters, but I do love using it and plan on using it more. Expect a ton of new character designs the revolve around using this fur as a design element in the near future.

There's only one more sleep 'till Christmas, and I intend to get to that.

-MadArtisan

Not quite Singin' in the Rain

ya know its ironic that I last posted about how wonderfully pleasant and warm the typical Californian December was. Considering that not long after it started raining... and its been rainging for just about a week. (albeit its supposed to clear up tomorrow...and start again right after Christmas, whee.)

Now, I do enjoy the occasional rain its a nice change and all kinds of good stuff, but its rather hindering out here. particularly since it leads to pretty much everyone driving the speed of smell, and its left me being a bit of a shut-in. Particularly with the flooding that happens on the main roads out of my suburban housing area. Hell even the mailman is taking his time in this weather... our mail didn't come until after 4 pm. Which was particularly disappointing because that is how long I had to wait to see the Saddest paycheck I have yet received from LEUSD since I started working for them. Those factors coupled with an ear infection (and turns out some crazy bad earwax buildup) leaving me rather deaf-ish had put me in quite the grumpy mood. Fortunately I bought this awesome earwax remover and ear cleaner kit and it fixed me right up. Now I totally have like super hearing and its great.

Its Christmas in California, and its hard to ignore that it feels like summer all the time.

As I write this its still 70 something outside, twas maybe low 80s max today, and ya know what? I love it. I truly enjoy the fact that it really doesn't hit supa-cold winter weather for more than a few weeks out here, I'm kinda at a point where its hard to imagine it any other way. By the way this post's title comes from a Jack's Mannequin song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vzg2iZoUFeo&feature=related

Anywho a bunch of stuff's happened since I last posted here, where to begin...  (read after the jump)

Super News Update!

Well, October's long-past, and a whole bunch of things have happened.

The vendor fair was pretty unsuccessful (one plushie, and one tote bag sold...sigh)

I've made a few new plushies since then, I have a bunch of sewn, but yet to be stuffed too.

My sewing machine broke, so I replaced it with a new fancy one that I still don't understand all the functions on yet...because its fancy.

I got to use my Disneyland Pass once in October, my buddy Grant and I were there for like two and a half hours, we rode 7 rides. I suppose I should mention it was on a Wednesday.

That same day I picked up my Diploma from UCI, tis a pretty cool feeling.

Saw Megamind last night, it was an Amazingly Awesome display of Super-Greatness! (That's a future DVD Box quote right there, I can see it now..."Amazingly Awesome display of Super-Greatness!"- Nate Little, Suburban Renaissance Man) and I only watched it in 2D on a normal screen. I can't wait to see it again, hopefully in IMAX 3D, which I'm sure is totally gonna be worth it.

I unfortunately due to some weird Standardized Testing Thing and then a Holiday and Furlough day between this week and last mean I'm losing some 28 hours of potential work/pay this month as an AVID tutor, while the loss of monies is sad, it frees me up to have another Adventure in the land of Dizz-Knee. Which should open up the opportunity for me to go twice this month, thus making up for my lack of using my pass in September.

Not only did I easiy get my Grad School application in to CGU on time, but I just got a letter from them today...

I was ACCEPTED!!!!!!!!!! 

Yeah, that's right.

Starting in January, I will be a MFA Student at Claremont Graduate University! 

I am Super Stoked! XDDDD

After visiting there this summer I was convinced it was pretty much perfect for me, and I can't wait to get cracking on working on all kinds of ridiculous-awesome stuff.

With that I figure I'm good for this blog post.

I'll upload the new plush pics in the next couple days.

-MadArtisan

The "Oh Crap I need a bigger inventory for this craft fair" Plush-A-Thon!!!!!!1!!!!!ONE!!

So yeah as mentioned in yesterday's post I'll be "LiveBloging" another Plush-a-Thon today.

And It Begins

7:00 AM Wide awake and ready to get rockin, I think I'll start with a Few Turtlebugs. Should be funtimes.

