Was debating whether to put this in the Billiken thread.
Decided this guy deserves one of his own:
Currently on exhibition at the Billiken Gallery in Aoyama
(a lo-ong walk from Harajuku or Shibuya, not so far from Omotesando)
Atsushi Tomura, aka Pico Pico/Picopico/Picot Picot, has been making kigurumi rubber suits for ... well, some years now.
This character lurking around will be familiar to most festival-goers:
He's also travelled around the world teaching his art
and there's a very good write-up on him in the now sadly defunct PingMag: http://pingmag.jp/2007/08/01/picopico/%20
Recently he's decided to try his luck as a full-time artist.
His painting skills are awesome - the above are acrylic on canvas and come in bigger than you might expect, as do his clay sculpts (which I can't find any pics of
- sorry!)
Also, though he's made some finger-puppets before,
THESE are basically his first toys:
They're a little under 6" tall - 14cm to be exact.
The boy-cats are wearing oni masks
and the girls are just freaking amazing.
Personally I hope this is the start of a great new series
( http://members.at.infoseek.co.jp/picopi ... /pro1.html )
... and I can't wait for the big blue guy to come to fruition!
'eXcite' English version of Pico Pico's blog is HERE.
(BTW, wrote this in a bit of a hurry as I'm off now to some gay-bar for an all-niter featuring, I'm promised, unspeakable acts being performed by the likes of Pico Pico, Sunguts (surprise, surprise) and Yamomark (I knew he was a weirdo!) amongst others.
Will fix any broken links etc. when/if I get back! 8D/ )
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