Joe Ledbetter's Sketchbook 
A wise man once said, “Looking through an artist’s sketchbook is like seeing that artist naked.” With this brand-new series of hardcover books, Nerdcore is proud to undress some of pop art’s most daring and original creators, beginning with Joe Ledbetter ’s Sketchbook. Like never before, fans will be welcomed into the creative process, warts and all. Each of the 184 pages in this volume was hand-selected by Mr. Ledbetter from various personal sketchbooks, dating back to 2003 when his now-iconic characters like Mr. Bunny were barely-recognizable scribbles. You’ll be treated to character design experiments for creatures that never were, doodles for vinyl toys that still aren’t, concepts for paintings that already are, and plenty of surprise smudges just because we can. It’s a new kind of artistic intimacy.
184 Pages of Lots of Stuff. For only $25Joe Ledbetter ’s Sketchbook is anything but polished, featuring raw and unfiltered images from the last six years of the artist’s career, including:
·Rough compositions for famous paintings
·Mockups for collectible vinyl toys
·Illustration concepts
·Logo trials
·Weird ideas
·To-do lists
·Random phone numbers
·Smudges, fingerprints, moisture rings, ink splatter, and lots of other detritus of creativity
About
Joe Ledbetter:
Influenced by classic animation, graphic design, and daily life, Joe Ledbetter 's art is... well... a lot of things. Light-hearted in its approach, he often combines cute and cuddly creatures with unfortunate — albeit humorous — situations. With a lean on the subversive and absurd, these scenarios are all too familiar, questioning our tendency of taking life (and ourselves) too seriously.
While working as a graphic apparel artist for three years, Ledbetter got involved in the LA underground art scene, beginning with group shows like Cannibal Flower. By the summer of 2004, he had honed his trademark visual style of emblematic line-work, vibrant colors, and endearing characters to the point of quitting his day job. His incredible cast of creatures have since been emblazoned on over 100 designer vinyl toys, as well as apparel and lifestyle brands, the world over.
100 hand silk-screened, signed and numbered 6x8 inch prints will be randomly inserted into pre-orders. These prints are an online exclusive and only available for customers who
pre-order before September 1, 2008. Not to be missed!
This is actually really cool stuff...I am not an uber fan boy like most of you are of Joe's work, but I can appreciate it for the art, and the design, and the time put forth to design and come up with all the things that he does...and we are both alumni of HSU(Go Lumberjacks). So if you are looking for some insight into this artist life and how he comes up with the things he does then this is for you!
Click here to pre-order!
Thanks for the heads up Mr. Roniger!
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That's right Huck Gee is at it again with yet another Mystery box...what could be inside, only the luckiest, the ones with the fastest refresh rate, the ones with the hyper fast internet connection, and the ones who can get internet at work will be able to snatch one of these up from Huck's store! Good luck to all of you this Friday...this has got to be exciting for all you Huck fans out there!
Bootleg #6
Another mystery package...
Coming this Friday, October 10th, 2008 at Noon PDT, Huck is releasing the next mystery figure in his Bootleg series, Bootleg #6. Only 25 figures in this set, each package is signed, numbered and stenciled. What's inside? Find out when UPS drops it on your doorstep. :) $100 per figure. Limit one Bootleg per customer.
Huck's Ebay Store (Noon PDT, Friday 10/10)
Barrelman Puto A/Ps
Fresh Off the Boat...
Also this Friday, we are releasing the last of the
Barrleman Puto AP figures. These have been riding the slow boat across the Pacific ever since their release in the Philippines at
Fresh Manila back in July. We have the last 15 of the initial 30 AP figures. They will also be going on sale at noon, this Friday. Each is signed and numbered.
$100 per figure.
Limit one Barrelman per customer.
Huck's Ebay Store (Noon PDT, Friday 10/10)
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DYING OF THIRST
by Gary Baseman
Dying of Thirst catalogs
Gary Baseman's solo show, "I Melt in Your Presence," at Modernism Gallery in San Francisco. Baseman's paintings reflect an oozing, sexual frenzy and dripping, cream-filled energy. This full-color, large-format, hardcover collector's edition features beautiful reproductions of Baseman's artwork. It includes nude studies in mixed media, and paintings such as Dripping With Desire, The Hills of Creamy Goodness, Dying of Thirst, The Battle for Independence and Creamy Fulfillment, The Rose, In the Presence of True Desire, The Goodness of Creamy Wonderment, The Battlefield of Glory and Desire, and Madonna and the Chou Chou. Named "One of the 100 Most Creative People in Entertainment" by Entertainment Weekly Magazine, Baseman blurs the line between toy culture and fine art with his strong iconic images, both playful and dark, childlike and adult, id-driven and thought-provoking.
HARDCOVER, 48 pages. Cover Price $25
Info from the very great, and amazing
DKE Toys. For Wholesale Inquiries about this amazing product please contact
www.dketoys.com.
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We are smelling up the studio with Fizz 'n Find figures, Vinyl Aggression by Jakks, Spraycan Mugsy by East3, On Location at Red Hot Robot, bubbly blind box, and more!
- Purple Scavenger Contest Winner - thank you to everyone who participated!
