Happy 2009!

I was going to attempt some more Top 10 lists but my mind is a bit of blank right now thanks to the above bottle so they'll have to happen later when i'm in recovery mode!! Wherever you are, whatever you're doing...have a great (and safe) NYE and see you all in 2009!

More important than the birth of Christ...

Is obviously the birth of Sir Nicholas of Carroll! So Happy happy birthday. I hope Santa doesn't forget the birthday pressies!!! xxx

Merry Freakin' Christmas!

I think Peter Griffin said it best: 'As we all know, Christmas is that mystical time of year when the ghost of Jesus rises from the grave to feast on the flesh of the living! So we all sing Christmas Carols to lull him back to sleep'

Merry Christmas to everyone out there and a Happy New Year! 2009 promises to be a spectacular year all round, so we look forward to seeing you there!!

Baseman's Chou Chou

Limited to just 50 pieces this purple version of the Baseman Chou Chou figure is looking good. Definitely the strongest colour so far.

Wreck the Hallz TT show

NY-based store Immortal Beloved Toys is putting a new custom show of 10" Teddy Troops and it looks like a real corker featuring the skills of Julie West, Betso (pictured above....great use of the helmet as a separate figure!), James Yeah?, Okkle and Brent Nolasco. If you're interested in purchasing one of these beauties drop Immortal a line and get on the preview list.

David Choe's "Choegal"

Early contender for TOTY 2009 (even if it hit stores yesterday just to mess up my list!!!) is David Choe's first toy, the Choegal. The 8"wooden figure has been in development for a while to ensure the paint job is spot on...yep that's a factory produced paint job not a custom!!!

With wooden mechanical parts, each doll has a multi-face feature that in a He-Man "Man-E-Faces" style changes when you turn the knob on top of her hat to reveal three different facial expressions - happy, sad, and angry.

The attention to detail is something else. The arms are articulated with spring joints for multiple poses. No plastic parts have been used in the toy or packaging for an environment friendly product. The box art is stunning too...nice to see what i'd consider an "art toy" coming out...more of the same in 2009 please. Produced by Ningyoushi in association with UpperPlayground this is available to order now from Ning for the frankly ridiculous price of just $45! $45!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That's a serious bargain.

David will also be doing a signing at GiantRobot2 on Sawtelle Ave in LA on December 23rd from 6-8.

Top Toys of 2k8: 5 - 1

Oh yeah it's the big one...1-5...again in no particular order although I would say I think the #1 is arguably the Toy of the Year.

#1: Bertie the Pipebomb "Dirty Deeds" version - Ashley Wood (ThreeZero/Bigshottoyworks)It really could have been any version of this magnificent piece of vinyl but the Dirty Deeds version just edges it for the paint job and the heads! When pictures first emerged of this piece it looked interesting...it was only later on that it became clear that Bertie was going to be an absolute monster. The size makes it special enough. The there's the attention to detail in the sculpt, the accessories and the poseability thanks to some expert joint work particularly on the fingers.

#2: Rebel Ink "SDCC" - Usugrow (SecretBase)

Had to think about this one and where it should go. It always looked great in pictures but in the flesh this piece by Usugrow and expertly made by the geniuses at SecretBase is truly stunning. The size, the stance, the vinyl, the details (expert pant sag) the printing...for me it's all right on the money and worthy of a place inside the Top 5 of 2k8

#3: King Kun - James Jarvis/Bounty Hunter (BxH)

Come on it had to be in (yeah I know I did Martin X as well....but it's my list lol!). Taking the original BxH Kun form and melding it to James' King Ken to produce this stunner...highly sought after by both BxH and Jarvis fans this was snapped it up. The perfect collab to mark their 10 year anniversary of making the Martin figure.

#4: Jordan 45 - Michael Lau (Crazysmiles)

You often hear the phrase "return to form" bandied about when a true innovator/legend returns after some slightly below par work. And more often that not it's simply not true...its more that the new stuff isn't quite as bad as people expected. Thankfully when Lau dropped his SK3 set followed by this Jordan set it was clear he'd lost none of the old magic. I'm still kicking myself for missing the drop of these figures! Lets hope we see more of the same from Hong Kong's finest in the next year.

#5: Chopper 1:3 (Coarse Toys)

Nick reminded me about Coarse's Paw figure but to me this "Chopper" 1:3 edition of their Flake figure is a real work of art. The finish of this figure is superb and the scale makes it a real collectors item even with the approx $250 price tag. In a world dominated by mini series it was great to see someone do something on an epic scale that was still affordable.

