Categories
Urban papercraft

Paper Robot book

This year I was invited by Nick Knite to design papertoys robots for PAPER ROBOTS published by h.f.ullmann.

Here are my robots (sorry for the poor images, couldn’t find a decent shot of them): BurddBott and Walkrr TXR
BurddBott BurddBott

Walkrr_TXR Walkrr_TXR

Paper Robot
Paper Robot

I’m one of the 15 papertoy artists from all around the world and we produced 25 robots!
The book is ready and its awesome!
It will be in four languages (English, German, French and Spanish) and is already available on amazon for pre-ordering.

Some of the artist in the book also wrote about it:
Sal Azad
Tougui
Marko Zuback
3eyedbear
Nick Knite
but the rest of the artist are too awesome not to mention:
Matt Hawkins, Marshall Alexander, Abz, Shin Tanaka, Castleforte, Dolly Oblong, Jonny Chiba, Scott Schallar and Vinsart.

If you want to see more, here is a link to the product-page on ullmann-publishings website with more details and previews.

Eventually there will be microsite on the Ullmann-website, where you can download free robots, some of them brand new and never released before!!
update
The microsite on the Ullman-website is live! Get your free robots over there!!!

Check more photos here, on HAKUSAI PROJECTS coverage of #up13 where we officially introduced the book to the public.

Categories
Design Urban papercraft

Kunstsommer Arnsberg

This weekend (11/12 Augustus) I will be at the KunstSommer in Arnsberg, Germany.

Urban Paper 11 & 12 Augustus Kunstsommer Arnsberg

So fans (especially my German fans) if you want to meet me…. or Maarten aka 3eyedbear, Marshall Alexander and Nick Knite (yes, they will also be there).

Besides meeting us in person, seeing our papertoys, there will be an urban paper exhibition with amazing artists like Ryan Hall, ABZ, Merrci, Matt Hawkins, Sal azad and many more!
There will be a workshop, loads of cardboard and colored paper!

Update #1: 3Eyedbear will introduce a brand new model, the Snorfs, so keep coming back to his blog, they will be released right after this show is over.

So if you are in the area of Arnsberg visit us and drink a (German) beer with us! πŸ˜›

Categories
Design Flash

2011 vs 2012

Update #1: I joint a gym to learn how to KickBoxing and Muay Thai! Here is the link to the site: http://www.samuraisports.nl/ (little warning: this website is not a beauty)
Update #2: Brummble the papertoy tribute to ThreeA vinyl: Heavy Bramble is online and ready for downloading: here.

It’s been a while … haven’t posted anything regular in a… year.
That would have been the year 2011: the year I became for the first time a dad.

So here a little update (for the one person who still reads this blog).

2011 and a little bit before that

I had big plans; I wanted to show everybody that my live didn’t change when I got a kid…
Boy…was I mistaken.
Don’t get me wrong: this has been the best year of my live!!
But the things I wanted to do this year, the plans I made… nothing of that happened.
My daughter happened! and everything else followed HER plans.

I wanted to be a part of her live and not only look after her in the weekends.
My girlfriend and I both decided to have a 4 days work week so my daughter only has to goes to the daycare center for 3 days.
The employer I was working for at that time didn’t want me to work 4 days. I tried to use a dutch-law: they said they would take me to court, etc, etc.
I don’t want to make this post about my former employer (if you want to know more about this story, just ask), so I decide that it would be best for the both of us to find another job (1.5 month before my daughter was born…. I know: I’m still bitter about that).
But here is the good news (remember: the best year of my live) I found a great new job at noprotocol.nl!!!
I could work there for 4 days, they are very flexible and an awesome group of talented people.
AND I didn’t miss anything daughter-related stuff, which I can recommend every dad to do: have a day alone with you kid.

So the first 6 month of the year 2011 is mostly about being a dad (boring stuff for people who don’t have kids, nothing to explain to the people who have them).

Professionally (during the day I’m a Flash Designer/Developer) I learned about Robotlegs, AS3-navigator, LoaderMax, etc. Had some interesting talks with the people of “the bigger boat” (group of freelancers). AND I can do the job in 4 days (sometimes with some creative time-management from my employer and myself) which I knew would be possible, but conformation is alway nice.
In the next 6 months of 2011 I started to think about what I wanted. What makes me happy, what is making me happy right now and what will make me happy in the future. I miss the feeling I had when I started to work as a junior designer: wanting to learn EVERYTHING to become a senior. But now I am a senior… what’s next? Do I want to be a programmer for the rest of my live? Questions that are not answered yet.

