January 28, 2008
The
Batman Statue
from
DC Direct
We're all excited about seeing the new statue in it's final stage. These are pictures of the actual product which will be released in July. Just click on an image to see it larger.
Red Hot
Battle in the Lava Pit
I just finished this one. It's in the molding process now. It started as a sketch among many in my sketch book and I have been meaning to get to it for some time. I decided to do it now because I wanted to try a technique in smoothing the clay I work with. I also wanted to do a piece involving real muscle anatomy on a female without it becoming so defined that it becomes masculine. The temptation in doing female figures is to make a it a bit cartoony like most pin up artists might, but in this case, I wanted it to look like a famale body builder who hasn't taken body building over the top, but instead looks athletic anough to fight a eadly creature like this one. The sculpting process of this one will be featured as a 2 part article in Kitbuilders Magazine.
Neal
Adams Batman
The Guys at DC Direct were nice enough to let me do the
new Neal Adams Batman Black & White Statue. Since neal is my Dad,
you can imagine how happy I was to have been chosen for this statue.
It's due to be released in 2008. It was just shown off as a prototype
at the Chicago Con, so I can finally show you pictures.
The Paint job is still going through changes but you'll get the general
idea.
Click the images below to see larger ones.
YOU"VE BEEN SPOTTED
Available now on this site. The new Zombie
Resin Kit, "They've Spotted You" by Spyda. This kit is done
in 1/10 scale and comes in 6 parts. The concept behind the piece was
to capture the moment you'd feel if you were to be walking through a
graveyard at night and you turn and see something moving. Just then
the Zombies you're looking at spot you.Just before you run for your
life or freeze in fear, this is what you see.
Get it in our Store.
The San Diego Comic Con 2007
Wow, what a show. We were so busy that I barely got to
see anything. I don't really expect to sell many resin kits at a comic
show, but this year went far better than any other year for the kits.
I'd only brought 3 of the new Zombie Kit, "You've Been Spotted",
with me and they sold out right away. I even sold the unpainted display
model. "Next..." sold well. "Miko Robot Killer",
and others did well too. It seems we had some kit fans at the show and
i was very happy to see them. The Tournament Statue was my best Pre-Painted
statue seller. It was a great surprize for me because the ones that
did the best were original designs. The glass cabinet I bought seems
to solve the theft problem. As far as I know, nothing was stolen this
year.
My Bother Joel's Lilz managed to steal the attention of every woman
who came by. He only made the last two days of the show and brought
fewer things than he should have, but he did rather well.
My father had the usual croud around him most of the time, and enjoyed
talking with them as much as possible. The hot item on Dad's table was
the new "Neal Adams Sketches" book. T-shirts also seemed to
pick up in sales this year.
One of the things we noticed about this show was the convention seemd
to have less and less to do with selling comics. Stuff was hot. Hats
with ears, limited edition action figures and busts, Teddy bears with
fangs. For the comic artist, your best bet was to print your own limited
edition sketch book.
It was as if fans desided that they could always pick up the comics
and books at the local comic shop, and even the comic publishers seemed
to concentrate more on figures and things than books. Good news to someone
like me who makes "stuff", but I did kind of wish that there
was excitement over releasing a bunch of new books at the show. It is
a Comic Book Convention after all.
While theft was less of a problem, there still seemed a common head
ache that was still about. The handling of a seller's property by the
people who work for the convention center. It happens at most convention
centers, so I don't mean to just single out this one, but hell, they
crushed my stuff and it is worth mentioning to anyone who does these
shows.
Every year when I get to the booth, there is our boxes sitting in the
center of our space. Now, I sell statues and kits so everything is fragile
and marked so. For the first couple of hours I spend at the show, I
find myself glueing together my display models after being smashed by
the babboons who move your things around. One of the best defenses for
my things has been plastic tubaware boxes that I pack the figures in
carefully with stuffing cotton, and then set these inside a large shipping
box. This seems to work better than all cardboard. I then seal the boxes
and mark them "Fragile" "Glass" "Handle with
Care" "This Side Up" and other such things. When I arrived
this year, it was the boxes that were marked that were beat up the most.
