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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.

I sold my beloved Monev the Gale figure on ebay recently. I bought this figure on a whim for $35 at a comic store way back when I first visited Phoenix (before I lived here) for a job interview. I had never even seen an episode of the Trigun Anime that the figure came from but the details on it were so insane that I have to pick it up.

Monev graced my desk for a few years until finally I decided I was too old and just not hip enough to get away with displaying action figures in my workspace. Voltron was relegated to the toybox at home where, thanks to my sons, it will never be quite the same, much like the two “DUB City” Scion xB models that ended up in said location two years ago. Kids have a way of destroying intricate pieces, destroying the amazing details and dulling the glossy sheens on my toys with a quickness. For example, the rear window of one of the afore-mentioned xB models was popped out of place after being dropped by one of the kids no more than three minutes after I have removed it from its packaging. I kid (no pun intended) you not, three (3) minutes. I yelled, kid cried, xB ended up being just another kid toy in the box of thousands.

Okay, so I get a little sentimental about seemingly trivial things. Perhaps I am just living out the things I could not do when I was a kid, buying the toys I could never afford, clinging to my youth, whatever. I would ask my therapist but I have not seen him in like six or seven years Photography was good therapy though. I took out my dSLR and popped a few hundred frames with my telephoto lens. Most were unusable because I was experimenting and the depth of field ended up being way too shallow. Still kind of cool and definitely satisfying.

Conditions this weekend were perfect for flying kites and taking pictures. It has been all too rare that I get to go out and just take pictures for fun so for me, this was a good weekend. For my kids, I am sure they would hav much rather just been out flying the kite without me laying in the grass behind them barking orders like “move to the right, put your hands up a bit and stop fidgeting!” Someday they might appreciate the results enough to humor me.

As for post production, you might notice some color variances. Some images have a little more red to then, others more blue. I was torn between the two looks. The ones with more red give a little more of a warm appearance which goes good with the whimsical summer-like nature of the photos, but living in Arizona, I get sick of seeing redness in the sky. The dust in Phoenix is red and so while you can get some amazing colors in the sunset, red-tinted skies usually mean pollution. Blue skies like the ones on this day are rare so while the more blue-tinted images make me happy, they do appear a little cooler than the red-tinted images. That’s probably why I like them more. Blue skies and cool air are about to get pretty rare over the next six months here, and my triple-digit-heat-induced-grumpiness is about to flow in abundance.

It is kind of cool having identical twin sons. We had them at the dentist recently and the he commented that their teeth were the same. They had identical spacing and such with their teeth. Interesting. The photo was taken by my wife for class and I helped with the post processing (photoshoppery!).