Complementary Opposites

"Yin And Yang"

"All things in the universe have both a yin and yang aspect, each side of the coin required to sustain the other: light cannot exist without darkness, heat without cold, masculine without feminine.  The girl Yin and the dragon Yang are opposites which complement one another, interacting as part of a greater good."

 
I wanted this piece to capture the same feel of escapism, celebration and joy as the Chinese dragon dance costumes and performers do with such bounce and vitality.

All of the original Kracka is there except for the ears and arms. 

I wanted to stretch the figure out to accommodate a humanesque body, so I extended the legs and added feet.  I cut the torso in half and made it longer, keeping the original shoulders and neck so that the girl's head, which is sculpted onto the original fitting, could still turn.  Even the original tail was used as the tip.  The Dragon's mask is lined with felt, so it sits comfortably on Yin's head.

Here are some working shots from along the way.

                   

I made a little contribution of some stickers to go in the show's goodie bags...

You will be able to preview all the customs on The Sho Gallery's Website for 3 weeks prior to the show, which opens at 6pm on the 18th August, when the pieces will be available to buy there and then.  If you can't make it in person you can contact the gallery directly on the night to make a purchase, or thereafter on their website.

Keep up to date with the show at Dragons.

QiQi

I am very lucky to be one of 50 artists who've been asked to customise an exclusive DIY of the wonderfull QiQi figure from Ziqi and Creo Design.  This is going to be an International affair and the customs will be available to purchase once all 50 are completed. I'm looking forward to finding out who the other artists involved are.

I love this character and as a blank it offers a lot of possibilities for redesign and I can't wait to get my teeth stuck into it!

The first edition of QiQi is very limited, it comes in 3 styles Original Matte Red - 450pcs World Wide, Limited Gloss Red - 200pcs World Wide and Limited Gloss Black - 200pcs World Wide.

Each QiQi comes in a lovely hand-numbered box and you can find them here

QiQi is the brainchild of Ziqi Wu who's wonderful character design you can see at  monsterlittle.com or on follow on Facebook
Creo is a creative design, development and production company based in the Scotland, (hooray!  I live there too!) founded by Chris Alexander.  You can follow Creo Design on Twitter and Facebook and their Blog.

Yin And Yang

A little update on the progress of my Kracka piece for Andy Kellys Dragons show.
Clean up with relentless sanding always takes way longer than you think it should.  But I do enjoy it.
"Yin And Yang" is all finished and ready for a paint job, gonna start bright and see how it goes!  In the meantime here's a back view...

                                                    

The show on the 18th August is now 50 artists strong and you can check up on progress shots and finished Dragons here.

My New Identity...

The Toycon Exhibitors list has been revealed here and I am in it! If you can't see me there, well thats because I have a new name "I Break Toys".  I may have a different title, but I'm still the same person!

Follow me on Twitter as lisa rae hansen @ibreaktoys.

Going to start work on this little beauty that arrived from DMS a 2.75" Resin DIY Mini Mecha.  His T42 is probably one of my favourite customs of all time.  So I am a tad chuffed to get my hands on this mini version called the "Mecha". I think this would also be amazing as an 8 inch DIY with articulation like the T42.

Been going through my sketchbooks for inspiration and am looking forward to working with the hard lines, but I might stray off the robot route.

Check out DMS at Monsters and Mecha and follow him on Twitter.

Progress on my Dragons piece with Andy Kelly is going really well, I'm really enjoying working on this piece.  The majority of the sculpting is almost done, just the clean up and onto colour.  
Here's a much earlier progress shot...

 

These are the only bits of the Kracka that I didn't use...the ears and arms...

 

Thanks for reading, more Kracka shots coming soon.

Dragons progress

The Kracka has been Broken!

 

Here are a few photos of my initial progress on the Dragon's show Kracka piece.  So far it's lost it's ears, arms and been decapitated...But it's all for a good cause!

 I'm going for a Chinese style dragon.  After lots of drawing I'm now mocking it up with some paper cut outs just to give me a quick idea of how it will look in three dimensions.

Be sure to catch up with the latest news on the show at DRAGONS.

Dragons, nappies, customs and Toycon!

Dragons, nappies, customs and Toycon! This is what my head is full of!

Ruby cut her first tooth today at almost 6 months old, which explains why last night was a restless one! Family life is busy and work is mounting up in a very nice way.

I've got a few things on the go at the moment, a nice character design project, some custom work, a resin piece and lots of planning for TOYCON 2013! Hurray! There is such a great buzz about this and I'm pretty thrilled to be exhibiting. Lots of work to do over this next year.

I'm about to start work on a Welsh Dragon!

I'm taking part in the Dragons custom toy show organised and curated by Andy Kelly.

There are I think now a total of 45 artists involved and there are a few pieces finished already which you can see here http://flatties.co.uk/dragons/

All 45 pieces will auctioned on eBay with the proceeds going to DiabetesUK.

The show opens on Saturday August 18^th 2012.

Iron Maiden..available to buy at..Fugi.me

My Heavy Metal Qee is available to buy at 
 Fugi.me
Proceeds donated to The Garden House Hospice.