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!
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