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One day I hear about this blog called Daddy Types which is sort of daddy/designer oriented blog filled with content that I find interesting. That is almost worth my own blog post but let’s get to the issue. So Daddy Types mentions this contest over at Kid Robot (a site that I already knew about) involving the customization of the Mini Munny Mobile. So I headed over to Kid Robot to check out the contest details, became smitten with the idea of entering, and did something I rarely do with situations like these. I whipped out my credit card, made a personal vow that I would enter this contest and then made my very first purchase from Kid Robot; the blank, white Mini Munny Mobile which would be my foundation for my contest entry in the Mini Munny Mobile Custom Car Show.

Several idead popped into my head about what my customized Munny would look like including turning him into a sweet version of “Ocho”, a.k.a. Herbie the Love Bug. Good thing I didn’t go that route because someone entered a Herbie-inspired entry ahead of me. Then I thought what would be the first thing I customize on my own car? Duh, the wheels! I thought 22″ spinners might do the trick, but then thought probably lots of others would share this idea. Then I thought, instead of going lower, why not higher? Yes, I knew I had found my idea.

So as I got to the task of cannibalizing a toddler’s Tonka toy for a chassis and wheels for my Munny Mobile, I started to think of colors. That is when it occurred to me that I had been seeing a lot of black-on-black trucks lately and they always manage to turn my head and put envy into my heart. I figured it would be a gamble to have everything on the truck painted solid black, but I figured if any of the contest judges caught my vision, it would be well worth it. I added contrast by using both flat and gloss black appropriately (flat on the tires and chassis, gloss for the body, etc.).

Next I had to think about my Munny character. My first idea was mullet, cowboy hat and a Def Leppard t-shirt. I almost went that route until I envisioned hand painting Old English text across his back in the form of a tattoo. I ditched the mullet and cowboy hat idea but not before purchasing fake hair and a miniature black cowboy hat from the local crafts store. While painting the eyes, I decided that pupils are totally overrated. It’s all about the whites of the eyes, and I do mean ALL.

One interesting situation came up with one of my sons when he saw that I had painted the previously stark white Munny with a coat of glossy beige. “Dad, why did you paint Munny brown?” he asked. I told him that some people have brown skin. His reply was “Oh, we have brown skin dad!” We are as caucasian as caucasians can be, but we have been swimming quite a bit this summer and the Arizona sun has baked us to a golden tan. Looking at mine and my son’s arm, I said, “why yes, yes indeed.” I decided to skip the lesson on society’s labels, political correctness and diversity. To my kids, skin color is like hair or eye color. Some people just look different, end of story.

Back to Munny, check out the pictures and leave a comment or two. Win or lose, it was still such a nice change to work on something tangible and totally non-digital for once. I will admit that I wished for an ‘undo’ button on more that occasion while I was doing all of the hand-painting. Licking your finger and trying to rub out your mistake is much less effective.

My wife asked me to whip up an invitation for a baby shower she was helping put on. After explaining that good design is not just whipped up, I set out to create an invitation that was cool enough to put my name on yet frilly enough to satisfy my wife. What is more cool than a pregnant chick surfing through a tropical sunset in a maternity bathing suit?

This will be the last of the Arts & Crafts for a bit. I have had these odds and ends sitting around for a while and had wanted to show them in some capacity so what more fitting than to put them here. Some of the stuff in my previous Arts & Crafts posts is pretty old but it is sentimental to me. I miss the days of Photoshop Tennis and generally just screwing around with images for fun. Now it’s all work work work…

This won me first place in an online art contest on this forum I used to frequent. It was supposed to be a fictitious album cover which it was.  I have never ever referred to myself as ‘MC Cube’ in any other instance.  I thought the ‘Parental Advisory’ label gave it just enough authenticity to be sweet and I was right.  Yay me!

Just an idea that popped into my head one day when I had some free time on my hands. Seriously though, what would Jimi do?

One day I picked up a stock photo and started masking out the background.  I got into it and decided to get really intricate and deep with the hair.  Then I did the face and thought how flat it looked in vectors, so I started shading with my tablet.  In the end it turned into one of those things that was really fun to obsess about and think “gee I should have been using Illustrator all along” but it had no purpose.  At least now I can show it on my blog and say “look what I did!”