Let's Share: The Berkley Blog

The Xena connection

Whoa.  Everyone take a deep breath.  Big news!

I just learned that Lucy Lawless's, aka Xena Warrior Princess, real name is Lucy Ryan.  What are we going to do about it?????

Accessorize!

Good news for accessories fans!

Berkley Illustration has teamed up with a couple of your favorite indie accessory providers and all kinds of animals are available now for your pocketbook needs.

Tinymeat has released three wallets in the goat, owl, and squirrel flavors (more to come!):

My Favorite Mirror just started carrying keychains and pocket mirrors in a whole slew of your favorite animals: 

Lastly, though not accessory related, Reading Frenzy has animal originals up for sale through the end of the month which includes the new turtle with a fez, Melvin Plum!

Melvin and the rest of the animals are all framed in a pretty spiffy manner, if we do say so ourselves.  Unfortunately we don't have great photos of the framed finals (yet) but here the general idea of what look like:

 

And, yes, Melvin will be finding his way to the Etsy print circuit.  Bear in mind that he is a turtle so it could take him a while to get there.  We'll try to speed him along as best we can.  Perhaps if we buy him a tiny car to go with that hat...

Coming very very soon - Animal Voting for August!

Action Figure Friday - Ravishing Rick Rude

Action Figure Friday returns!

The action figures still aren't yet unpacked but Ryan was clever enough in his packing to know where they all are hiding.  Today's selection was especially easy to find because this dude does not like to blend into the crowd.  Action Figure Friday presents to you, Ravishing Rick Rude!

[I'm only going to reveal him a little at a time because there are all sorts of treats in store for us!]

Over the last two months Ryan has been inexplicably infatuated with the WWF.  And not the one with the pandas.  He's been choosing Wrestlemanias exclusively as his Netflix picks and apparently he's been working the internet trading circuit hard because I keep seeing new wrestling figures trickle in and I swear he didn't have any as of January 2008.  I sort of remember the WWF early scene as a youth, but mostly I remember my best friend at the time, Betsy Hanna, was IN LOVE with WWF and Hulk Hogan in particular.  I think I bought her these for her birthday.  It was especially adorable because Betsy was about 5 feet tall and a cute little strawberry blonde - not your typical viewer I would guess.  I also mostly remember the Bushwhackers.

Anyhoo, I don't remember Ravishing Rick Rude quite as well.  Two pieces of his outfit, however, are very appealing to me and I would probably wear both of them. 

There are the yellow and black lace-up boots over aqua leggings:

 

And the red sparkley cape (which I would probably wear as a bathrobe.  Or maybe as a cape):

 

In case you couldn't already tell by the above shots, Mr. Rude is a little full of himself.

Example A: Glitter lettering exclaiming ravishingness.

 

Example B: Boots stenciled with double confirmation of ravishingness:

 

[Whoops!  I forgot to take a photo of the other boot.  Guess what it says?  Hint: See cape.]

Example C: Ca-razy lettered spandex pants!

 

[At first I thought these were a shout-out to sitar legend Ravi Shankar but I quickly caught my error.]

So, are you ready for the full package??
BOO-YAH!

For some added statistical value as well as another exciting pair of awkwardly tight, even for spandex, spandex, here is his Wrestling Card (sold separately from the figure):

 

 

Fun fact: Robbinsdale, Minnesota is also the hometown of the unfortunate director of Joe Dirt. Hmm..does something about that town inspire hairdos?  In addition, it is conspicuously home to *NINE* other professional wrestlers.   I guess if you're born in Robbinsdale you're a bit predestined for semi-greatness.

 

This figure is a bit of a conundrum.  On one hand, Rick is a douchebag.  On the other hand, the figure does a good job of proving this with extremely close attention to detail.  I think I'm going to have to split the difference.   Three tentacles.

 

July Animal Release!

Somehow I failed to mentioned in my earlier post that we've released the three new animals for July to Ryan's Etsy shop.  You may have already seen them considering we actually listed them yesterday.  Our sincere apologies if we are the bearers of old news.

Never-the-less, please welcome the Doe, the Rat, and the Kenny Portrait!

In a couple weeks we'll be reinstating the voting process for the August animal release so stay tuned!

(Yeah, that makes two posts in one day!)

Summertime!

Well, we're *almost* starting to breath normally again. Our computer operation is currently taking up a strange area in living room due to the fact that we've only found one phone jack in the house so far and it's not at all convenient (we have DSL.) Despite the inconvenient placement, however, it's so good to be in our new house! 

The last week has taken us to the opening of Ryan's show at Reading Frenzy (thanks to everyone that came out):

Ryan also has a piece in the Grass Hut group show, "The Americans". They had a good ol' Fourth of July opening with four square, lemonade, and a bbq. Our feet love the floors at the Grass Hut but I'm not sure if I'd feel okay paint spattering our new hardwoods.

When we haven't been visiting the art shows, it's been all house stuff all the time. Here is a photo of our new house! This is before my parents came by and did all kinds of yardwork out of the kindness of their hearts. Thanks Mom & Dad!