It was as if some moron saw the markings on the box and on purpose made
sure to damage those. When I got to the show, I found that the marked
boxes were on the bottom of stacks of boxes with the heavy book boxes
on top and crushing the statues. The boxes were also marked "Please
Don't Stack Anything Heavy On Top of This Box." needless to say,
i spent a couple hours glueing things back together. You really can't
make them look perfect again after they were busted. Paint was chipped
off and scratched off. certain things just looked like crap. They could
try and blame it on the shippers, but the shippers did not stack the
heavy boxes on top of the fragile ones. This was the Convention center
employees. I took this picture of a couple of the boxes only after I
had unpiled the book boxes from on top of them.
I have heard a lot of stories about the convention center people damaging
things. One had to do with some rule they have that they are allowed
to open any boxes they want. One person found that they opened his boxes,
took out his statues and then, rather than placeing them back in carefully,
they jammed them back into the foam peanut filled boxes, breaking arms
and legs off the figures. this person felt as if his property was vandilised.
I think he's right.
The best solution I can come up with, at this point, is to not ship
individual boxes as we've done. Instead, buy a wooden pallet, stack
everything on the pallet in the order you prefer them in, wrap it in
those big packing plastic rolls, and ship them that way. I wanted to
do that this year but you can't ship a pallet from our office because
they need to use a fork lift to pick it up. the solution might be a
pallet on wheels. Since they don't stack pallets on top of pallets,
your things are safer. The morons at the conventon centers would have
to go to greater efforts to damage your property.
March 2007
The New York Comic Con
The New York Comic Con at the Javits center was twice
the size as it was last year. Thank God, because last year hundreds
never got in and most people had to wait hours to get in. This year,
there was no trouble like that. Everyone had a wonderful time, including
myself and my family. We were located up in the Galleria where they
had Artist Alley. To my left was May father , neal Adams, and my brother,
Joel Adams to his left. Last year, I wasable to tell you all about the
show, but this yime, we were all to busy at the tables and I wasn't
able to look around much. Of the things I was able to see, Clayburn
Moore's table was amazing. I especially loved the bronzes. The people
who do Mimobots were cleaning up at the show. I was sure to take my
niece over to spend lots of money on a robot charcater flash drive.
The Star Wars Mimobots will be available in a month. I think I also
spend a couple hundred on anime hats with ears. We all wore them at
the tables.
As some of you know, we've had a problem with thefts at recent shows.
As a matter o'fact, lots of people were having an awful lot of trouble
with thefts. So, my solution this year was to get myself a glass cabinet.
I searched all over the place and saw a lot of really expensive things
that were huge and would be a nightmare to bring in or ship. I had considered
designing and building something but I found 2 products that I think
solved the problem better than anything else I had seen or though of.
They are cheap, and assemble and disassemble for easy shipping or wheeling
in on a simple luggage cart. Both can be purchased at Ikea and I recommend
to anyone that, if you are doing conventions, get a case for your stuff.
The truth is, that they are so cheap, you can pretty much throw them
away after the show is over, rather than pay to ship it back home. Unless
you are driving which is always the best way. I found out that the one
I bought is no longer sold, but here's 2 others.
http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/10011055
http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/10119032
San Diego Comic Con 2006
We had a great time at the convention. There were lots
of Sculptures by Spyda about. Reel Art Studios was showing off Going
Ape, DinoGirl, and Sinbad. I had them at my own table as well (Unpainted
though), along with the NEW Demon Tower Kit. People really seemed to
dig it. Things went great until the last day, when some dick wod walked
off with my painted "Next..." statue. Who the hell steals
a man's prototype? I did get to meet Red Sonja, and that makes up for
it a little.
Yum
Stolen at the San Diego Show
Keep an Eye Out for these.
Me and my family had a
big booth at the San Diego show. To one side was my sculpture work,
to the other was my brothers pin up work, and in the center was my Dad's.
Since dad gets such a big line of people, I help out as much as possible
with his books and such, collecting money and keeping things moving
along. Unfortunately, this means I have to turn my back on me tables
for a moment or two now and then. I keep a standing back drop behind
the pieces for better viewing which makes them easier to view by the
public but obstructs my own view so I keep anything I am selling on
the side where thieves can't grab them. Oddly enough, I have never thought
that anyone would swipe the painted prototypes.
I had my new Demon Tower assembled but not put together on a battery
operated turn table and on a stand next to that was another turn table
with the "Next..." barbarian kit I had painted up for display.
The next shelf down had the painted Frankenstein and my other pieces
were here and there. I really was pleased with the way it looked.
