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Monday, May 31, 2010

Bryan collins

Today’s Custom Empire feature artist is Bryan Collins.... What can I say this man is a Super Star in my eyes. He ticks so many of my boxes its not funny, he paints and draws with fantastic colours, his subjects include monsters, Japanese influenced Koi and on top of that of course he customizes vinyl toys...no more needs to be said really...feast your eyes.

Korgo

Koi Fish Skate Deck

Beast Buddies
Brian also has a tone of different products with his art work on it, everything from framed pictures, original works, prints, note books and t-shirts…
So If you would like to see more of this awesome mans work you can visit his website here
http://www.bryandrinkscoffee.com/index.htm

All the above items are available in his shop right now so if you feel you need something fantastically and artistically hot in your house you can visit his shop here

http://www.etsy.com/shop/bryancollins
and
http://www.bryancollins.bigcartel.com/

Or if you would like to stay up to date on his work you can stalk him at his blog, I believe he has a mailing list too, so you should go sign up right now and really keep tabs on him.

http://www.useeverycolor.com/



Thanks for reading


Sunday, May 30, 2010

Cool Shit!

I did a little etsy surfing and found cool things to share with you...This week all my finds are from an etsy shop called
 Kat Brunnegraff....

I like that she dose some graphic looking work, artwork, prints and of course completely grabbed my attention with her colours and a very cool customized vinyl toy...

Argyle Owl Pillow
These cute Argyle Owl pillows are made by fuish.
They're 12 inches tall by 10 inches wide and made of a Linen-Cotton blend on custom printed fabric.
 
Mother Bear's Moon Song
Glossy mini prints 5.83"x 4.13" by Furis

Mr. Raccoon's Midnight Moon Song Mini Print
 glossy mini prints are 5.83"x 4.13" by Furis

Tribal Snow Tiger
This custom Chaos Monkey was done for the Multiversal Group show at Art Basel Miami.
You can see more of there work here
Or follow there blog here


Friday, May 28, 2010

V.A.S.T. Touched Official Video



Hey evey body, heres another fave bit f music I wanted to share with you... Vast are not a very well known band (I think) but they have some great tunes, I hope ou Enjoy ! Have a great day...

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Covenant - Bullet


Here is a another cool CGI video clip I found like the last one it has a bit of Robo action in it....Enjoy!

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Southerndrawl


Today I want to share some very cool customized vinyl toy art. These pieces were customized by a fantastic artist of whom I have been a big fan of for a long time...
Southerndrawl






Tell me thats not fucking awesome!!!!
Check out his blog here

Or if you deside that you love these so much that you can't live without them you can also visit his website...


If you buy one for me I'll be your best friend ;p

A misty Day

I woke up to a very misty morning today here in Yokohama Japan, but although it is early and very misty I am standing here taking this photo out my back door in shorts and a T-shirt.

 
Although my first immpression was how misserable its actually qute calm and nice...cup of tea anyone?

 
Hope it is as nice a day or even bettr a sunny and beautiful day where ever you are...

Ads

Local Sales

Little post to share some of my local sales...good bye lovely things enjoy your new homes!
Akuma

Pink Stripe

Star Burst

Yeti Crab

Monday, May 24, 2010

Cool Shit Sunday. Where is it?

If you happened to see a post I did last Sunday about wanting to do a weekly post about cool shit that I find and were wondering where it is now that it’s actually Monday, well here is the reason I didn’t get it together
 I had furniture delivered and so spent Sunday cleaning and moving shit around to accommodate the shinny (and it really is very shinny) new piece.


Here are some before and after pictures for you...I promise you they are real B&A pictures I didn’t Photoshop or air brush them in any way.
 BEFORE

After


As you can see I still have some tidying to do but it is a vast improvement don’t you think?

So I will be back with Cool Shit Sunday next Sunday unless I get distracted with something again...which is entirely possible! But you will never know if you don't come back and have a look....

BBQ Sunday

So we were supposed to have a garlic meeting a few Sundays ago but unfortunately the Niniku(garlic) people couldn’t come, we did however still have a fun BBQ. Here are a couple photos of my funky fellow BBQ lovers.
 I’m sorry to report that there are no pictures of BBQ food as people were to busy eating to take photos, so I snapped a few in the intermission between the BBQ frenzy and Cheese cake for dessert... I whipped up that home style looking cheesy strawberry deliciousness myself; thanks mum for the recipe!