8:00 AM Ta-daaa, two turtlebugs, as "finished" as they're gonna be for now, I suppose I should explain that unlike previous Plush-a-thons I'm not stuffing/finishing plushies as they come, I'm gonna sew a decent number before I stop to stuff. Also, in the case of the turtlebugs I'm gonna wait to do all of the ones I'm working on's shells at once after I stuff them(which is why there's a sock in the background of this pic. (also I admit, I kinda cheated and started these guys before I went to bed last night (the pink/seafoam one was already at this stage when I woke up)Anyways... The Plush-tastic madness continues!

10:15 AM: a third turtlebug is most of the way done (just need to attach his noggin) and I took a break to shoot some new pics of "Muppet-Style" me for my portfolio. I Think I may be off to JoAnn's to pick up some more bobbins and a couple other colors of thread after I finish this turtlebug

12:40 PM Returned from Jo-Ann's with a bunch of awesome stuff! They had all their Notions stuff on sale for Buy one Get one Free, got some new colors of thread and this sweet pair of Halloween socks for half price. I also snagged some rad fabric for using on future Messenger Bags and whatnot. I'm just about ready to snap a pic of the third turtlebug, I may wait and just finish the 4th one and take pics of both at once.

2:40 Finished up the fourth turtlebug and snapped a pic of the both it and the third one! I think I'll take a break from sewing long enough to stuff these guys then I'll get teh sewing machine up and running to put together the turtlebug shells and to work on some other stuff.

4:05 PM: Finished up stuffing the turtlebugs! now to do their shells.

7:40 PM: Just got back from going out to dinner with the fam, that took waaaaay more time than anticipated, before I left I'd finished the shell on One of the turtlebugs, I'm going back to work on the rest now that I'm back. I'll post pics after I have all of them completed. Hopefully that's soon enough or me to do like 1 more plush today, just bceause I'd like to have more than 4 plushies in one Plush-a-thon.

11:35 PM: Ok, so I totally only finished the 4 turtlebugs...and I should have gone to bed 2 hours ago, what with the fact that I have to be up for work in like 6 hours. sigh. anywho here's a Pic of them:

Overall, it wasn't a bad plush-a-thon, it just wasn't my best. But hey there were several hours in here where I didn't get to do sewing work at all so I'm still pretty satisfied.


-Mad Artisan

Plush-A-Thon Tomorrow

Ok so I'm gonna do another one of my All-day squishy-tastic plush production days because well, that's what happens when I need to double my inventory by Next Saturday(fortunately I have some 30 plushies either started or at least cut-out and ready to sew, as seen above). See, I'll have a table @ a Local Craft Fair on the 16th. I'm a little stressed out by the fact that I am Nowhere prepared, but I suppose I shouldn't worry too much its only like a 3 hour craft fair and it didn't cost my anything to have a booth. Also because I'm kinda freaking out a little over finishing up my Application to CGU for their MFA program. (who knew trying to get letters of rec from people would be this hard?) 

ANYWAY:

I should start by sharing some pics of all the plushies I've already finished before the Plush-a-thon, since it could be overwhelming otherwise. (check them out after the Jump)

Long overdue update

Hey Blog, I know we haven't talked much lately. So I'm here to give you an Update! See I've been up to a lot of stuff and sitting down and writing about it took more time that just posting a new pic to the new MAD ARTISAN LABS Facebook page. Which you should sooo totally "Like" and then you can see updates on what I'm doing pretty much as they happen.

ANYWAYS...
 
Where Should I kick things off? oh yeah, I have a Job now. yep. I'm employed by the Lake Elsinore Unified School District as an AVID Tutor. Whee! I never thought I'd be back at my old High School ever again, much less actually working there...audible sigh. But its a pretty sweet deal, the kids I work with are that rare breed of "not-completely-evil" Teenagers, and it pays pretty nice.

Anywho Arty-Stuffs after the Jump!

