nooka has posted some photos of the artist nookanooka customs for their recent show at the red bull space in new york city.  check out my customs on page 15 of 18 on nooka’s nookanooka section.

the nooka folks are super awesome.  show some love and pick up some nooka merch at your favorite stores or at their online shop.  yep yep.

something that always stumped me…

most people can tell the difference between illustration and design in general.  however, when it comes to characters, they can’t seem to tell the difference.  they often refer to character illustration as character design.  even the people within the character field don’t make the distinction.  why is that?

Keyboard check 1, 2, 3…

A’ight, folks!  Rotofugi Gallery will be presenting “Exit Strategy” by Jesse LeDoux and “Hells Yeah!  Let’s Do it!” by Veggiesomething from November 13th-29th.  The Opening Reception will be from 7pm-10pm on November 13th.  Genghiswon (aka master chef spraypaint assassin Revise CMW) will be spinning the music.

Veggiesomething will have paintings, digital canvases, and around 30 mini mono prints such as these…

available at the show.  There will be a few surprises as well.  Woohoo!

Oh, the opening will also be your first opportunity to grab the new Killerslayer shirt by Veggiesomething…

Yep.  Yep.  I’ll keep referring myself in the third person and I hope to see you at the opening!  Indeed!

If you are in NYC on November 11th, go to the Red Bull Space and checkout the NookaNooka Gallery.  The show will feature NookaNooka Customs from 16 artists (including me :D ).  Here’s your chance to get a VIP pass to opening…

From KidRobot KRonikle:

Watch designers, Nooka are celebrating the launch of their artist designed mini NookaNooka toys, with a one-day gallery showing of 16 NookaNookas designed by renowned toy artists and designers from around the world.

Artists include Matthew Waldman, MAD, iLoveDust, “Plus” Design Studio, Michael Vadino of Bureau, Aerosyn-Lex Mestrovic of  The KDU, Blank, Eding: Post, Mikiko Minewaki, Ogawa Atsuo, Takahashi Hiroco, James Liu of Veggiesomething, Taku Anekawa, T9G, Shin Tanaka, and Zarigani Works.

Kidrobot is giving away 30 VIP passes to Nooka’s up-coming NookaNooka gallery opening in New York City this November.  Be one of the first 30 people to purchase a Nooka x Kidrobot limited edition ZUB watch at Kidrobot NY in Soho, and you will receive 1 VIP pass to the party on November 10th. Only 1,000 Nooka X Kidrobot ZUB watches were produced!

November 11, 12-7pm
Red Bull Space
40 Thompson St., New York, NY

* Attendance to the opening party is limited to 21 years of age and older.  Customers who qualify for a VIP pass but are not eligible to attend will still receive the VIP bag and signed Matthew Waldman NookaNooka toy.

i finally got a chance to upload some of the football players that i did for the awesome folks at diet strychnine / pyromaniac.  even if you are not into fantasy football, you should mos def check out pyromaniac.com as it’s a well designed website.

below are some samples of the players.  each character was modeled after it’s respective player and was scaled according to the player’s actual height and weight.

(to see other team lineups and players, please visit the aforementioned pyromaniac.com website.  to see larger versions of these players, feel free to checkout my flickr account or my behance account.)

AFC East:

AFC North:

AFC South:

AFC West:

NFC East:

NFC North:

NFC South:

NFC West:

Carolina Panthers:

49ers Legends:

Bears Legends:

Mixed Legends:

i’m not exactly sure why or where it came from, but i’ve always been fascinated with hair.  maybe it’s because i subconsciously related hair to clay and hair styles to sculptures.  mmm… maybe…. who knows?

it was bound to happen.  i was doing some free sketches the other night and came up with a couple of character ideas based on hair.  i knew this was going to happen eventually.  i just didn’t know when.  i guess i know now.

anyway, i recreated the sketches on the computer in illustrator and made some various refinements.  (ahhh… refinements.)  however, something was lacking.  the characters needed names and i had none to adorn them with.

i was driving home on armitage a couple of days ago after doing a bunch of errands.  my mind wandered as the traffic became stop-n-go during the afternoon rush hour soon after i crossed leavitt.  i thought about my new characters and how they didn’t have names yet.  the first name that popped into my mind was the word ‘sodapop’.  and then i thought about how sodapop was like heaven to me.  sodapop.  heaven.  ‘sodapop & heaven’!  quite excited!

i really like the name ‘sodapop & heaven’, but then i remembered that sodapop was already a character’s name in the novel (and later a featured film)  ‘the outsiders’ by s.e. hinton.  ‘sodapop and ponyboy’.  so this prior usage kind of bugged me a bit and my excitement soon faded.

i thought about maybe mixing things up.  like use ‘popsoda’.  but i didn’t like ‘popsoda & heaven’ as much.  it didn’t have that something something.

as i stopped for the red light at the western intersection, the name ‘cash & carry’ popped into my head.  (i think it’s because i often see truckers unloading beverages from their trucks into the midwest cash and carry establishment that was a bit further down on armitage.)  then i thought about how lupe had ‘food & liquor’ and how it was such a chicago referential name.  maybe i can have ‘cash & carry’ -  another prominent chicago referential name.  excitement resumed.  ‘cash & carry’ definitely has that something something.

soon after, i gave midwest cash and carry a head nod as i drove past it.  it’s how i roll.

so here i present to you… my new characters… ‘cash & carry’…

word.

if you are going to be in london, amsterdam, vienna, glasgow, or manchester in the upcoming months, you should mos def check out the lunartik in a cup of tea tour.  the artist list is pretty amazing and i was honored to have been asked to be a participant.

i went through my itunes list tonight and noticed that i had the album ‘erosion of the black speckle’ by heaven in her arms within it.  i couldn’t remember how it got there so i pressed the play button.

then i felt kind of foolish for forgetting.