Top 10 toys of 2k8: 10 - 6

In a Top of the Pops style here are my Top 10 toys of the year....starting with Numbers 10 to 6. Feel free to agree/disagree state some glaringly obvious pieces i've missed. These are in no particular order of preference but I didn't feel they quite did enough to justify make the Top 5.

#6: Kathie Olivas Scavengers Series 1 (MINDstyle)

When I heard of this mini series I wasn't convinced it would work. How wrong I was. Great work by MINDstyle transferring a tricky painted style into 3D vinyl and creating some truly beautiful packaging to accompany these pieces.

#7: French GT Dunny - Supakitch and Koralie (Kidrobot)

I surprised myself by including this as someone who's never really got into Dunnys. But I think it deserves its place in the Top 10 due the the concept, detail and execution of the Dunny. Top marks to KR for letting them go to town on this...definitely a worth prize for the Golden Ticket chase in the French 3" Dunny Series.

#8: Stephan Le Podd - Doktor A (MINDstyle)

This sneaks in by the skin of its...err...moustache as it's due to land in stores this month (plus this time next year i'll have totally forgotten it and be kicking myself!). This 8" monster is an absolutely beauty perfectly capturing Dok A's signature Steampunk style in a full production piece. MINDstyle bought some serious heat this year, can they possible top it next year?

#9: KAWS JPP/Stormtrooper (OF/Medicom)

After a series of what I felt were pretty weak releases (Zooth, Cat Bank, Twins) Brian D came back with a bang in the summer with his take on the Tokyo Police mascot "pipokun". Simple and effective it marked IMO the return of KAWS doing what he does best, riffing off popular culture. JPP was followed up by a companion to his Vader, the classic Stormtrooper.

#10: Silas Martin X - James Jarvis (Amos toys)

As part of the 10th anniversary of an undoubted classic - the Silas Martin figure - Amos dropped Martin X in two colourways plus a limited black/white version paying homage to original Martin collaborators BxH's Kid Hunter figure. A nice way to celebrate...particularly they way poor Martin now has a bit of a middle age spread (presumably he no longer skates!)

Luke Chueh Rabbotto

Blah Power Rangers influence.....Luke Chueh......Intheyellow.....5 colour variants....bad idea.....bad execution....waste of plastic.

The Madness is nearly over...

Just a quick reminder that there is only two days left of mad's promotion, so make sure you swing by www.madtoydesign.com quick and pick something up!

The Vinyl Frontier Spotlight vol. 12: Tara McPherson

Check out the interview with Tara from Vinyl Frontier.... and don’t forget to watch the others too!! It’s truly awesome!

Clutter UK Dunny...

So the UK Dunny series has already been announced yey! But we have failed to reveal our design in its entirety! So here she is, out little tourist Dunny. She has been a while in the making but we are so pleased she is finally ready to be released, and we have had loads of fun working with Kidrobot on it. Don't forget the big series release party to be held at Selfridges on the 22nd of Jan... I hope to see you all there.

So who knows what the fly swot is a reference too???

David Horvath's Turtle

First seen within the pages of the Bossy Bear book the Turtle figure has been in the works for a while. Initially designed as a 6" figure, David and Toy2r have changed the design to a smaller size in scale with the first Bossy Bear figures.

Turtle is due to drop in around April and will be available from the usual Toy2r stockists. Expect pricing to be similar to Bossy Bear.....approx $10....and don't be surprised if there's a couple of variants available at launch.

Oh, Good Grief!

Fuss Shop and Cyclops have collaborated on this 18cm tall mono-visioned Charlie Brown Vinyl figure. Each colourway is limited to 100 pcs and comes signed and numbered by the artist. He costs £49.99 (or get the full set for £180). Peanuts?

www.fusshop.co.uk

Scribe custom Mad*l

US customiser Scribe has been making a bit of name for himself with a series of quality vinyl figs, generally on the Mad*l platform. This piece is a little bit of a break from his normal style but having been convinced to do it by a collector the end result is pretty special and a nice change from many of the Mad*l customs you see.

RIP Nora Batty (Kathy Staff)

Famous for her role in Last of the summer wine, and for giving us the phrase... "Me tights have gone all Nora Batty!" RIP.

RIP Oliver Postgate

Meant to post this last week to avoid this looking like a obituary page! But last week also saw the passing of one of the UK's best-loved and talented children's TV makers, Oliver Postgate. If his name isn't familiar the shows he created from his converted shed in Kent with Peter Firmin as "Smallfilms" is bound to stir the memories - Ivor the Engine, Noggin the Nog, Bagpuss, The Clangers - all undisputed classics.