- Panik's Toy Box Contest - Post a short Halloween story (under 250 words) that begins with "It was a dark and stormy night..." - first place wins a $100 gift certificate for panikstoybox.com, second place wins a $50 gift certificate, and third wins a $25 gift certificate - deadline is October 22nd
- Small Toy Break Download - just use the "small mp4" link above for a lower resolution, smaller version (320 x 240) of Toy Break at about half the size in megabytes
- Toy Break on Blip.tv - reminder to update your Flash player to fully enjoy watching Toy Break on Blip.tv!
- Funkrush Shirts - UK based shirt company with tons of great designs by your favorite artists plus you can save 20% with the discount code "TOYBREAK"
- Bumrush Customs On Sale - several Bumrush customs are currently up for sale including one from each of us!
- MadL DIY Competition - Delicious Drips is hosting a Mad* DIY contest - $40 entree fee includes 10" Mad*L and submission are due by October 31st - for more info, email lief@deliciousdrips.com
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Try Fantastic Contraption!
I've been out of it since last Friday. I have come down with a horrible Flu (at least that's what I'm guessing it is.) Anyways, I have been pretty much bed ridden and have been scouring the internets for things to consume my time at home while I heal.
I continue to be amazed by the advances in Flash Games. There are some pretty sweet games out there that share the same polish as console games, but are FREE! Fantastic Contraption is one of those games. The game construction and goals are simple, but the puzzles quickly become intense. You have your choice of different types of rotating wheels and rods to connect them. Get the red shape to the red goal area and you win!
If you ever built robots or loved to invent little machines as a child, I think you will enjoy this game. If you weren't ever interested in how things work, I dare you to try anyways! You just may enjoy watching your Fantastic Contraption stumble into the goal...
http://www.fantasticcontraption.com/
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I heard about this from John D Boardley, from a little twit that he sent out from his site "I Love Typography", and I was very impressed with the technology that Flash based apps have grown to become!
SUMO is a complete Flash based program that allows you to use functions very similar to the same ones in Photoshop, you can even create an account upload, and save files directly to their server. Check it out and have some fun...also let me know what you think of it!
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Just in time for Halloween,
Plaseebo is offering up a collection of one of a kind custom Night Gamers. This 2008 collection is comprised of 6 unique hand customized and painted expressions by Bob Conge. Each of the 8" vinyl also have a motion activated color-changing LED unit inside its head and is hand signed by Bob.
The 6 custom figures include, from left to right: Mickeygamer, Frankengamer, Jack O Lantern #2, Voodoo, Nightzilla and Jack O Lantern #1. They will be available from the Plaseebo online store on Thursday October 9th.
Source [Plastic and Plush]
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TOLERANCE: CHRIS MARSby Chris Mars
Chris Mars' painting style, examples of which graced all of his album covers, is marked by nightmarish landscapes and grotesque, distorted figures. He draws inspiration from his older brother's struggle with schizophrenia. "...From my hands, my mission: To free the oppressed; to champion the persecuted, and the submissive; to liberate through revelation the actualized Self in those proposed by some to have no self at all. It's in every single one of us, somewhere underneath that word on our chest. In my hands, my version: All art is political in some sense, be it through conformity, reflection, propaganda or rebellion. My paintings are rallies and trials, photographs of a moment when Truth was made public, and Mercy known. Question why a villain is villainized, a victim martyred. Ask why a group is demonized, and the motives for control. See for yourself what the truth looks like in your hands. Dig it up and hold it for a while. This work you see, it's my Truth. But please don't take my word for it."
"Minneapolis artist Chris Mars is living proof that F. Scott Fitzgerald was dead wrong when he said there are no second acts in American lives. Though famous in the 1980s as the drummer for alt-rock heroes The Replacements, Mars eventually left the music world behind entirely to focus on the visual arts, now specializing in stunningly evocative, macabre portraits." -The Onion A.V. Club.
"The artist draws from the imaginary monsters his schizophrenic brother saw during childhood. It's hard to argue that these creatures could come from anywhere but the psyche of a tortured soul." -Juxtapoz.
"His paintings of ghoulish, skeletal crowds and beseeching wraiths, set in gloomy environments that hark back to medieval villages, seem too vivid to have come purely from the imagination. Mars' storytelling on canvas is almost classical in its precision." -The Rake.
"Scary and fascinating." -Jeff SotoHARDCOVER, color. 176 pages. Cover Price $40
Info from the very great, and amazing
DKE Toys. For Wholesale Inquiries about this amazing product please contact
www.dketoys.com.
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Posts
Joe Ledbetter's Sketchbook 
A wise man once said, “Looking through an artist’s sketchbook is like seeing that artist naked.” With this brand-new series of hardcover books, Nerdcore is proud to undress some of pop art’s most daring and original creators, beginning with Joe Ledbetter ’s Sketchbook. Like never before, fans will be welcomed into the creative process, warts and all. Each of the 184 pages in this volume was hand-selected by Mr. Ledbetter from various personal sketchbooks, dating back to 2003 when his now-iconic characters like Mr. Bunny were barely-recognizable scribbles. You’ll be treated to character design experiments for creatures that never were, doodles for vinyl toys that still aren’t, concepts for paintings that already are, and plenty of surprise smudges just because we can. It’s a new kind of artistic intimacy.
