Mar 03, 2008
Andrew Bell's The Giver -- Painted Proto Shots
Over the past month we've brought you the development of Andrew Bell's next vinyl toy, The Giver, from his DYZplastic brand. Today is the big payoff. You're looking at a fully painted production test sample in vinyl. Wicked. The pictured Burning Desire edition is an intense and fiery shade of Orange. Andrew will have six signed and numbered test shot prototypes available for purchase at his Burning Desire show opening on Tuesday, March 4th at Gallery 1988. Rumor has it that you might be able to pre-order the Orange Burning Desire edition (100 pieces) at the show. The blue Freezer Burn edition limited to 300 pieces will drop this Spring. Be sure to click through for a closer look at Orange Burning Desire edition of The Giver.
Gallery 1988
7020 Melrose Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90038
323.937.7088
Feb 26, 2008
Andrew Bell's The Giver - Flame + Packaging
Andrew Bell's next designer toy, The Giver, will be released this Spring ('08) by his Dyzplastic brand. Over the last three weeks we've given you a behind-the-curtain look at the development of the figure from original concept to finalized sculpt. Today we're looking at the follow-on work for the flame character, the 'gift', that comes with the first two editions: The Giver of Fire - Burning Desire Edition (orange, 100 pcs) and The Giver of Fire - Freezer Burn Edition (blue, naturally). We're also bring you a look at the packaging.
As with the main figure, Andrew's post-design work on the Flame really started with pictures of the initial sculpt. After the back and forth of the revision process, the next step was all about the materials. Since the Flame characters are translucent, several tests were necessary to get the look 'just right'. Click through for more pics of the flame development.
Rinse and repeat. This goes not just for the toy but also for the box. Andrew wanted to his figure to make a BIG statement, so much so that he overestimated just a bit with the first box dimensions ;-) Click through to see the box design.
Feb 19, 2008
Andrew Bell's Giver - Paint Mockups
Hope you enjoyed the three day weekend. We kick off Tuesday with the third installment of our continuing look at Andrew Bell's new Giver figure coming from his DYZPLASTIC brand. Up until today we've been showing you Giver in his raw unpainted form. Today, we're bringing him to you in fiery color with the paint mock-ups of the Burning Orange Giver. The mockup gives you a good idea of what the final figure will look. That said, it's very much a in-development tool -- it's a mix of paint and paper printouts of graphic features (rear of Giver) on top of a resin cast. The paper printouts are used for visualization purposes at this point in the development. These shots are the first good look at the flame creature that will ship with this edition of the Giver. Hmmm, what else might a Giver hold ?
Producing a top quality figure is all about iteration - rinse and repeat. Click through to the full post to see some of the revisions Andrew requested. One bears further explanation -- on the original artwork
layout images, dotted magenta lines were used to indicate joints in the final
figure. Somehow this information wasn’t passed on to the person doing
paint mockups, so they ended up actually painting those dotted lines right onto
the arms! Next week we're going to take a look at the process of creating and revising the Flame creatures as well as the packaging.
Feb 12, 2008
Andrew Bell's Giver - Towards a Perfect Sculpt
As seen last week on Proto Monday, Andrew Bell's upcoming Giver is a wide-load creature with a twist - he holds and offers a "gift". It's sometimes easy to forget that there's quite a bit of grunt work involved in turning a set of turnaround drawings into a finished figure on the shelf.
The completion of an initial sculpt is an exciting development -- the first time an artist gets to see his or her character realized in 3D. After the excitement wears away, it's time to scrutinize the pictures and mark-up the photos with revision requests. As seen above, Andrew specified several revisions to an early sculpt -- focusing on reshaping the nose and blending it and the 'pecs' into Giver's generous body. Getting a sculpt 'just right' often takes several rounds of revisions. After three rounds of revisions, the Giver sculpt was nearly final and ready to be cast in resin for final tweaking Last-minute tweaks included another reshaping of the nose area -- elongating it.
Next up -- the hand-painted color mockup of the full design. We'll bring you photos of the color mockup next Tuesday, until then enjoy the color guide for the first Giver -- the Burning Orange edition.
Feb 04, 2008
Proto Monday >> Andrew Bell's Giver
Andrew Bell is about to unleash a brand-new original vinyl figure. It's called Giver and we're starting our month long (or so) exclusive coverage with a first look on Proto Monday here today.
One of Andrew's older drawings (2004) serverd as "the basis for the figure, mostly just an inspiration by the time I was done reworking it." Compared to the drawing, the Giver as sculpted (above) has a much more monster-like than humanoid shape. With the basic character concept in mind, Andrew went to work in his sketchbook and then created some rough design sketches (right, below) in Illustrator. While some early design concepts were considered and passed over including the idea of "different swappable heads that went along thematically with the accessory", the main concept behind the Giver remained constant. Andrew explains that the goal was to create "a figure that could 'offer up' something, either the accessory it comes with or another favorite figure such as a dunny, labbit or qee. Giver will proudly hold your most prized plastic
possessions!"
That wraps up our first look at the Giver which Andrew is self-producing the under his Dyzplastic label for a spring release. Check back here on Vinyl Pulse next Tuesday for a look at the process of revising the initial sculpt. We'll be running weekly features looking at Giver's development through Andrew's Burning Desire solo opening on March 4th, 2008 at Gallery 1988. Click through for a shot of the Giver's back-side.