BE@RBRICK World Tour 2 custom Kaiju Eyezon by Mark Nagata

UpDated Nov 29th, 2011 – Full listing of participating artists below.

Well 2011 is turning out to be one of my busiest year yet and on top of curating shows like Toy Karma at Rotofugi, numerous toy releases via Max Toy Company and many custom painted toys I do .. I was thrilled about being invited to this special Medicom BE@RBRICK event 😉 70 artists and designers from around the world were sent a 1000% BE@RBRICK to customize for this special series of shows and events. Once I realized what i was being asked to do .. i actually got cold feet and thought what the heck am i gonna do ?!! Holy crap … this is a big deal 0_0 !

In addition to my brickwall in terms of what to do with this figure, I didn’t have that much time to pull it off. I had to factor in the shipping back to Japan. This left me about a week to pull this off .. and this on top of other projects already in progress … oh boy !
The figure arrives … and the BE@RBRICK gives me a hand shake .. he’s actually a nice guy, so I felt better at this point .. but still the direction I was to go in was still not clear to me …While I customize my own toys .. I’m not known as others are as a toy customizer. Hmmmm… well my first thought was to some how vectorize the Eyezon design and transfer that onto the figure. Or should I simply paint him up like a custom Eyezon that I do ? Well in anycase i knew i had to base coat the figure in yellow .. so i proceed to do so .. and lucky the weather was nice enough to do so …

As a stared at this 1000% BE@RBRICK , I decided while a simply clean line approach would be in keeping with the BE@RBRICK style .. but this was a one off, and to me should reflect a one of a kind approach.. so with that I decided to simply hand paint the Eyezon design onto the BE@RBRICK using a more organic approach. Using a brown color pencil I started sketching the design onto the figure, free hand style …

Going over the brown pencil with acrylic paint. I had to fight myself to not add extra stuff sticking out from the figure and actually they had some ground rules about altering the figure too much. I thought if I could convey Eyezon merely with paint that would be best.

Slowly painting all the surfaces ….

At this point I’m at an awkward phase .. some areas have paint while others don’t ..I’m using more opaque paint as i go along and adding more form to the figure …

Ah, my trusty Iwata airbrush … now the piece is taking shape ! The eyes would be key to this piece and I started in on them before finishing off the body… looking good so far ! Phew …

Not quite done but I only had another day, so i had to speed up my painting … but I could see the light at the end of the tunnel 😉

Backside of the 1000% BE@RBRICK custom Kaiju Eyezon ….

and finally below the final piece .. done !

Satisfied with what I could do in the time given I sprayed sealed the piece with fixative … and to my horror the fixative messed up some of the black painted areas ;-( Arrggghhh ! I had to use a hair dryer to dry off the figure and quickly hand paint and re-spray some of the areas ! :-O !! THis took another 2 hours to fix .. but I was able to recover from this near tragedy.

Just before packing up my friend … we had some lunch and posed for pictures …I wish i could be in Japan on December 3rd for the opening at Parco Museum Shibuya in Tokyo 😉 He’ll be in good company though.
Over the next year he’ll see different venues around the world so maybe I will be able to see him on display somewhere !
Many thanks to Akashi-san and Oka-san at Medicom for this wonderful opportunity !!! I hope the figure brings much joy to those who see him ! 😉
=================

BE@RBRICK WORLD WIDE TOUR 2
　開催場所：パルコミュージアム [渋谷パルコパート1・3F]
　開催期間：2011年12月3日(土)～12月12日(月) ※会期中無休
　開場時間：10:00～21:00／最終日のみ18:00まで(入場は閉場の30分前まで)
　入場料金：一般300円(税込) ※小学生未満無料

Venue: PARCO MUSEUM [SHIBUYA PARCO Part 1 third floor]
Period: 3rd through 12th of December, 2011 [no closure during this period]
Time: 10 a.m. ~ 9 p.m. / close at 6 p.m. on the 12th (last day) allow to enter until 5:30 p.m.
Admission: 300 yen (with tax) * free admission for kids under 5 years of age

【Participants】

A BATHING APE ® (NIGO®)
Andre SARAIVA
ANREALAGE (Kunihiko Morinaga)
BEAMS (YO SHITARA)
Charles M. Schulz’s Studio(Paige Braddock)
Colette
CONRAD LEACH
D [diː]
DEVILROBOTS
Dr. Romanelli
Ed Banger records (Pedro “Busy P” Winter)
EDISON CHEN
ELEY KISHIIMOTO (MARK ELEY＆WAKAKO KISHIIMOTO)
FILIP PAGOWSKI
fragmentdesign (hiroshi fujiwara)
FROGMAN
FUJIKO・F・FUJIO PRO
FUMIYA FUJII
Genevieve Gauckler
GReeeeN
HAJIME SORAYAMA
HEADQUARTER (RICARDO CAMPA)
HIRONOBU TSUJIGUCHI
HIROSHI TAMAKI
House Industries
HYSTERIC GLAMOUR (NOBUHIKO KITAMURA)
JAM HOME MADE
James Jarvis
K-CO & GO
KARIMOKU (HIROSHI KATO)
katsuyuki motohiro
Kim Songhe
Kuntzel+Deygas
Levi’s®
Libertine (Johnson Hartig)
Lucasfilm Ltd.
maico akiba
MATT BLACK
Max Toy Company (Mark Nagata)
MEDICOM TOY CORPORATION
Mika Ninagawa
mintdesigns(Hokuto Katsui/Nao Yagi)
MOGRAPHIXX (HIROMITSU AKIBA)
MUVEIL (Michiko Nakayama)
NEIGHBORHOOD (Shinsuke takizawa)
NEXUSVII (TOMOHIRO KONNO)
NIKE (Mark Parker)
OriginalFake (KAWS)
P.M.Ken
PAUL&JOE (Sophie ALBOU)
play set products (Shiro Nakano)
PUSHEAD
Rolito
Ryuichi Sakamoto
SANDAIMEUOTAKEHAMADASHIGEO
SANRIO (YUKO YAMAGUCHI)
SASQUATCHfabrix. (Wonder Worker Guerrilla Band.)
Satoshi Fumihara
Sebastian Masuda
SENSE (SATOSHI MORIYA)
SSUR (RUSLAN V KARABLIN)
STASH
STUSSY
T9G (TAKUJI)
TMT (KENTA ABE , TAKANORI NAGANO)
TOKIDOKI (Simone Legno)
TOY TOKYO
TOYS McCOY (HIROSHI OKAMOTO)
Uglydoll (David Horvath)
UNKLE (JAMES LAVELLE)
The Walt Disney Company (Japan) Ltd. Disney Consumer Products
Wonderwall (Masamichi Katayama)
YOSHIDA & CO., LTD.
Zeebra
※アルファベット順

