Art of Bruce Whistlecraft

I am excited to announce that on the 25th of this month Kidrobot will release my 6th Dunny figure!

This time it is one of their new 5″ versions.
With an original head sculpt featuring a classic Talking Board design the figure also features a wind up key and a Planchette accessory.
It will be available from all Kidrobot vendors worldwide from the 25th.

I will have some APs available in the near future too.
Please note that these will be offered to my Patreon “First Dibs Club” members before heading to my public online store. You may consider joining the club yourself to reap the benefits.

The S. Hain Company : Spirit Divination & Communication Engine
Do you need to contact those who have passed into the aether?
Pressing questions need answering?
Legal documents need clarifying?
Words of comfort or reconciliation longed for?
Then purchase the latest in Talking Board Spirit Communicators from the S. Hain Company.
Easily talk with those who have moved into the great steam cloud via this modern mechanical miracle.
Easy to use.
Easy to clean.
And polite around the house.
(Tidily doubles as an occasional table when not in use.)

The “AP” Gnomes will go on sale this Sunday 30th Jan 6pm UK time.
ONLY available from my online store.
Only 30 of the regular version and a tiny 8 of the Chase version. I dont expect the chase to be available for long.
Dont miss out on your chance to get a signed and numbered Gnome direct from me.

So only a month after the event I have finally got a little time to recall my recent trip to L.A.
Was over for a few days to launch my G.N.O.M.E toy at Designer Con and hang out with friends.

The first version of the G.N.O.M.E was released as a Designer  Con exclusive. There were 150 of the little fellows available and pretty much all of them sold out at the event. I was signing at the 3D Retro booth for an epic 3 hours, doodling on toys, sketchbooks, skateboards, you name it.

Ben Goretski who owns 3D Retro as well as running Designer Con with Ayleen (from Toybreak/October Toys) was running around all day sorting things and making stuff happen with the aid of his natty little headmike.. not quite 1990’s Boyband material maybe?

He wrangled the many artists in attendance into contributing to a large live painting jam session. I was called up late in the day along side the splendidly talented Miss Mindy to add my bit to the canvas. Whilst we were painting the Dr Sketchy’s anti-art-school model threw poses up a rather wobbly ladder on the stage next to us.

The final piece at the end of the day.

On there besides myself and Mindy are : Chris Ryniak, Buffmonster, Joe Ledbetter, Bwana Spoons, Voltaire, Ritzy Perrywinkle, Angry Woebots and several others I cant identify I am afraid.

Honestly the event went by in a blur of sketching and signing. I was a doodling machine………..
.

I got to meet a lot of great artists, though sadly only briefly. Mostly at the “Sketchbot” custom show opening the night before Designer con. (Yes I went right off the plane and a 15 hour flight directly to Munkyking for the show… Hardcore art shmoosing..)
Including these two apparent clones…. Odd!

The next few days were spent meeting people I wave wanted to meet in a very long time and spending a little time seeing some of the more geeky sights of L.A. In fact overall it was a bit of a Geektrek. Let me explain:

For a start Ben is a bit of a collector of awesome geek stuff. So a visit to his home and office was a joy.
I Busted Ghosts :

Rocketeered :

And the ultimate, got a ride in his Delorean. (Ben is what you might call, a bit crazy for the Back to the Future movies.. which is just dandy with me..)

And what’s that inside the Delorean?

Of course it’s a Hoverboard….(TM Mattel).

There was also a trip to Disneyland with my splendid hosts George and Ayleen and bestest art buddy Mr. Chris Ryniak in order to check out the new TRON area set up for the month.
Yes more geekery.
You are scanned by a full sized Recogniser as you enter the area, who informes you to report to the games grid……..

There was a large M.C.P style construct in the center of the arena under which a DJ in Tron garb mixed 1980’s pop whilst Troned up podium dancers shook their stuff and other “programms” flung frisbiees ( sorry, data disks) and chased through the crowds.

Ultimatly this led (via an odd outside bar area) to Flynns Arcade.

The inside was a splendid reconstruction of a 1980’s video games arcade with lots of classic stand up cabinets you could play. It even smelled right……

Hidden in amongst the likes of Galaxians and Zaxxon was a real version of Space Paranoids………. Which I had several goes at. Though I wasnt very good at it. I believe the trick is “all in the wrists”…

There was also a full sized Lightcycle which was quite a sight and a 20 minute screening of a chunk of the new movie which was interesting for the 3D but a little flat I felt.

We went on a few of the classic rides and generally wandered about chatting. As George pointed out a theme park is a great place to socialise as it forces you to stand around chatting for hours whilst you que up..

All in all a splendid trip. I hope to be back for more next year…

Designer con will see the launch of the first production G.N.O.M.E toy.
This special edition version will be limited to only 100 pieces.
I will be signing them at the 3D Retro booth from noon until 3pm this Saturday (20th).
I believe they will be $65 each.

Gyroscopic, Non-Ornamental Mechanised Excavator
Originally created to excavate the labyrinthine tunnel system for Retropolis’s underground pneumatic railway, the G.N.O.M.Es have proven themselves useful for many other tasks. Currently employed on an ambitious continent to continent sub sea corridor project. The peculiarly hard ocean floor rocks have begun to give them headaches. Several of them intend taking some time off when it is over and plan a little jaunt to the centre of the planet for a vacation.

