Last weekend I was super excited because not only did I get Ninnikun, the giant garlic finished (the reason I haven’t been able to post lately, at least, that’s my excuse and im sticking to it) for the Aomori festival but also because having finished that project I was free to go to the In Living Kolor show in Harajuku, Tokyo. This turned out to be the best and most awesomest weekend of all.
The show was held at the Design Festa galleries in Harajuku Tokyo and was a two part show held on Saturday 23rd and Sunday 24th of this month.
In Living Kolor, was the collaboration show of Matt Walker the creator of Monster Kolor a paint he has developed for custom toy pant work (released not so long ago), the dude behind Dead presidents Designs (his own personal art work) and also the dude behind Presidential Coatings (a custom production toy painting company) and Mark Nagata an awesome illustrator, artist, toy designer and the owner of Max Toy company...
As these two guys have so much going on I will pull together a more detailed post on them individually in the coming weeks... thanks guys for giving me such great blog content!!!
The focus of In Living Kolor was the Japan release of Dead Presidents line of toy paints called Monster Kolor.
As mentioned the show was divided into two parts, on the Saturday there was a live participation painting day where artists and well any body else could go and give the Monster Kolor paints a test drive, unfortunately I wasn’t able to get there till later in the day so I don’t have many photos of cool people in action but I did meet a cool dude, Andy who runs the KaijuKorner blog so pop on over there later and check out his coverage of the day (lots of action shots).
I will also shamefully admit to you peeps (cos I know you wont hold it against me… will you?!) that although I was invited to play I was annoyingly to shy to pick up the air brush and give it a go…. But next time I will, I promise!!! No really I do!
Kaiju Painted with Monster Kolor
Shiny and sparkly!
Monster Kolor Clear
Live Monster Kolor painting
fave Kaiju
The second day was an open class given by Matt Walker on the art of Pin Striping and thankfully, I sucked it up and gave it a go. To my surprise and although terribly fearful of making a complete fool of myself, this was a lot fun… in fact it is an activity that takes time and patients and I really get into things like that. Again this is something I want to give you more information on so I wont dribble on to much about it here. I will say though that actually doing this is really hard, it looks a pinch when the master Matt Walker does it but once you give it a go you really developed a new appreciation for the art…. Stay tuned for more on this topic in the coming weeks.
The Master at work
Students at work
The practice sheet
To finish up I really have to tell you this was a not only a great show but also a great experience, and not what I was expecting. While this was the first time Id met both Matt and Mark, both of them took the time out not only to chat with me about the show but were also interested in what I was up to, as well as super helpful with advice. It was really great to speak with people who were so open and willing to share there information and knowledge about there art and the industry, as a fella that wants to ge involed it was really awesome.
Matt Walker
Mark Nagata
A big thank you to both Mark and Matt for a great show… we hope to see you again in Japan in the near future!!!