Wristbands? Buisness Cards, and Hangtags

If you know me, you know that I nearly always have a wristband on my left wrist, usually its a Knit one that says "RAD!" 

Well anywho, I found a place online that will actually custom-imprint Knit Wristbands. Which is super cool, but, not exactly cheap. Minimum Order size is 120 (and while the price is half of what I'd pay for one in a store Per Band, its still a lot of money) Nevertheless, I'm still considering doing it. (If/When I do, I'll sell them on my Etsy or something for about 4 bucks)

 Soo I went ahead and made up a handful of concept vector images for my future Epic Line of Awesome Wristbands, naturally all ones I would actually want to wear. (Pics after the Jump)

Did a couple "mixed media" pieces... here they are

My local Aaron Bros is going out of business. which oddly, for me is a Good thing.

Because they have lots of cool crap at a min of 50% off, if not more.

I got a nice travel easel for 9 bucks, that was 30.

And they have this cool line of frames made from anodized aluminum, I picked up a couple of the 12 X 12 "Four 4X4" frames, making one for my mom for her B-day tomorrow, the other just because I can.

I'm totally gonna pick up more of the other sizes/styles of these particular frames when I get some more money, as they just have the right vibe for a lot of my work.

-MadArtisan

Gave this place a facelift, also here's a new design I made for Mad Artisan Labs stuff

Yeah so I spent some time today messin around with Blogger's new template designer and now have this shiny new layout goin on, I like the changes for now, but I don't quite have this blog where I want it yet.

And I finished up a new Mad Artisan Labs image recently, I call it "Stitch Science."

I'm sure its destined to be on a T-shirt soon.

Speaking of T-shirts, I'm considering shutting down my spreadshirt store, because even though I'm impressed with the quality(and the fact that I can get legit neon colors), love their larger printing area, and designer interface. They're kinda pricey and the more complicated vector shirt seems to fall apart. Also, I'm not a big fan of their "standard" printing method. so I may be Moving all the Mad Artisan Labs stuff over to zazzle soon.

If anyone out there reading this has suggestions for other alternative Custom Shirt printers/web stores shoot me a comment or e-mail.

-Mad Artisan

This Was a Flat Rate Shipping Box ...

So yeah, after a couple hours and roughly a roll and a half of duct tape (I used about half of the three rolls) here's my new storage/tote box for all my Strapping materials for making bags n such with. its pretty nifty, holds the weight fine, there's several layers of tape near and around the handles to make it stronger. Also, I made the base of the box solid with regular packing tape before I started going to town with the Duct Tape in the first place.

More work on planning out the website today, and working out a new logo design right now. More updates very soon Yaaaay!

-Mad Artisan

PLUSH UPDATE

Ok so I finished up the 2 more "chunk-style" monsters already so here's pics:

Shunk Muhwunk:

Aaaand

Wunk Muhwunk:

Ta daaaaa

-Mad Artisan

I'm happily wearing my "The Flash Blue Lantern" t-shirt today...

Riding out the unpleasantness that is having one's wisdom teeth removed... its been a few days now and I'm just kinda stuck riding that train to recovery junction.

Ya know, its funny how when you have no choice but to remain fairly sedentary and not do very much with your day, you suddenly find yourself wanting to just do all kinds of stuff.

I mean, these past few weeks have been pretty busy with Riding Ziplines, Going to the Zoo, getting said wisdom teeth out, and naturally making more awesome plushies. So getting to slow down was nice, for about a day...now its a bit maddening.

On an upside I'm getting to watch a lot of History and Science Channel, and that's always a good time.

speaking of awesome plushies here's a couple "work in progress pics" of some recent projects:

The head of my most challenging project to date:

Yes, I'm making a Plushie Piñata.
Yes, it will have the ability to hold stuff in it.
No, I'm not making another one.


