So as 2011 comes to an end I thought I would do a summary of what has happened this year.

This year started off with taking part in the "Show me your Munny" show hosted by Toitoy down in Cape Town, I did not attend as I had wanted to, but it went well, the custom I did is still available for purchase. 

After that I had a really slow month or two, and after some design work for A Sitting Duck and having a chat to David I decided to try and see if Vinyl Destination would be willing to sell my customs and other art work from their on-line store, and this went very well, sold a bunch of the customs I had put up and found out I had a collector of my work, this was wicked awesome.

Then some sad business had to be dealt with in the form of my former car Nelly, she was falling apart and I was unable to get her repaired as I was broke at the time, bleh. So I landed up selling her and feeling bad about doing so. In the end I used some of the money I got from her to buy a new PC seeing as the one I was using was really getting old and struggling to keep up with the work load I was putting on her. The new pc rocks! only problem I had is that now that I had a PC that could play some games I got really distracted by it.

Then the came the time for me to decide what must be done seeing as I was still unemployed, I did a odd of demolishing a building(that I never got the money for...), and then came the really sad point where I realised I had to move away from my home in Bloemfontein to a little place called Hell or as the locals call it Queenstown.

In the first month of being here I got a job (not something I would have chosen, but apparently must be done)

 and I also headed up to Johannesburg for Street Cred 2011 along with Vinyl Destination and Kronk, this has to be the highlight of the year for me, meeting up with everyone I have been interacting with on-line for years, was also great for meeting up with some new people and doing some networking. Got some wicked toys, art prints and Tees from Kronk. 

A couple of weeks after this I went and rolled a car, was not fun at all... I also was not speeding so not sure what happened just rolled and flipped, not wanting to do that ever again.

Got a very fun Commission from one of my Twitter followers and had some fun working on it.

Also decided to get hold of the guys at Toy2R and see if we could do some work together... keep an eye out in 2012 *wink*.

SO that was my 2011 in a nutshell... 2012 will bring some new challenges and experiences and I am rather looking forward to a year that I will be pushing myself in my art and toy design.

See you all there. 

Zombie Dunny Commission

Hello all, I have been waiting to put this up for the last few weeks.
But I decided that I would not ruin the surprise of the toy for the person who got it for his birthday, Happy Level Up day btw.

So I was asked to do a custom zombie dunny, had so many ideas with green zombies flashing through my mind, and then i read that it kinda had to look like the guy and be brown... challenge accepted! So has to look like a zombie version, have "dead" eyes, the words "CREATE" ( the "model" has it as a tattoo on his arm) and glasses.

I went through a few designs before landing on this face design, and actually painted the body in a different way before I finished with this one.The words "CREATE" was origanly going to go over the chest on a shirt design, until I decided to sculpt ribs and there was no ways i was going to do that so I thought its a tattoo why not make it a tattoo? the glasses were a real paint, took 23 tries to make them, when I was taking the photos I put the glasses on my chair and packed away the gear... I sat on them, its a terrible sound when you hear a crunch and you know exactly what it is, worked on another pair of glasses for the next 4 hours after that, ended up getting the 6th pair right and then decided to make another one just as a spare incase it breaks in postage.



Had some fun with the packaging, painted a box black and went at it with red paint and a hard bristle brush (sorry Kronk, I know you are not a fan of blood splatter, hehe), while that dried I used a sealer and sealed the Zombie into a Dunny foil (adds effect see, like a blind box).

Next morning I head off to Postnet to post it... morons! the gave me a tracking number and then changed it... took two and a half weeks to get there, it got there TODAY! the day it was meant for. Lost my temper and moaned like crazy, will go in an apologise to the people that gave poor service, just seems you have to complain on hellopeter before they respond.

I didn't want to let this custom go, really wanted to keep it in my collection, but could not.
On another note, how cool is it that this guys girlfriend got him a custom dunny for his birthday?
Must be one of the few guys that has a girlfriend that indulges the vinyl obsession, Good on ya!

p.s. don't moan about the photos Hayley!

STR CRD With Vinyl Destination & Kronk.

Konichiwa, yeah that's right.

This past weekend I finally got to hang out with Vinyl Destination and Kronk, been wanting to do this for a long time, all the chats on twitter just did not cut it.

So on Thursday night I was meant to head to JHB (Johannesburg) for the STR CRD event, but the bus was late as usual, however this bus decided to be 6 hours late so I was ready to head home but the time the bus arrived, I had actually left to head home, car was started and moving forward when I saw it pull up. yeah the bus trip was utter rubbish, took forever to get there with only one stop on the 12 hour drive, lucky for me I had two seats to myself so I could pretty much just spread out over them and snooze. 

