SQUIMONK – my second entry for the Aarting DIY Toy Challenge.
Today is the deadline for the DIY Contest at aarting.com. I really want to participate with an another toy design than my “monopear”. But to realize with 3D modeling what I’ve got in my head, time was to short to learn all the stuff so quickly. Now then, I’ve done my second entry the old-fashioned-way: sculpting, sanding, molding, casting in resin, again sanding and finishing with white primer (well i guess, not really less time-consuming… ) The prototype stands only a 3/4 inch high, so i would love to see them much bigger as an Aarting DIY Toy ready for you to customize!

This afternoon I’ve grabbed my cam and finally hunted some blank SQUIMONKS in the wild …check the picture series.

SQUIMONKS lives high up in the threes and rarely come to ground to pick up the jummy fir cones. That’s the reason why they have a slightly beer-belly, they know very well how to do really tasty fir cone beer in their brewery

Please vote on aarting.com for the SQUIMONK!

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I’m a huge fan of brass, it’s really easy to work with it and it’s perfect for my next small experiment: branding my wooden toy hordes!

I used the CNC milling cutter to get me some small brass stamps with my name engraved (first attempt was a miss, because i forgot to mirror inverted the letters…urgh ). With a soldering iron and some patience with the sightly goatish PEARBLOCK guys, i got the result I’m looking for!

Check also the pictures with the new fellow, i call him the PEAR DEER. I gave him a nice and shiny semi gloss finish, hope you like him…

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Last week i spoted on aarting.com a D.I.Y Designer Toy Contest. Check the submission guidelines, download the templates and design your own toy. This is your chance to design the toy’s actual shape. That’s right, designers from all over the world will be able to customize something that you designed! This means that you’re now free to come up with any original shape you want, in any style. The deadline for the toy entries is the 30. Sept 2009.

If you don’t want to participate yourself, please just register shortly over arting.com and vote for my designs, i would really appreciate it!

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I’m really having a rush with these wooden toys…it’s getting more and more like an addiction. Everyday coming home from work with a new tiny toy in my pockets. As you can see, my proto-PEARBLOCK has met some fellas to hang out at the woods

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The little Wodden PEARBLOCK is made out of pear and oak wood finished and coated with natural linseed oil

Today was fun, had to work during the morning at the model workshop. I was really bleary-eyed from last nights page template customizing, so on the side of lazy working i made me a quick wooden toy. Had no sketches for this little guy, it was just cutting and sanding into the blue. The design has only two joints for the arms, so it’s kind of simple and not rich detailed, just a rough protoype … kind of like him and want to define some details a bit more (proportions, face, painting) …and maybe i’ll try out some silly ideas (how about to drill him the whole head away… hey, just a thougt

I’ve made tonight a new grunge and rough splattered wp-theme. i will stay with something like this for a while till i’ve got all the background images and a solid color concept for this page. And I’ve to learn a bit more how to manipulate the css and php to my needs…

Today the Wax carving Pencils found their long way from Shanghai to my Studio. I thought about to build me a do it yourself wax carver out of a soldering iron, but for this time i’ve found a solution about a week ago on ebay. Shipping was free and fast but the swiss customs duty was pricey. The product name is “Dental Lab Electric Wax Carving Pencil SJK-II” and the price was 89$, so i suggested a price of 80$ to the seller and he agreed…maybe you could go even with a lower price…i  would definitively try, if i had to buy another one.

For some first impressions, watch the short slide show movie of setting up and testing the Wax carving Pencils.

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For the time being i’m working on a new series of five critters for a small limited series. It’s a new way to sculpt my creatures out of wax after done a quick mold of the clay prototype. I haven’t finished yet my actual sculpting tutorial on this but i do take hearty work in progress pics, so be sure to check the tutorial section again. Until then, i’d like to share with you some of the finest online resources about sculpting, d.i.y toymaking and molding stuff. Enjoy!

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Over the years, many of you have send me a message to get my free vector outline XBOX 360 Faceplate & Case Templates from my old blog faceplatecarver. So i decided to move the files over here to my new place smallstuff.ch and get them ready for you as free downloads.

It’s quite a time ago since I’ve done my custom 3D Faceplates, but i think nevertheless a game console is a nice canvas not only for painting, also to sculpt stuff on it. You can use my templates to scribble down you ideas first before you do the case modding stuff like cutting holes into your Xbox360 and things like that… at least it’s never bad to have a plan where the holes could be

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