About toykarma

Over the years Mark Nagata has collected thousands of toys and a fair amount of titles. The man behind San Francisco-based Max Toy Company is widely known as: Toy Collector. Illustrator. Magazine Founder/Publisher. Toy Designer. Artist. Author. Husband. Father. But the one description that might fit best is an unofficial one – Kaiju Toy and Art Ambassador. In the Japanese-inspired art and toy area, as well as throughout the larger toy collecting community, Mark is welcomed and recognized for his personal passion and commitment to supporting artists all around the world and the unique works they create. Beginning as a collector in his youth, Mark has had for years a keen eye for great art and a personal interest in collecting that he has spread through a variety of outlets. Trained at the Academy of Art College in San Francisco, Mark honed his skills working for himself and for some of the most notable businesses in the country. As a freelance commercial illustrator, he completed works for such prominent companies as Lucasfilms, DC Comics, Hasbro Toys, IBM, Sony, and numerous advertising and design firms, both national and international. Mark’s colorful style graces over 40 cover paintings for R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps book series – Give Yourself Goosebumps. After hundreds of assignments, Mark made the decision to move in another direction, and that choice has led to whole new career as a successful businessman. For four years, the owner of one of the largest Ultraman toy collections in the world co-published Super 7 Magazine showcasing the finest in Japanese toy collecting. “I’d been collecting Japanese toys all along and suddenly realized it would be cool to have a magazine of some type devoted to them,” Nagata says. Mark’s devotion to presenting collectors with a selection of original figures inspired by classic Japanese toys from the 1960s and ‘70s as well as new versions of licensed Japanese characters is at the heart of Max Toy Company. Named for his son, Max Toys specializes in custom and limited editions of “kaiju” (Japanese monsters) toys and artwork. Many of the original toys produced are hand painted by Mark, a tradition that goes back to Japanese toy makers of the past. “Since our target is the soft vinyl Japanese toy collector, which is a very small niche, our runs of toys can be extremely small,” Mark says. “Runs range from 500 pieces of one toy to just one for a hand-painted, one-of-a-kind custom figure.” Through Max Toys, Mark has taken great pains to widen the reach of his two passions – toys and art. He played a significant part in the development of the first group kaiju show in the United States. Held at the Rotofugi Gallery in Chicago, Illinois in 2007, the “Toy Karma” Show featured detailed work from artists from Japan, the U.S. and South America. Participants marveled at the custom-painted toys and art on display. “Toy Karma” led to Mark being asked to be one of the artists spotlighted in the “Beyond Ultraman: Seven Artists Explore the Vinyl Frontier” exhibit at the Pasadena Museum of California Art. The October 2007 show, held jointly with the Los Angeles Toy, Doll and Amusement Museum, marked the first time – in a museum setting – that the influence of Japanese toys on California artists was explored. The exhibit featured more than 30 of Mark’s original paintings, toys and a selection of his vintage toy collection. Mark continued to be at the forefront as interest in Japanese-inspired art and toys expanded in 2008. Prestigious art houses Philips De Pury and Christie’s in New York and London sold Mark’s hand-painted custom kaiju toys in its auctions, spreading this unique art and toy movement into new and uncharted areas of the art world. In 2009, Mark once again took his love of toys and art overseas this time to a receptive and welcoming audience in Tokyo, Japan. Here, Mark curated the “Kaiju Comrades” Art Show, once again bringing together artists from various aspects of the kaiju toy realm in this first-of-its-kind toy art show. The following year found Mark in Barcelona, Spain co-curating with Emilio Garcia “Kaiju Attack,” the European country’s first kaiju art show. As the growth of kaiju art and toys increases worldwide, Mark continues in his unofficial role of Kaiju Toy and Art Ambassador. He has written and had his artwork and toy designs included in several books and magazines, both domestic and international. In 2010, Mark served as guest lecturer on kaiju and the toy-making process at the Morikami Museum in Florida. The San Francisco resident and his art can also be spotted in the first volume of the “ToyPunks” DVD and the “Toys R Us” DVD, while the video for the number one song by Owl City “Fireflies” featured Mark’s popular Kaiju Eyezon character. During this same time period, Mark has spearheaded the “Toy Karma 2” and “Kaiju Comrades 2” shows and has plans for future shows both in the U.S. and overseas. “Max Toys allows me to produce original artwork, new toys and work directly with a lot of talented artists,” Mark says. “Max Toy is a synthesis of toys and art, both life-long passions.”

View all posts by toykarma →