Also I'm back on track with the Cavalcade of Chunks:  2 of them are 95% stitched and ready to be stuffed:

They may look a little on the "deflated" side but don't worry, that's just because they haven't been stuffed yet. I'll post pictures later today or tomorrow when they're of sufficient squishy.

-Mad Artisan

Hey there Real World... I didn't want to hang out with you yet... but I guess I have to

Yeah, so I'm still coming to terms with the fact that I'm a College graduate.

It's been 5 years getting here, and I literally never stopped being a "student" since the day I graduated from High School, hell, I was already in a College summer class the week I graduated from High School.

So yeah, When I didn't get into Grad School right away I was kinda thrown for a loop.

Now, I'm sure it didn't help that my long time friend and collaborator Greg Lammers got married less than a week after I graduated and I had to be up in Vacaville for his wedding. By the way Congratulations Greg and Lori, I wish the two of you the best.

But anyway yeah... I guess its time I actually figured what to do with myself, because I now have 6 months to a year before I'm back in the mode of Student, and that means I'm "just some guy with an Art Degree" oooo aaaaahh.

Time to Build some websites, start my web review show and try to become legitamately internet famous, and time to start filling out applications for Jobs. *sigh*

in other news if you'd like to check out the comic I wrote/illustrated for my "Graphic Novel" class you can view it here: http://pizza.madartisanlabs.com/ and I fully realize the irony that MadArtisanLabs.Com itself isn't up and running yet.

Also, I'm cleaning off me desk and starting back up sewing projects that I'd had to put off with the whole "make sure I pass my classes and graduate" chaos that was last quarter, and I've suddenly gotten my Nerf Modding/Painting Groove back too so this summer should give me plenty of Blog Fodder.

OH SNAP! I totally forgot to mention I can has a new Camera! Got it as my Grad Present from Mi Familia. Yeah I now own a Cannon Rebel T2i, its a solid Entry-level DSLR and it shoots nice quality HD video too. Now I'd wanted a 5 or 7 D, but this baby costs about a third as much and let me get other things with graduation monies instead of just a camera, so I'm not complaining. Also, It apparently shoots the same quality HD video, but it doesn't have the same level of Audio capabilities on-board on the camera, but hey... I have a shotgun mic, I'm fine.

You may have also noticed that my Etsy Store is still down, and that's because I'm closing up shop on the "Nonsense Monsters" etsy and moving my plush into the etsy store I'll be selling my other "Mad Artisan Labs" products through, figure consolidate everything into one place right?

- MadArtisan

well Heloooooo intewebs I'm back.

as the title says the Mad Artisan returns with a vengeance, the end of my last quarter coupled with the beginning of my current one has put me more than a little behind on updating well... anything. Seriously I had to actually Look at my last post to figure out where I need to pick back up. There's SOOOOOOOOOOOO MUCH for me to post I don't even know where to start. So I'm just going to talk about what I've done and post pictures later when I have the time.

I've made some rad things like a Muppet-esque version of myself. somehow managed to recover many of my what I though was lost photographs from Intermediate Sculpture, been working on a cavalcade of plush monsters as well as some experiments in Creature-y things that can hold stuff. I'm long over due for posting the Final Version of GRANDUJ (Redux) to the interwebs, but that is coming soon too.  I'm Working on A Video Project, some performance-y things and a like 16-page Graphic Novel this quarter, plus I have another Research-driven class... I'm pretty busy.

So, without further delay, Pics:

Last quarter I shaved off my 'stache for the sake of a character I was performing, thus puppetnate reflects that fact.

I've been expanding on the Idea that started with the Nomsters, making some various types of Nonsense Monster "Bags" with either drawstring pulls or zipper mouths. My protoypes here, are used as Dicebags:

Voodoo Head Drawstring bag:

Zippermouth Nomster:

There's a couple more of these guys I'll post pictures when I get the chance.

I've also made 5 more nomsters on commission:

Also I recently finished The First of 8 new Pyramidsaurs, This is Slunk Muhwunk.