Thank you to my new found friends for a deliciously fun carnivorous day.....
Ps: try to ignore the mess that is my work room…

VNV Nation - Illusion


Isn't it a wonderful thing when a friend shares something that resonates with you and brings you joy for the connection that can found by two people from seemingly different worlds... and so I share it with you, and hope you enjoy it as much as I have; a great song a little melancholic but beautiful in its message.

Have a great day peeps!

Sunday, May 23, 2010

Question The Rules

Question The Rules
Over the past few weeks I have been listening to a fantastic E-course called Question the rules; which I mentioned in an earlier post.
Now although I have mentioned this before I wanted to do a follow up because it has actually been of real benefit to me in a few different ways...

The first thing that I have learnt from this e-course is what I really want... now this sounds like a rather inconsequential thing I know, but it really is one of the most important pieces of information a person can learn about them selves.


Many people think they know what they want but when they get it are no more satisfied than before they achieved what they thought they wanted to achieve.
This often comes down to getting something that they thought they wanted but in truth really didn’t.

Why do people, me included, make these mistakes?

Because usually we want for the wrong things, most often we want for the things that society has taught us to want “I want to be rich” for example.


For me it was getting a job as far up the ladder of my industry as I could…and once I got there…I realised I really didn’t want to be there at all.


Funnily enough at that time I used to say to my co-worker (friend) “I just wish I could go sit on a mountain in Japan and meditate”…. While listening to QTR I had a light bulb moment and realised that here I was sitting in my house in Japan on top of a hill. Do I meditate? “No, but that’s not the point!”


The point is since getting to Japan I have been so focused on getting a good job and trying to once again be successful that I totally missed that I achieved what it was I really wanted. This little lesson has since helped me realise the things I want for the future based on what I really want and not what I think I should want.
The second thing that has been of great benefit to me is realising that even though I may not have all the resources and things I need to achieve my goals in the future it doesn’t mater. I can still start and I can do it the way I want to do it, Queue…. I did it my way sound tract…


It has awakened in me a new mindset in how business can start…while everyone else is saying “don’t put the horse before the cart” These guys are saying “Why not?”
“What happens if we do?” and “how can we make it work?”

One of the things I would love to do, is make a Monsterosity style urban vinyl toy but it is an expensive venture…so I thought well I can’t do it I have no munny?
However I have learnt the new way of thinking which is “ok how do I get the money, how long will that take and what else can I do while I am working that out”? Heaps!
And I have started….

The third thing in my long list of new and improved brain cells is realising that I am not alone in my adventure.
There have been many people before me that have started a business and made it work their own way in what ever industry that wanted to be in. With hard work and determination I and you can make it work. Even cooler than this revelation is that many of these people are just like you and I, they started at the beginning as babies just like you and I and if they can make it work then so can you and I!!!!

I bought this e-course because I have a head full of ideas but there is nothing businessy about me, and new I needed to start somewhere…but it turned out to be a changing force in my crazy little world and has given me the drive I needed to get things moving and to let go or at least ignore my self doubts and the concept that there is only one way to skin a cat…so to speak
The forth thing I wanted to write about is people, in QTR there is a string of interview with cool successful people form various different arenas. Listening to these interviews has given me all sorts of fantastic ideas and a super boost in confidence. But the most important thing is I realised that there are great successful people out there and they are nice helpful people.


I have had contact with two of the interviewees and was blown away with there helpfulness.
The first was John T Unger who put me on his blog because of an email I sent him, you can read my post about that here, and the second is Megan E Morris from Ideaschema.org Amazingly nice people!

The last thing I have to mention is the interaction; all my comments left during the course were all responded too, which really made me feel like there were people that cared behind it all

Thanks once again to Lee and Johnny for creating Question the rules.

And great big thanks to you if you made it to the end and read my entire dribble…

Have an awesome day!!!

"The Vinyl Frontier" Trailer

Custom Empire will be a new weekly blog post here on Monsterosity devoted to the ever cool urban Vinyl toy world and the toy customisation culture. The first thing of coolness I wanna share with you is this video on vinyl toy art and its culture....Enjoy!