At one point someone asked me about the barbarian piece and I asked
"which one?" and the guy said "You have more than one?"
and as I leaned over to show him both pieces, I found the "Next..."
barbarian was gone and in it's place was the Frankenstein piece. I stormed
about the gigantic convention in a hopeless attempt to catch the mother
f'er who took it but obviously couldn't find him. The Convention refuses
to make announcements, so I couldn't alert anyone to watch for the guy.
(The announcement thing is kinda funny. They refuse to make announcements
because last year there was so many prank announcements for fake names
like Mike Hunt and things like that.)
So the sculpt was lost. The thief was kind of smart, I have to admit,
because by placing another sculpture on the stand, it didn't look to
people like there was a statue missing, so no one asked about the empty
turn table.
Security took a report, but told me there was no hope of finding it.
So, needless to say, I was incredibly pissed off. But, by the end of
the day, I found that the thief came back to steal 2 things from my
father worth a couple hundred dollars each. He had a Superman CGC graded
comic which he had drawn an original Superman portrait on and a Green
Lantern with an original Green Lantern and Green Arrow portrait on.
Both were on stands and both were gone while lower priced items were
put in their place.
I gotta say, I was pissed when my own property was stolen but when someone
steals from my Dad or anyone in my family, my head spins.
As the day came to a close, I found out my friend Donna at Art Asylum
had a Battle Star Galactica prototype Cylon stolen,(You can recognize
it because it is chrome plated rather than being painted silver. They
did sell silver ones at the show.) and another guy had expensive comics
stolen while cheaper comics were put in their place.
There's some thief out there with quite a collection of stolen property
and I am going to do my best to gather a list of what was taken so that
if any item is found, the trail will lead us to the thief.
So anyway, below you will find a photo of the three items stolen from
our booth. It's not easy to identify the Next... statue from others
since, hopefully, people who bought them from me have painted them,
but I figure I can identify mine accurately since you can't paint two
the same exact way. The photo of the Green Lantern book is he exact
one missing and only one exists. My father did 8 of the Superman's with
sketches, but we have the other seven and have decided not to sell them
at this time so if yo see one being sold on ebay or anywhere, that will
be the one stolen. The picture I have is one of the ones we still have
though. I don't have a scan of the one that was stolen.
If you see any of these, please let me know.
Spyda
Sinbad
I just got the photos of the Sinbad statue I sculpted for Reel Art Studios. I was knocked out by Dan Jorgensen's paint job. I have to say, working with Michael from Reel Arts is turning out to be a real pleasure. My favorite client to date. Michael has been willing to allow me to lend my own touch to the designs and composition. For Sinbad, he gave me a general idea of what he's like to see in the design and let me run from there. This, as some may know, is very different from the way we sculptors usually work. For the most part we are given a drawing and expected to follow that. I feel fortunate that a client has found trust in my sense of design and composition as well as my sculpting.
Pictures from Wonderfest
Wonderfest 2006 was awesome. If you missed it, you missed
a lot of great stuff, but I took pictures for you. Click
Here.
| The biggest news this year is the NEW Going Ape BRONZE statue. Never before has there been a Neal Adams bronze statue before. Not even a prepainted statue. And there has never been a bronze statue available by Jason Spyda Adams. We got the first one back right before Christmas and we were all blown away. It's been the center of attraction every day at Neal Adams' art studio in NYC. It's a limited edition of 200 at most. Fewer may be made depending on how the molds hold up. |  |
The Going Ape Bronze Statues are available now in our store here on Spydacreations.com and on nealadams.com.
Molding and Casting
As some of you know, I don't do my own molds and casts
due to allergic reactions to the chemicals. I was working with a great
guy, Dan Lane, who did fantastic work. Unfortunately, Dan wont be doing
molds and casts anymore so I needed to find a new guy. After endless
looking and phone calls, I met Ed Holt of Monkey Works. Ed is an awesome
guy who loves the hobby and takes into account that people in the resin
kit business need low prices in order to ever see a profit. He took
the time to learn what our needs are in this business and soon we struck
a deal and he molded and cast Going Ape for me. He's done a fantastic
job. I've had as many compliments on the castings as I have on the sculpting.
I am giving him props here on the site in order to spread the wealth
to other sculptors who wish to have resin kits made of their work or
if you need castings for the toy business. Take into account that this
guy gets paid bigger money when he works for bigger companies but is
still willing to work with us. I hope to bring him a quantity of work
that'll make up for the discounted prices that he gives us. Contact
holthill@aol.com