Fun Fact: this was the last one that I started of this set, but the first that I finished.

I should have the rest of these guys as well as like 3 other plush projects in the works and updated soon, and speaking of plushies I totally just noticed that pretty much my entire stock in my Etsy Store has timed out, I'm going to re-list everthing at lower prices as well as put up some new stuff, tell your friends and family help support my time-wasting monster making!

Also I want to once again Plug my current Video Project AMASS MEDIA I'm looking to collect as many submissions as I can.

-MadArtisan

Amass Media

This is my open call to all my Video-minded Comrades in Arts and the interwebs. I'm working on a video project right now that requires Collaborators/contributors.

The Amass Media project is a critique/study of Mass Media , (i.e. television, internet, advertising, shows, news ect...) That will use a collection of New Videos that  are “a reaction to” or “Critique of” Mass Media.

A wide collection of Video Art falls in to this field including works like Dara Birnbaum's Technology Transformation, Ant Farm's Media Burn, and Richard Serra's Television Delivers people, or in a modern sense you can look at Auto-tune the News. I'll add links to them at the end of this post.

What I'm looking for are short 30 second to 1 and a half min long videos that are your personal reaction to Mass Media.

I personally plan on producing a minimum of 5+ different style videos(in addition to using a couple I've already made) for this on my own so that even if I don't receive many submissions I can get the feeling I'm aiming for, but I'm hoping to get videos from as many people as possible.

I intend to compile the videos I receive together into a single final Video that I'm turning in for my final project for my Video History and Critique class, and I'll also post it to the internet.

all contributors will be credited as Collaborators on the final work, and I'll do something to produce a digital public Archive the individual Videos as well. This is an Open Call for ideas, if you have any friends you think would enjoy contributing to this, Feel Free to Share!

The Thing is If you'd like to submit a video to this, I will need it by May 28th at the latest. I'm only looking for short submissions so I'm hoping that will make it something you guys are able to do in such short notice.

In terms of how to submit your video if it's small enough you can E-mail it to N8@madartisanlabs.com or  people I see on a regular basis, can give me it as a digital file in person. If you want to post it to youtube or something I don't currently have a decent way to download it and convert it into something I can edit.


-Nate

Links:

Technology Transformation: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4y5e5_dara-birnbaum-technologytransformat_shortfilms

Media Burn: http://www.ubu.com/film/ant_farm_media.html

Television Delivers People: http://www.ubu.com/film/serra_television.html

Auto-tune the news: http://www.youtube.com/show/autotunethenews?s=1

Operation: Dark Ride... has been turned in. But Will continue as a side project

Yes Yes, I turned what I had last week.

it was pretty much this:

 

^ It may not look like much, but when combined with my Oral presentation and read-through of the Ride Story (which I wrote a full one by the way) The general concensus was good. A few people were like "but it's not a sculpture" and I'm responded with "if you for even a moment could see this ride in your mind...you've seen my sculpture" and everyone was like "woha woah woah MIND BLOWN" 

Good times.

Most of all my Teacher was totally into it, and that's what really matters.

I'm not entirely sure if I'll post the written out ride story or not, If I do,  I'll do it after my buddy Greg has sent me a Score he was working on for me, that I can build in to an Audio Ride-though track.

-Mad Artisan

Om Nom Nom Nomsters

Here at Mad Artisan Labs, We (and by we I mean me, myself and I) are always pushing to make something new and original. This is best shown by our (well, my) Nonsense Monster Designs creations.

Without Further delay I present the newest addition to the Nonsense Monsters Family, The Nomsters.

Nomsters are these nifty little crafty dudes with a big appetite, they really like candy, but they'll eat just about whatever you can fit inside them.

I made these first three Nomsters as Valentine's Day Gifts for my family. I'm sure there will be more on the way soon though, and I'll be selling them in my Etsy store and at the next Senior Ex Craft Sale at UCI too.

Additional Pictures:

 

-MadArtisan