Sunday, May 16, 2010

Deep thinking, Sharing and caring…Oh my god that man has no shirt on!

I have desided that this is a blog about me...he he he  but more importantly it is a blog in which I get to share the things  I and hopfully you will find interesting. This particular post is about me and a comment I shared on a new blog I like to read, the one and only  Johnny B Truant.
You can read his blog(highly recomended) and the post I commented on (preferably after you finnished reading my post...hehe)here

Tattoos, the psychology behind them and the inherent link they often have to a persons life, is a really awesomely interesting topic... here’s my personal journey.

I went from having zero tattoos to getting 2/3's of my back inked in less than a month, and it had a very interesting affect on both me and the people in my life at the time.


Many people simply asked "why?!" but at the time I couldn't put it into words and give people a good answer, however over time the answer has solidified.
While many people thought I got my tattoo to look cool or tough, the truth really came down to me making a statement to myself (not everyone else) That statement is, that no matter what happens in my life no mater how it changes or how I grow and change one thing will always remain the same "I will always be me"
 So in many ways my tattoos were a personal right of passage for me to show myself that I could do anything and that even though I was different on the inside (and now largely on the outside) I would always be me and everyone else would just have to accept me for who I am or fuck off.
All that said and now that some years have passed, I have changed as a person and the meanings of my tattoos have grown and changed with me.

Now they carry the reminders of a time gone by, some good, some bad, and remind me that no mater what is going on good, bad, painful or otherwise “this too will pass” but I will remain and so will the art on my skin…
While this seems to relate directly to my ink it really is about a fundamental shift in my thinking and the recognition that while good and bad things pass us by, good and bad things follow in there wake and the only constant sure things in life are change and you being who you are… oh and maybe death and taxes .

Thanks for reading....



Cool Shit Sunday

I am a big fan of handmade, being an avid maker of stuff; surfing, finding and coveting the handmade goodies of other arty farty types is almost an obsessive past time of mine. So I have decided that I should use my powers for good and share with you some of the cool shit I find on my travels. It will most probably be made up of gear I find on etsy because I think many of the artists there need help being noticed, however I may also include other cool shit I find else where…

So please give a big warm welcome my first regular themed blog post, as named above...
Cool Shit Sunday

Mid-Century Rocker/Lounger with Ottoman
Molded, sustainable Luan plywood, welded steel tubing. Adjustable arms and headrest. Protective end caps from TrebbeModern

 
ikyaudio white sea cucumbers audio speakers
Audio speakers handmade from PVC pipes handmade by ikyaudio

Now I dont even play the guitar but even I thought these Guitar Instrument Cables were cool, they are handmade by cordinated.
cool photography too, dont you think?

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Labels and Personal Identity

Hey every body!

I just read an interesting article over at Scoutiegirl and at the bottom she asks the readers to join in…so I thought I would.

The reason for this is that I have been struggling with the idea of labels a lot lately and its  been something I've been bugging my friends about…so now I’m gonna bug you instead.

If someone were to ask me to describe myself I would probably say costume maker first up, but the truth is I quit my job as a costume maker about eighteen months ago....am i then still a costume maker?
Perhaps second third and fourth (and with my teeth clenched) teacher, designer, craftsman,  perhaps even artist… and with some of the things I’m planning for the future I might have to get used to the label entrepreneur…wow scary!
The label costume maker comes to me very comfortably because I did that as a job for more than ten years but teacher, designer, craftsman and artist are labels I have been struggling with. I think this comes down to one point. I am all of these things at different times, and these labels just describe aspects of me and the things I do; but no single one of them fit perfectly. Can you be an artist with out being a designer or a designer with out being artistic? Arn't all artists entrepreneurial by the very deffinition of the word?

But why is it that some people adopt labels so quickly and others have trouble finding a good fit?

Well that is an answer vastly different for everyone but there are common factors...
We use labels to define our ethnicity, race, gender, sexual orientation, political orientation, religious/spiritual beliefs, lifestyle, eating habits, economic status, social status, body size, appearance and the list goes on.

How many labels can you use to define yourself? How many labels do you think others use to define you?

