Aaaanndddd we’re back. Sorry for the hiatus everyone, just needed some time out and finally had a break from work to welcome our friend who is moving here from Japan.
Reveal Image – Beautiful Castle Death Machine: A quiet morning survival version by BAKAkid
Anyway, that ca(r)t is finally out of the bag. My first show in over a year is an awesome group show in Tokyo, featuring a host of awesome artists making custom labels for Famicom Cartridges. Its crazy, I had the idea for the same kinda show while we were living in Osaka, and then when we travelled to Tokyo I just happened to visit Super Meteor while walking around Nakano Broadway, and they had the 2017 My Famicase Exhibition on. It was awesome, and I am so glad to be able to be part of it this year.
My entry is called – Beautiful Castle Death Machine: A quiet morning survival version
Photo of Exhibition – Beautiful Castle Death Machine: A quiet morning survival version
I have a few more in the series planned, and will be bringing them to life later this year for my own famicart exhibition if all goes to plan.
There are so many amazing entries this year, so here is a gallery with my favourites. Once I have my hands on the catalogue I will update with links to each artist.
I am so stoked that I was able to be part of the Super Meteor – My Famicase Exhibition 2019! feels really good to have my art out in the wild again, and has driven me to keep creating more and more.
It looks like I made the cover for the catalogue this year. yyyuusssss!
Super Meteor are awesome to work with, and should have all the Famicase images up on their website – www.famicase.com – shortly.
Your Name, the highest grossing anime of all time, was HUGE when I was living in Japan. There was merch everywhere, posters, advertisements, and I think that was months after the movie had actually been released. I didnt get to watch the film until I came back to Australia, as I had to wait for the subtitled release (bakakid is a Baka when it comes to actually speaking/reading/knowing Japanese, but we will get there).
Tenki no Ko is the latest film from director Makoto Shinkai, and feature a soundtrack by Radwimps again, which I am super excited about. The film releases in Japan mid year. Can’t wait. Watch the trailer below to get a feel of it.
Your Name is still one of my favourite movies of all time. Its beautifully animated, the soundtrack by Radwimps kicks some serious ass with earworms that get deep into your brain, and the story is touching, funny and quite sad at times. If you haven’t already watched it, you can currently see it on Netflix (in Australia at least).
Im in love with this little Crosley Turntable. Specifically designed and released for Record Store day, it plays only 3inch records. I dont have any 3 inch records, but I want some now.
It looks tough. if you picture it as a standard sized turntable then all those features are massive, but when you see it in a context that reveals its scale, it is almost comically small. It looks so cute. I want one.
It is going to be USD$69.95 and only available at some select, yet undisclosed record stores for Record Store Day. It also comes with a Foo Fighters 3″ single, and a dust cover, which makes it look awesome.
Did we need a new Helvetica? No. Did we want a new Helvetica? Kind of…
The Monotype Type Foundry has released and updated version of Helvetica, called Helvetica now. At a glance it looks like Helvetica, but there have been a bunch of updates and additions, attempting to modernise the font for the current digital age.
Helvetica® Now is a new chapter in the story of perhaps the best-known typeface of all time. Available in three optical sizes—Micro, Text, and Display.
I haven’t been using Helvetica as a workhorse since my screen printing days about a decade ago. a few years ago, I came across Neue Haas Unica (also by Monotype), which I thought was a more interesting sans serif that had a bunch of weights and uses, and pretty much stuck with it for my everyday. Im tempted to get Helvetica Now, but I dont think I really need it.
The Verge has a pretty in depth behind the scenes interview about Helvetica Now.
I’m setting up a few zines in anticipation of the zine fair season down here in Sydney, and while looking at some other zines for inspiration I came across my new favourite zine.
A zine is usually a small DIY publication, zine being short for and pronounced like magazine. I have been making zines for years, and even ran a class on zine making at a university about a decade ago. They are an interesting, evolving and free form of publication that is accessible to anyone.
This zine, Hand Job, is particularly interesting as they have been cataloging mistakes from the mass digitisation of printed materials. I love that these digitisation mistakes are now being reprinted in zine form. It is absurd. It is interesting. It is also a bit voyeuristic, and I love it.
Hand Job currently has 4 issues available digitally, but the author – Aliza Elkin – who works as an archivist and librarian is open to sell physical copies, or trade for the right zine.