If there's any doubt about how loved Postage is/was check out the usually acerbic Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe column this week: http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2008/dec/13/charlie-brooker-screen-burn-oliver-postgate

RIP Bettie Page

As you may well be aware of, we're big pin-up fans here at Clutter, and when it comes to classic pin-ups they don't come any bigger than Bettie Page. So we were very sad to hear of her death in LA yesterday :( At the age of 85 she leaves behind her a lifetime of classic images that will continue to be revered for years to come.

Perhaps some kind of Bettie Page tattoo is in order xxx

LASH customs

Been a while since we did a customiser on the blog so what better way to start again than with a bang. And by bang I mean a shot right between the eyes!

Rich Montanari Jr. aka LastDyingWish (LASH) is based in the US and has been killing it with numerous custom pieces, by and large on Japanese vinyl - RealxHead, SecretBase. He recently had a solo show at Super7 with a variety of customs on display (featuring the Super7 Mummy Boy pictured here). This love of kaiju and japanese toys in general also led to the creation of "Invading Virus" 32 unique, hand-painted PopSoda toys with hopefully more of the same on the way!

To check out more of his work click here (you might want to set aside a few hours because you'll find yourself looking at every single one!): http://www.flickr.com/photos/lashcustoms/

Mini Zagoran

Fully Visual have teamed up with Japan's Gargamel to create metal version of its mini Zagoran figure. Unlike previous Fully Visual releases that are limited too 100 pieces (99 Silver, 1 Gold) this series sees 6 variants...and given these are blind boxed it's going to be a real pain to get the precise version you might want!


The variants break down as follows:

• Silver Zag - limited to 25 $99
• Copper Zag - limited to 25 $120
• Black Nickle Zag - limited to 15 $140
• Gold Zag - limited to 15 $150
• Green/Red Zag hand painted by Paul Kaiju - limited to 10 $160
• Blue/Brown Zag hand painted by Paul Kaiju - limited to 10 $160

Huck Gee's "Corporal 'Thundersticks' Anson"

Oh look here's a surprise Huck's gone and made another stunning custom this time based on an 8" Munny. As with all Huck customs this is up for grabs from his eBay store.

Buff Monster custom Teddy Troop

Something for the stocking perhaps? Biff Monster has created 25 hand-painted GID Teddy Troops moving away from his usual colours to include green with the usual pink. Each Trooper is signed a numbered and comes with a hand-silkscreened box and signed/numbered Giclee print.

Edit: The Trooper will drop on Monday December 15th at 10am PST from www.buffmonster.com priced at $250 plus shipping. Decent price given that it's a custom and a large piece of vinyl.

KR Jan Releases

The big news for Jan is obviously another Dunny series given long overdue props to British (okay and a Japanese lady living here!) designers....including a couple of layabouts from something called Clutter ;)

I'll admit i'm not the world's biggest Dunny fan and the name of the series is poor, but the series designs look good and dare I say it, stronger than the last full series and the line up basically covers a who's who of the UK scene minus (unsurprisingly) Jarvis and Fowler - Doktor A, Frames, HiCalorie x Julie West, ilovedust, Jon Burgerman, Keanan Duffty, McFaul, Mimic, Peskimo, Shok 1, Tado, Triclops and UAMOU.

Kidrobot 16 is also looking good, paying homage to the various stages of Punk - 77, 80 and 84 (post-punk/hardcore surely if it's paying homage to the Dead Kennedys with that tee logo?!?). With pierced ears and Mohawks these figures are looking really tight and are released on the 8th...as the previous post mentioned a UK-exclusive version will be sold at Selfridges.

Also coming is Mr Frostie Beats...err...not sure what else to say except its designed by NYC-based multimedia artists Interspectacular is 7", limited to 500 and available from January 8 as well.

Pocket Pork Series 2.5

Shawminal and MPH are dropping more Porkage for the winter!!! Pocket Pork series 2.5: "For the Love of Pork" sees two initial releases....blue "Unrequited" Pork and "Smitten" Pork. Why those names? Well it seems "Lovely" Pork is causing the problems but he/she/it has yet to be revealed.

Blind bagged like the previous two series', there are only 100 available in total, 70 blue and 30 yellow. And as ever each pack contains some little bonuses for fans including badges, stickers etc. These will be available at myplasticheartnyc and myplasticheart.com, tomorrow Dec. 10 starting at 1PM EST. Each blind bagged figure will cost $11.99.