Alright now for the event. So on Saturday morning I got up nice and early and went to have some Wimpy breakfast to fuel my body for a long day! Took longer than I had expected to find the street where it was taking place. after getting there and sneaking past security because I could not get hold of Vinyl Destination to let him know I was there and that I needed a ticket to get in, anywho got past the guy and was trying to figure out where the heck to go when I hear "Mitch" and it was Simon (Vinyl Destination) no idea how he knew who I was but yeah, he was carrying a box so thought ok let me go grab my bag of customs and head in the direction that he went.... not a good idea, I got lost yet again and had to ask the security guy for directions -_-, I got up stairs to where the store was and finally got to meet Simon without a box in the way, I was expecting to see Kronk there but he was elsewhere so I had to wait, however I did get to meet @Willie_Willie and his wife, that was really awesome meeting up with guys that I chat to on twitter, had a great chat to him about some vinyl and then lost in rock-paper-scissors-lizard-spock, this was all because we both wanted the same Kronk print and this was the way to decide... ok well I suggested this but it did not really happen and I conceded to let Willie get that print ;).

While standing there and watching Simon do all the hard work, (man this was bugging me, wanted to help set up, but was just getting in the way so just let him do his thing) things started to get busy as hell, still setting up and people just started to come and look at what the hell these "Pokemon" things were. I thought ok while he is doing all this I would show Willie my customs, he seemed to like them. Anyways so my biggest collector @Mwolf came out, I did not recognise him (sorry about that), and was busy with something when I heard my name "Reddprime" come up in conversation and turned around to see Simon speaking to someone and saying well he is here.... haha first time I have felt like I was for a lack of a better term 'mini-celeb' and was speechless that someone was actually there to see my work and chat to me. Was really awesome to meet him and talk to him about my work and seeing just how much he really enjoyed it.

Finally Sir Kronk showed up and I got to meet him after putting his Ottoman (did I spell that right?) down the wrong way around -noob mistake- I got to say hi to him and mrs Kronk who is really awesome too. this is where it went all crazy! people all over looking at toys for the first time and buying Dunnys', this was great seeing people that had no idea what these things were just getting addicted right there.

I was surprised at the amount of love my customs were getting during the day and especially how much The Fish Walker was getting, did not expect it at all so was great!

I bought so many toys that my bag was overweight  when I got on the bus back but that's for later. ok so I could write a really long post about this but will just keep it short because the rest is just about people coming to look at toys and making loads of new contacts with some really great people. The guys from Swatch and Exposure Gallery were great company to talk to as the night went on, and they were good tom complain to as well... non of use had brought any seats. Now there was also this amazing Teenager @dadamarshfellow who makes miniature sneakers from air-dry clay, this things are insane, follow him on twitter and have a look.

So I geeked out and bought a Kronk - Wingnut AP just so I could get the limited print and get the toy signed, but I am so glad I did now. Was great talking to him when we finally got a bit of time, loads of advice about toy designs and complements about my customs (he now has a reddprime custom in his collection - HELL YEAH!) so this was one of the highlights of the day, having a guy that's work is something that motivates me to push my work to the next level who actually turns out to like mine? wicked. I was going to just give him a custom but he traded me for a print and one of his new tee's from the Klothing range, he gave me 2 more tee's later in the evening, I was well pleased at this.

Finally got my hands on the HellBoy that Toy2R made, traded it for a custom dunny with Simon so he also has a reddprime custom in his collection now, he will also soon have a custom based on the Vinyl Destination logo, this one is for all the help he has given me in the last year/s like selling my toys on his site and letting me hang out with him at STR CRD, really think that he and the store will go far in the vinyl scene in SA.

After the event I saw a sticker left on the wall where Exposure Gallery had their stall and just had to doodle on it, a skyline with no monster? What kind of thing is this? now there is a monster destroying it instead, just the way it should be.

got a few photos of all the toys I got this weekend look them up on my facebook because I can't figure out how to add more photos to this post from my email.

on another note get ready to see more work coming from me, this weekend has reminded me just why I want to be working in this scene and creating these art pieces. So thank you to everyone that was at STR CRD and a BIG THANX TO KRONK AND SIMON!

Ok this must be my longest post ever!

Optimus Prime sucker punched the Green Lantern

So this week I finally got around to watching Sucker Punch after missing it at the cinema, was only on the circuit for 4days or something silly like that.
I must say that after waiting more than a year to see it, I was really expecting more from the movie... I mean sure the effects were insane, some of the scenes I had to re-watch because they just looked so insane, but I did think the story was rubbish.
Also got around to watching Thor and X-Men: First class, thought they were great, loved the way that X-Men was done and it had a great soundtrack , Thor was good, pity that they tried to get so much done in a short amount of space, add another 40 minutes to the movie and expand on the characters and their relationships... I mean it was as if Thor met the girl and in a day was a entirely new person, that didn't go down to well with me, but other than that it was brilliant, did really enjoy they portrayed Loki, was great.