10 random images from my stolen images folder with as much context as I can remember… (and I will try to find the source at some stage as well)
I love these stupid naked cats. they look so angry and interesting and I some day hope to own one. I straight up traced this one for a poster I made years ago. /src/I long for a large open loft or Waterhouse space to live and work in. in Sydney, that dream was crushed long ago, but I still want it. someday I will have a space like this, calm and peaceful and tranquil, but also productive and fun. /src/this was a concept for a brand I worked on a bunch of years ago, it was thrown out but I might end up using it for something. who know. /src/glitchy photos have always appealed to me. I have a lot of apps on my phone to do it, and at one stage I was editing the code of some jpgs in a hex editor to get them all glitchy and rad. I never used them for a project, and this one isn’t even mine, but its rad none the less. /src/hot star large fried chicken. first found out about this from Eddie Huang when he was in Taiwan for Huang’s World. then it opened up near my home and I got addicted. I try and only get it once a month or so these days.. Crispy, spicy, ethereal as Eddie would say. /src/Honda ruckus. 50cc of pure badassery. these scooters have been modified to the ends of the earth, and I one day hope to own one. I just need to lose a hundred or so pounds so it will actually drag my fat ass around the back streets of the inner west… its a real tossup between these anda. superb for me, but either way, once I get one I will mod the shit out of it /src/concrete. minimal. small. this is the perfect kind of house/office for me. this one has to be in Japan somewhere, as no westerner would understand the real appeal of a space like this. when I first lived with JESHKA we made our floor out of polished concrete. it was an old converted garage so there were oil stains and marks all over it, but that was a huge part of the appeal. now I love these super clean fresh concrete walls with the marks from the formwork, and after getting to meet Ando Tadao and seeing his buildings dotted across Japan in the flesh, I want nothing more then a space like this one day. (from the source, of course this one is is Osaka.) /src/Japan has an amazing knack for making souvenirs that are hyper local, from hello ktty matin takoyaki in Osaka to these beauties I picked up from Hakodate, on Japan’s North Island of Hokkaido. The squid is super common in the waters surrounding the island, and the marimba moss ball (mine is a fake one) originates from Lake Akan. /src/this is such an awesome tattoo. its simple and interesting, but all has a lot going on. the clouds are my favourite part. I have always been a fan of tattoos like this, and linework only tattoos. I want to have a whole sleeve of linework so if I have kids in the future they will be able to colour it in like a colouring book. /src/I found this gif back when JESHKA was at school for interior architecture, and I thought it looked like the simplest way to do drawings using 2 point perspective. its just a rubber band and some drawing pins, perfect for quick but accurate sketches.
This game looks awesome. Continuing with the Kei car theme, I came across this super famicom/nintendo game that I really want to play. The cars are all kei cars, the graphics is pure super famicom pixelated goodness.
I really want to find a copy of this game so I can have a go and see how it plays. I have read lots of p reviews, but a lot of them were from kei car fans, so I don’t know if it is a good game, or just good game contents/art.
10 random images from my stolen images folder with as much context as I can remember… (and I will try to find the source at some stage as well)
pretty sure this is a photo from the mishka store, possibly in Tokyo. it has been rad to visit this store on a few occasions to pick up some goodies. one time the shop staff found out I was Australian and threw in a beer cooler, cos Australia love beer. (I used it for Chu-hai and milk tea exclusively) /src/the life aquatic is one of my favourite movies of all time, to the point where I have a tattoo of Steve Zissou on my leg. I just love this super simple poster by Jennifer Lewis. I think I grabbed this when I was working on a couple of Wes Anderson inspired artworks for a gallery show. /src/looks at this grand old building. there was a time where I was drawing buildings almost like tecnical architectural drawings. I never got around to doing this one (it would have take way too much time in the style) but I still love the look of it. /src/this is a photo I took of the sky back at my parents house in 2015. the clouds looks so oddly flat and I thought it would make a good background for something, then it went in my stolen image folder and I promptly forgot about it. /src/I love reflex blue. it is the super bright blue you often see in print projects, and it is so unnaturally vivid that I think it should be used wherever it is appropriate. this is super appropriate. /src/more aesthetic shit. but I’m pretty sure this one is a real sculpt and not just a render. I love the simplicity of this. /src/more reflex blue, this time in zine form. I love zines and I am about to embark on a couple of zine projects which I am super excited about, and the monotone versions that look like classic photocopy zines, but are actually purposefully designed really resonate with me… I’m keen, just wait and see. /src/when I was starting out doing some pixel art I was looking at the game sprites from some of my favourite games. The street fighter sprites have so much detail and are so dynamic, so I saved a ton of them to my stolen images folder. well worth looking at them all if you get a chance /src/I love neon!!! the colours of this one are super on point… I always wanted to make a neon, but Jeshka let me know that if they break they are super bad for the environment, so I have looked into the LED neon replacements that are o ut there. they have their benefits but they are missing a whole bunch of the allure that real neon has. /src/there was a time where I was really into vector illustrations like this. this particular series of skull girls was a really good one, with an excellent focus on drawing the hair. who am I kidding, I still like this style of drawing. /src/
Recently I have been getting way into kei cars, kei vans and kei trucks. I used to love cars, and always wanted to have a drift car of my own. Then I realised that it was prohibitively expensive to do that in Australia, so I turned my attention to Remote Control drift cars. Then I went to art school and had no money for a very long time, and my love of cars was all but forgotten.
Recently, I have had the time, money and energy to get back into cars. I got a Nissan Cube3, a rad little Japanese minivan, which isnt classes as a kei car, but by Australian standards is a very small car.
So, with my newfound enthusiasm for cars, I have been looking into Kei Cars. Kei Cars, short for keijidōsha, literally translates to Light Car. Since the middle of the 20th century, kei cars have had small engine restrictions, currently limited to 660cc, equivalent of a mid ranged motorbike. They are often very simple, small and cheap, and also attract much lower taxes and registration fees. There are kei cars, kei vans ( my current favourite, more on that at a later date) and Kei Trucks.
Whilst doing some research into kei vans and trucks, I came across the Japan Federation of Landscape Contractors who just happen to host a yearly garden competition. A competition where the garden has to fit into the bed of a Kei Truck.
This contest is apparently held every year, and while I couldn’t find much details on it, I am super happy it exists. From what I understand, none of these installations are permanent and are made only for the competition, but the amount of effort these various landscaping companies go through is amazing.
I love kei vans and trucks, and enough to attend the launch of Chris Loutfy’s Zine – Small & Mighty, which was held out the side of his 1980s Suzuki Carry Van. Super appropriate as the zine features photos of all sorts of small and mighty kei vans and trucks.