Most of the house still looks like this but we're getting stuff done little by little.

We still need to repaint the kitchen but we're happy with our new dark brown bedroom and our light grey living room. One of my first missions was to tag the door and claim it as our own!

We got some good fireworks in this year, too. It was a double birthday celebration. Our friend Adrienne is nice enough to share her birthday with our fair country.

This photo kind of reminds me of a Michelle Blade painting (who I adore). 

U.S.A!

Sophisticated Menagerie

This Thursday (tomorrow!) is the opening of my new show - "Sophisticated Menagerie" at Reading Frenzy here in Portland. It features all original drawings from my ongoing "animals in suits" series.

Last night Lucy and I took a break from unpacking and crowded around the one small cleared-out spot in our new house to mat and frame the show. It's quite amazing how much fancier the animals look when behind mat and glass.  I'm really happy with how it all came out.

Come on down to the show if you're in Portland!  We hope to have some updates on the new house and other projects soon.  As soon as we can find our camera, and cords, and, uh, everything else.

-Ryan

Did you think we had left you?

Holy moly!  That was sure a long break.  We have so much to share that it's almost stressful trying to get it all out.  It's like 500 people trying to fit through a tiny door at once.  I'm going to tickle a few of the people to get us a little bit of space and then we'll try to squeeze more through shortly...

New York was a blast and Renegade was super fun.  It was so great to meet so many artists we've admired from afar and it's so nice to meet shoppers face to face too.  Even though I have sworn off working retail until the end of my days, it is nice to do some commerce in person.  I guess I didn't realize that you lose that much of it dealing with the internet business exchange.

Here is a photo of our booth at the starting line:

 

And here is Ryan mind-melding with the Brooklyn Bridge.

 

Coming soon = photos of the great loot we scored (including some great found art on the street on trash day), photos of New York in general, photos of our new house and decorating ideas and accomplishments.  And yes, so far painting two rooms has been a serious accomplishment.  I'm so confused how they get those rooms done in Trading Spaces in two days.  I mean, we spent a full two days exclusively painting our living room (two coats) with no decorative finishes or flourishes.  What gives, TLC?

Action Figure Friday will probably resume a week from this Friday too...Ryan packed up all the figures yesterday so they're enjoying a bit of hibernation until they meet their spiffy new "grown-up" display case. 

Stay tuned...

Outta here!

Just in case you were wondering, this is how many buttons a person makes when preparing for the Renegade Craft Fair.

Actually, this is how many buttons a person forces their brother to make when he's staying at your house while he's in town from Las Vegas.

We're off to the NYC!  And we just bought a house yesterday!  Whoa!  I guess we'll have a few things to write about in a week or so...

P.S.  I issue you my sincere apologies in advance - there will be no Action Figure Friday this week.

NYC in two days...

Our trip to New York is getting so close!  Our house is in complete shambles after spending the last week prepping, printing, packaging, button-making, drawing, collecting, sign making, and doing whatever else it is we've been doing.  If I dare I'll post some pics of the disarray but in the meantime, I really hope we get to see something like this while we're in NY...

<

I know this video has been around for a while, but it just makes me feel good about the world. Maybe Ryan and I will stage our own freeze at Renegade.  And speaking of freezing...I hear there will be vegan soft serve at Renegade!  Yum! 

Action Figure Friday - Drinky Crow

Today's Action Figure Friday takes us to a place we have not yet visited: Coolsville.  Here Ryan gets to showcase his hip take on figure collecting with an indie vinyl figure instead of one of those superhero type deals.

I present to you, Drinky Crow.

I guess my first take on this crazy ol' bird is an uncertainty on whether he's black or blue.  As a crow, you might guess black and in the shadows you'd be correct.  In daylight, however, he's very apparently of the violet family.  Perhaps the black and blue illusion is a subtle reference to the exploits of Drinky Crow in the alleyway after one too many whiskey shots.

In case you are expressing confusion over the fact that this bird looks charming and sweet and where, exactly, does all this talk of "drinky" come into play?...The true Drinky Crow comes to life when you pop in his second set of eyeballs and load him up with his special jug o' moonshine.

Now he's the sauced rascal that you've grown to love (or will grow to love) from the Maakies comics!

I just did a little internet research to see if "x"/drunken eyeballs were available in human form.  So far, no luck, but here are a lot of really creepy contacts if you are looking for an alternate.  I think the "Hyalo" or "Sinner" could really create that inebriated look if you just didn't feel like putting all that time and effort into actually getting hammered.

From the front view I think he looks a little like a headless bird wearing a hoodie.  Can you see it?  It's nothing major, just a small observation.  Actually, I think a blue hoodie with yellow piping around the edges of the hood would be pretty sweet.  Perhaps once my new/old sewing machine gets into place in our new house...

Wrapping things up, I love the way the vinyl feels in my hands...all smooth-like and light.  You know I'm always a fan of interchangable body parts as well. Topping things off, he really represents his comic clone well.  Four and a half tentacles!