This week I watched two movies that I was super excited about, Transformers 3 and The Green Lantern.
Seeing as I watched GL first I will let you know what I thought first.
I was worried that DC Comics (I am a DC man) would mess up another hero by trying to make a movie about him, look at what they did to Superman Returns and the really rubbish Batmans they made before Batman begins. But they managed to pull it off, I am grateful as I really like Hal Jordan from the comics. I think that Ryan Reynolds pulled off the character well and l love the way that the effects were done, was brilliant, Mark Strong as Sinestro = awesome! and they left the end open for a sequel yay!

Now Transformers 3 was something I wanted to see in 3D but not paying R80 just to see it so stuck with 2D, and now I wish I had gone 3D, wow!
The final instalment of Transformers, it had to be better and more epic than the first, especially after the second one was trash! I blame it all on the annoying twin Autobots and Fox, I am glad they did not include her, her voice drove me mad.
The new actress was much better, not great though. But all together it was epic, I was just in awe of the effects used and the story was by far the best of the 3. I must admit that I am really sad that this was the last one as I am a Huge Transformers fan, I have watched every season until the Transformers Animated junk, because there is no ways I can make myself ruin the original series with that junk.

Go out and watch these movies, well except for sucker punch unless you like some crazy effects.

www.reddprime.com - iam@reddprime.com

Update

Heya everyone, I seem to keep forgetting that I have a blog that I need to keep updated, sorry about that.
So in the last few weeks I did some demolition work that was not much fun and that nearly killed me a few times, almost fell off the roof (this is a 2 and a bit story building) and then when I was down on the ground a roof thing (that big A-frame like thing) decided to fall on me and pin me down on a pile of bricks. That hurt like hell and made it a mission for me to get up. Once I had finally managed to free myself from this I then had a nail decide it would go through my index finger. So that is when I decided to call it a day and head home.
Next day was kinda more of the same. Very windy and that makes it really hard to keep your eyes open with all the dust blowing around. So what happened? I got dust in my eyes while I was busy swinging a hammer and got my hand, so then I switched hands and the same thing happened so again I decided it was time to all it a day before I break a finger or something like that.
Next week was better because I didn't go there, instead I was doing some holiday club with the church, that was rather fun but more tiring than spending a entire doing demolition...
Got a bit of work done in this time, some designs for A Sitting Duck and some other clients, did some design work on a Linkin Park cover too. Not that they used it in the end, but I did submit it so yeah.
It seems set that I will be heading back home to the family the end of July seeing as Bloemfontein does not want to let me find a job.
On the bright side I did manage to sell some toys to my first official collector, its an awesome feeling knowing that someone out there really likes the hard work that I put into the customs, thanx to Simon at Vinyl Destination for putting up the RPC's on the store. I also seem to have some inspiration and motivation to do more art and to do it bigger and better from 'somewhere'.



www.reddprime.com - iam@reddprime.com

Update May 17

Greetings all, So after a few weeks it's time for an update!
We managed to collect a grand total of R0.00 for the Nelly thing, but luckily that is not an issue any longer seeing as the death trap formally known as Nelly has been sold.
Took about a week for me to go around all the car dealerships and see what I could get for her or what I could trade it in for.
Man was that not fun at all, never had to do anything like that in my life, was a scary thing to do, but no it is done and I learnt a thing or two.

Now I am hunting for a new car and hoping to find one soon seeing as being carless is really not fun.
I have been thinking what kind of car would I like? I have to remind myself that I cannot get a muscle car or anything that will need a ton of cash to run. That doesn't mean I cannot wish for certain cars though, I still would love a Mustang or a Charger. But again they are muscle and would go through petrol super fast. Another thought was the old Kombi that I love and one day want to make into my mobile studio, not an option because they are really old and I don't think I could get it to look like I would like for a long time.
Last night however I let me Geek get the better of me and started looking for a Delorean DMC-12 (yeah that's right the awesome one from the Back To The Future, movies.) Saw a couple of nice looking ones on Google images but the only thing that sucks it that there seems to be none in South Africa, how sad is that?

The hunt continues!

On the job front I have not had much luck either, applied for three jobs in the last week and have not yet had any feedback from any of them. Been looking all over SA and not just in Bloemfontein, so if you are in Cape Town and any other major cities and know of a place looking for a design or art teacher ect. Let me know.



www.reddprime.com - iam@reddprime.com

Help Save Nelly!

Hello Everyone!
I have not updated the blog in a while; have not had much to say on any updates.
However now I am trying to save my car Nelly and you can help get her back up and running.
How can you help? If you buy my custom toys from www.vinyldestination.co.za what is made there will go to the Save Nelly Fund, if you don't have an interest in vinyl toys and still want to help me out, drop me a mail at iam@reddprime.com and we can go from there.
There will also be painting and other artwork going onto my Flickr and Facebook accounts that will be available to buy.
Everyone that helps out will be entered into a lucky draw to win a custom artwork from myself.
I will try and update the blog on how far from saving Nelly we are every second week.
Incase anyone was wondering, she has alot wrong with her and the Quotes are on average around R4500 thats $668 for all my American readers and £403 for those of you from the UK.


www.reddprime.com - iam@reddprime.com