I am making another trip to the US of A next month to appear at the art toy convention Designer Con. ( Website here. )

If all goes to plan I should be launching a special edition of my G.N.O.M.E toy there.
So come along and say hello.

When:
Saturday, November 20th, 2010
10 am to 5 pm

Where :
Pasadena Convention Center
300 East Green Street
Pasadena
CA 91101
USA

The next step on the process is for the toy company to make the tooling prototype sculpture. This is either created by a craftsman in wax or as in this case and more and more these days, created in a computer 3D model and then outputted to a “rapid prototyping” machine which creates the form in resin.
Either way at some point photos or renders come back to the artist to oversee the process and just check everything is tying in to the original idea and design. Also at this stage things can be altered a little or tweeked in a slightly different direction if the 3D version of the figure just doesnt look quite right. I mean by this that something drawn in 2D can look balanced and fine but when it’s translated into 3D it can look unbalanced and need adjusting to look good again. This is of course all subjective to the eye of the artist but as they are the art director on the project it’s up to them to speak up at this point or else let the toy go ahead with possible oddities.
For example the screw on the drill on the GNOME’s head was rendered as drawn but to me looked off. Suggestings for a different way of doing it were made, the model adjusted, a better shape arrived at.
Also alterations were made to the hat rim to allow the hat to lock snugly into place without the need for any other fixing mechanisms.

Here are a couple more examples of how details can be altered at this stage to get everything looking bang on.

The Turnaround.

This is the artwork which will be used by the modelmaker to actually create a 3D version of the figure as a prototype.
Sometimes it will be sculpted by hand, sometimes turned into a virtual 3D render and then outputted to a rapid prototyping machine which generates a resin master form which can them be cleaned up by hand. (But I get ahead of myself.)

I start the turnarounds in pencil in a sketchbook to get it clear in my head and then draw the whole thing out from scratch in a vector drawing program on the computer.
A Turnaround is just what it sounds like. Its views of the figure from various angles to show all the details of the piece and how they relate to each other.
I was sent the vector files of the existing body part I had to build on so started there and built up the rest.

I generally work on all views at the same time so they evolve together, rather than draw the front and then work out the others from that. Its a back and forth process generally refining the details over many passes until it all looks right.
There may be changes that need to be made once the modelmaker starts to work on the piece and finds possible problems such as areas colliding when articulated etc. I have been trained in technical drawing and Industrial Modelmaking though and worked on other peoples prototypes from that perspective for many years so I hope I can forsee most of the problems which may come up and weed them out in this early stage.
The artwork also shows the different parts needed for the toy, but not how each part may have to be broken down further for manufacture.

This artwork is then sent off to the toy company for review.

You may also notice I have locked down the name of the character too by now and had a provisional stab at a packaging logo layout.
It is quite clearly a Gnome. The idea being based on the mythical beings who look after rocks and generally live underground.
I liked the idea of Gnome being an Acronym but felt that was too modern a concept for the design so it became a bit less obvious.
Now he is called the Gyroscopic, Non-Ornamental Mechanised Excavator.
I will give him a more personal name and a backstory later. I am still working on that.

I get asked a lot about how toys get made. The actual process involved and so forth. So I have decided to chronicle the details of a toy I am currently working on.

This is a production piece not a custom work.
I dont show my work-in-progress on my artworks..
I think it spoils the magic.

Luckily these days I get approched by companies who are interested in working with me. Not so long ago I would draw up complicated multi-page idea pitches for new toys and send them out to every company going to see if anyone was interested.
As it was, some were, and various projects got made.
Now people more often than not come to me, which is jolly flattering really.

So it was with a new UK company RAJE Toys. They only set up in November 2009 and intend to hit the ground running.
I know they have other artists on board designing for them right now but I cant talk about that.
Now being a new company it is a bit of a risk going with them as they have no track record. There are a lot of things that can go wrong in the manufacture, packaging, shipping and ditribution of a toy and its all new to them. However they are collectors them selves, have a lot of experience in different areas of the production and retail world and are very enthusiastic. Plus its quite rare to have a company try this in the UK so I thought it a good idea to support them..
Hopefully it all works out.

Their first toy to the market will be Dr. Brain created by artist Jim Frenckingham. (based on an original Munny custom he once did I believe.)

Dr. Brain will stand 7.5″ tall and should retail for $59.95, £39.95 when he is launcged this May. There will be two colorways with a production run of 450 pieces for the regular version and just 50 pieces for the chase.
I think it’s quite an adventurous piece for your first toy. With its transparent parts and ineterchangeable pieces. And should make people take note if they pull it off well.

They asked me to come up with an idea for a design which would use the same body form, but I could add my own new pieces to it.
I chucked around a few ideas and came up with this :

A Steam powered Gnome.
I love the idea that Gnomes are hiding heavy drilling gear under those ubiquitous long pointy hats.
The drawing above is literally a scan from my sketch book with text added. It is purely to give them a very basic idea of what the toy would be about. I didnt spend too long on it or render up a finished digital painting or anything in case it really wasn’t what they wanted.
As it happens, they loved it.
So we moved to the next part.

Drawing up a turnaround……………….