Just saw this over on Mark Nagata's instagram and it brought to mind the idea of artists self-publishing books of their work. It's pretty much impossible to be complete on toys by artists that you're a fan of and as we have seen with flickr, a digital record is not always a reliable option. Would be fucking awesome to have books collecting the wide-spanning careers of more productive artists like Splurrt, MVH, Gargamel, etc - even with little commentary text and behind the scenes sculpt photos etc. sketches of when they were designing the characters.. just thinking about it almost made me drool over the keyboard. View this post on Instagram Have any artists here considered a project like this? @JoeMan @Rich @Paulkaiju
Unfortunately I don’t think I’ve done a proper job of archiving or documenting stuff. It would be a pretty difficult endeavor to figure out a complete database. I have thought of doing some kind of digital magazine, probably just a pdf I’d host for a free download, that has more articles, insights, and thoughts along with toy images. I have a background in layout and print design and it wouldn’t be a hard thing to whip up, just time consuming.
That would be really interesting to see @JoeMan - but as you said, very time consuming.. could be a fun project for a decade or so down the line Now that you mention archiving releases properly, the only guys that I can think of that have taken book-suitable photos of their releases with good lighting and a constant sense of layout would be Gargamel and @cometdebris . Secret Base as well, but I'm sure at some point they would do something hardcore like a hardcover book or something. We just got in a book at work about Newspaper Layout Design ( https://gestalten.com/products/newspaper-design ) - it's been keeping me entertained while sitting in a quiet gallery while we are in between exhibits. That, and the constant longing for another S7 mook in addition to seeing Nagata's new book has really got my keen for some more printed matter.
It’d probably be hard as shit too coordinate, but I would love to contribute time and effort to shooting archival - like photos for artists to put things together like this. I mean, I’ve already got a pretty extensive array of photos of alll Secretoy and Obake Dogs I own. To lend my time and camera to the likes of Joe, Paul, Dennis, or even indepdently constructing something for the likes of Target Earth; all I’d need is help with toys I don’t have to shoot. Edit: Though the black out lightbox gig might get a little too stale. But I suppose I could change up colors of background and such.
I wanted to suggest your stuff @xSuicide Squadx but also I didn't want to throw you immediately into the deep end - but you're right, your photos are already perfect for a project like this As we've seen in many mooks before, black background photos are some real classy pics! I think they would be perfect, although the printer might need to load up on black ink and heavy duty high gloss paper stock.. a book like this would deserve it!
I saw a few pages from Dehara's book "DEHARA YUKINORI WORKS 1998‐2018" and it looks like a really great record of his creations. Also, Bwana's book "Welcome to Forest Island" is so much fun that I had to mention it...no toys but many of Bwana's characters make an appearance. Highly recommended!