Now although it is true that labels can define, it is also true they simultaneously create stereotypes, assumptions, misconceptions, segregate and allow for the perpetuation of misinformation.


The labels we use to identify ourselves and others are greatly influenced by our own personal identity, social influences, and environment. As complex social creatures we have a strong need to belong to certain groups but also to disassociate ourselves form other groups to strengthen the bond to the group in which we wish to belong.

Interesting and complex stuff… huh?

Anyway while I was thinking about this in the shower I came to an interesting conclusion, or well question(s)

Can these labels really describe who I am? …what is a label?


And the answer is No, because a label is just a word made up of letters with an assumption attached to it.


In fact ten, twenty, a hundred or even thousands of labels can’t actually describe who I am. So there is no need for me to put such importance on how I label myself but just to use the best fitting word (label) at the time of need.
Suddenly the words (labels) teacher, artist designer and entrepreneur don’t seem like such a big deal.

What do you think?

Do you struggle with labels or have you found a comfortable fit?

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Cool shit happens when you do nice things

Well this post has really been a long time coming!

The reason I say that is because it is about something that happened to me a few weeks ago but life has been tough and it just seems to keep getting in the way of me... well pulling my shit together.

That said I’m doing my best with what I got right now, so mum if you’re reading everything is fine and every thing will work out one way or another…it always does!

Anyway back to the really super cool thing that happened to me.

Well as you guys know from an earlier post, I bought an online course called ‘Question the Rules’ (very very F@#king good) anyway included in this course are a bunch of interviews you can listen to.
One of those interviews is with the artist John T. Unger a very cool, successful and nice guy, as I was soon to discover.

So I was listening to the interviews in succession and the third interview was with John T. Unger, now I was more acutely paying attention to this interview because it said he was an artist...which I think I am also.
Now although his name seemed familiar to me it was when he started talking about his fire bowls that I rushed over to Etsy to look at my favourites list and made the connection, he was one of the first artists on Etsy I had reserved in my favourites list, if not for the reason that he wasn’t a painter or doing any of the commonly found art on Etsy and was working more in the sculptural 3D world.

Anyway I listened to that interview twice and then I was compelled to write to him and let him know that he had had a positive influence from doing this interview and by being who he is. You can read the email I sent him on his blog, here. (Some of which I used in this post)

The next morning I woke up and checked my emails and there was an email from him… this is the email I received.

Hi Adam,

Thanks for taking the time to write one of the coolest, most rewarding emails I've ever gotten. It means a lot to hear back from people who've been inspired by the example I try to set. I liked what you wrote so much that I used it in two blog posts about Johnny's course, which I hope you won't mind… I also included a few links to your etsy store since I really do dig what you're doing.
I don't know if you've found it yet, but I have a new(ish) site called Art Heroes Radio where I do weekly podcasts about business, marketing and lifestyle issues for artists. I'm sharing most of what I've learned over the years as a professional artists about how to make it work. If your digging QTR, I think you'd really like
Art Heroes. Plus, it's free.

Check it out at http://artheroesradio.com/

And do keep me posted as you grow your art business. Screw the guys that tell you that you're crazy— what have they done that's so impressive?

Rock on,

John

So in case you have missed the punch line, this cool man not only returned my email and not only put me on to his blog but also linked it to my shop with a recommendation.

Now if that isn’t awesome I don’t know what is…Thanks John!

You know some times when we are starting out and everyone is telling us "thats not a real job" or "your crazy if you think you can make a living doing that" we can feel really isolated, so I wanted to share this to let people know that we are not alone....there are nice cool people out there just like you and me trying and succeeding.... I also wanted to get across to every one...

"Doing nice things for people, with no expectation of gain is really cool and more often than not you end up being rewarded for it."

So you know...John T also has an awesome blog (as mentioned above) called Art Heroes Radio, it has a whole bunch of great written info for artists and artistic business as well as some great weekly pod casts/interviews to listen to…so go there now, there is stuff there you should be absorbing and learning. Plus, it's free!

till next tme...

ads
xxx

Monday, May 3, 2010

Ninniku

It’s funny how life turns out....
About 15 months ago I left Australia and my old job as a professional costume maker swearing I would never sew or make another costume again.... lol silly the things we swear we will never do again, don’t you think?
I also thought that being in a non English speaking country and me being a non Japanese speaking dude that my chances of costume work would be very slim...but alas here I am saying yes to a job that has come through a friend of a friend and is right up my ally... a giant garlic mascot.
He he he.... the people were so nice and the mascot is so cute I couldn’t resist.

Once an addict always an addict I guess!
and I do love  garlic....


Any way here is a picture of the fun loving Giant Garlic, also you should check out the company’s web site/blog http://ninnic.jp/times/ , yes it is all in Japanese but they got some fun pictures up and I think its always interesting to see how things look in a different country.
We are having a BBQ meeting at my house on the 9th of May, so I will keep you posted with step by step progress reports...

Have a great day!

Adam

The History of the "Dude"

Wordtastic > Mark Peters on April 24, 2010 at 6:30 am PDT

Charting the evolution of a gender-hopping, meaning-changing, spelling-flexible words

People fear, loathe, and ignore change. The term “Brontosaurus” lost its official status to the correct “Apatosaurus” over a hundred years ago, but try telling that to a dino-loving kid. Those of us raised to believe Pluto is a planet will be sticking up for that demoted little rock till we’re buried. Recently, the Scrabble world went into a code-4 uproar when it seemed that the rules might be changed to allow proper names. (Don’t worry, folks, the change only applied to a new game called Scrabble Trickster.)
When it comes to the meaning of words themselves, change is even more upsetting. In a terrific article for the Boston Globe, Erin McKean looked at how “guys” is now frequently used to address groups of men and women. She writes: “Whether from a dearth of suitable alternatives or just from habit, ‘you guys,’ if not completely entrenched, is well on the way to being the standard casual way to address a group. Rather than fight that battle, we may want to save some indignation for the next awkward form of address to surface. I’m thinking it’s probably ‘dudes.’ (Seriously, dudes.)”
I know a segue when I see one. “Dude” is a magnificent specimen for discussing language change in general, because its meaning has shifted and shimmied a ton in a relatively short period of time.
Originally, back in the 1800s, “dude” referred to a dandy-ish sort of doofus. As the Oxford English Dictionary puts it, “dude” was “a name given in ridicule to a man affecting an exaggerated fastidiousness in dress, speech, and deportment, and very particular about what is æsthetically ‘good form’.” Later, in the American West, the term came to refer to “a non-westerner or city-dweller who tours or stays in the west of the U.S., esp. one who spends his holidays on a ranch,” and the tourist-attracting, money-making ranches they visited were "dude ranches."
In the 20th century, “dude” evolved to take on a more neutral meaning. The term was adopted in the black community, then as now a prime spreader of new words and meanings. This 1967 OED example reflected the shift in meaning: “My set of Negro street types contained a revolving and sometimes disappearing (when the ‘heat’, or police pressure, was on) population... These were the local ‘dudes’, their term meaning not the fancy city slickers but simply ‘the boys’, ‘fellas’, the ‘cool people’.” In the sixties, the term attracted more coolness as it was embraced by surf culture, and by the seventies, a dude was just a guy.
The dude-slaught gained momentum through the 1980s and 1990s, as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and dude-heavy movies such as Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Wayne’s World, and Clerks helped make “dude” a ubiquitous (and, yep, often annoying) word. "Dude" became a widely used exclamation as well. The interjection sense of “dude” has been spoofed many times in comics and commercials. Here John Swansburg looks at a brilliant Bud Light ad in which the only word uttered is "dude," pointing out the various purposes of the d-word, including “The interrogative dude” and “The deflated dude.”
As for dudes and gender, there is a surprisingly long history of women being dudes—and not just in terms such as “dudette” and “dudine.” The OED records “dude” as meaning “a person (of either sex). Freq. as a familiar form of address” as far back as 1974. This 1981 use is typical: “We're not talking about a lame chick and a gnarly guy. We're talking about a couple of far-out dudes.” But even as far back as 1952, Robert E. Knoll wrote, “Nor do my students believe that a dude must be a man, for a city woman as well as her husband can be a dude.” And in University of Pittsburgh linguistics prof Scott Kiesling’s 2004 article “Dude”—the most recent example of dude scholarship—he found that while “dude” is used most often in male-male interactions, it is used in every possible gender combination, and more among women than in mixed-gender groups. Dude-spouting women share what Kiesling calls the “cool solidarity” that “dude” provides.
In a non-surprise, Kiesling found that men are least likely to use “dude” in “intimate relationships with women,” though they will use it often with close female friends. This confirms the long-held belief that “dude” is not anyone’s idea of an aphrodisiac. Well, unless you’re turned on by wordplay, such as the OED-recorded “dudedom,” “dudeness,” “dudery,” “dudism,” and “dudish”—all used in the late 1800s for foppish fellows—or contemporary spellings such as “dood,” “duuuude,” and “duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuude.”
And then there are the variations of the stammering Jeff Bridges in The Big Lebowski, a sacred text for comtemporary dudes everywhere:
“I am not Mr. Lebowski. You’re Mr. Lebowski. I’m the Dude, so that’s what you call me, you know, uh, that or, uh, His Dudeness or Duder or, uh, El Duderino if you’re not into the whole brevity thing.“
Who could complain about the evolution of a word with innovations like that? Only those foolhardy or brave enough to risk the cool-free state Bridges' co-star John Goodman described as "very un-dude."

Hey guys just to let you know I didn't write this but wanted to post it here for a few friends I thought might find it interesting....Big thanks Dude to Mark Peters  of Wordtastic who wrote and posted this...you can find more interesting and funny stuff at... http://www.good.is/

Green Poppy

This design came to mind while I was building a card board model for a more complex lighting fixture. I thought it looked a little like a poppy seed.
It takes about 20-25 hours to cut and  hand stitch these together. At this point I still need to finnish the outer edge of the petals but ran out of linnen thread, however I was so happy with it I wanted to share right away
What do you think?

Question the Rules: Punk rock tools for your DIY business and life

Hey every body!
So today I wanna share with you a fantastic thing that happened to me…hold on tight boys and girls it’s a long one
Now firstly I wanna premise this with saying the past 6 months have been a real struggle for me… not because of any thing in particular, but perhaps because I have been trying to find my way or work out what I’m doing with myself and have been feeling rather lost

But before I go any further I want to say this is not me looking for sympathy so before you all start thinking “oh god, here we go” I just wanted to give you the factual background.
Anyway so yesterday I was feeling low and despondent with my money fingers busily making things while my brain was saying “Why are you even bothering” when during a bout of procrastination I clicked over to Dave Navarro blog; The launch Coach. This is a great blog I have been reading for a couple months and you should too.
Dave had written a post about a new course called Question the rules and I tell you it really resinated with me, while most of these information courses are about business and online marketing, this one was really hitting the spot for me and the direction I wanna go in. As an arts guy, its unorthodox approach was something I really felt was being pitched in my direction and that I might actually be able to use.

"If you’re here and you’re reading this, let me tell you something I know about you: You are seriously punk rock, and nothing would please you more than to create (or improve) an awesome, nonconformist business and life."

So while bitting my lip and trying not to think about the debt I’m currently trying to clime out of I bought it...

I started listening to this thing with my cynical hat firmly on my head and really thought “Oh you idiot” this is just some recording of a couple guys talking crap to each other “fuck you a sucker” but boy was I wrong! The information, topics and interviews have a wealth of information and interesting mind sets that really blew me away. Some of these things I already knew and so gave me a great sense of reassurance and then there is a whole bunch of material and ideas that I hadn’t even given a thought too.

There are a whole bunch of interview with fantastic interesting real people that have some really interesting way of thinking…and made me feel well, less isolated as someone that wants to to their own thing.
So I wanted to tell everyone about this awesome course and how after a day it has already made a change to my feeling and ideas about what I want to do and the direction I want to go in. This cause has also helped me with the whole setting goals and working out what I really want, so I know what direction to go in.

I truly believe, the fact that I bought this, that it will certainly be part of the building blocks for any success in whatever venture I put my heart into in the future.
Thank you Johnny b. Truent and Lee Stranahn for your cool unconventional information course and for helping me get my spunk back! You guys rock!
You can check out Question the Rules here…http://questiontherules.com/dap/a/?a=158