I’m also a papertoy designer (something I do at night). This year was not a good year for papertoys: I needed my sleep!
I have done 1 exhibition in Amsterdam and I did an exhibit at Sneakerness Amsterdam (also the first time that I sold papertoys).
Both exhibition was done the rest of the dutch papertoy designers (3eyedbear, Marshall Alexander, Dolly Oblong) and one german papertoy designer (Nick Knite).
For these events I made 2 new papertoys, but they will not be downloadable. Nick Knite and myself wanted to organize a papertoy calendar with papertoy designers we both like… sadly I had to cancel that: no time to start/finish it πŸ™
All and all not very productive year.

2012

My live (and this blog) is more than just one specialty. So here a short list:

Flash / Development

This is my job, this is how I make a living… and Flash is Dead! (again). I’m not worried so I will keep learning even more about that subject. But I need more! I have made a small CMS in 4 weeks in PHP (what an ugly language is that!) but that didn’t excited me much.
So I want to learn haXe! I’m quite excited about this language so I will be writing about that soon.
I would love to lead a team… or join a group of flash/geek-superstars (whatever moves me forward)
I want to finish what I have started in 2011:

  • finalize (and improve) my project setup.
  • automate the stuff that I have to do over-and-over-again

Find out how a senior finds his “what’s next”
Start having coffee-meeting with the industry tech-directors/tech-team leaders/etc to answer BIG question
Will be joining the after-work-drink-on-friday with my colleagues more often (once a month)

Urban Papercraft / papertoy

I really have no plans for papertoys: I used to do this to relax, but last year I relaxed by sleeping.
There is still two books I wanted to write…. but I can’t promise that it will be finished this year.
You can always ask me for a workshop or lecture about papertoys: just let me know!

The graffiti inspired papertoys I do will not be downloadable: that will be my art and art can’t be given away πŸ˜€
So what can the fans download? I have created a toy based upon 3A vinyl toy: Brummble. That will be released very soon.
And more perhaps? Not really a plan for that but sometimes I get a tickle and that needs to be scratched… and the product of that scratching (now this metaphor is getting dirty) will be downloadable.
Can you ask me for exhibitions? Yes, please do. I like the idea that my work is art and not only a (paper)-toy.
That is also the reason that I have titled this paragraph “Urban”: urban-art, urban-toy, urban-paper that’s what I will be making.
Can you ask me for a papertoy book? Yes, please do. I have worked on two books with much pleasure and would be honored to asked for another.
Can you ask me for a custom? Yes you can… but time is very precious right now. So your project must be VERY interesting.
I have promised to finish a custom Zealot Guard from Abz, and that is what I will do. Why do this custom? This is a VERY exciting project by a (perhaps the only) female papertoy designer.
There are some plans to visit Germany for some workshops, but other than that I have no idea.
2012 will reveal itself to me as it goes towards 2013 πŸ˜€

Blog

Now I have some energy back in the evening I will be writing again on this blog, but not as often as I did before 2011. I used to write every week. That will change to once a month: a ‘big’ post. The ‘big’ post will be a tutorial or something else that needs more explaining. That will mean that there will be at least 12 more posts. Between these ‘big’ posts there will be some papertoy related images (minimal writing).
I will be writing about haXe, so that will be exciting (for programmers). I think I can be of some help making haXe more accessible for the ‘normal’ programmer.

That is not the only way to follow me: I have a twitter account. here I talk about everything that interests me (design/development/sneakers/games/video/whatever)

Misc

When my daughter was born I quit the gym (it was too expensive). I wanted to find something cheaper… It turned out to be very cheap: I didn’t join a gym but I also didn’t do something else. This year I will be joining a gym…. and to be very specific: I want to try Kickboxing!
Another thing that I will do, or stop doing… Is doing things for free. And that goes also for friends and family; they will pay (not necessarily with money, but for free doesn’t work for me anymore)

I’m looking forward to 2012!

Categories
Design Urban papercraft

Straat Papier Holland Klik – Workshop promo

Something that I have been working on:

Straat Papier Holland Klik – Workshop promo from Matthijs Kamstra on Vimeo.

Maarten Janssens create the “Straat Papier Holland Klik”-logo, and did the stop-motion animation. I did the rest

Maarten Janssens (3EyedBear) and me are going to give a papertoy workshop, totally FREE!!
Here more information about the festival:

THE ABC URBAN ARTS FESTIVAL (read more)


A festival where design and crafts go hand in hand.
Saturday 26th, 2010 from 1pm – 6pm the square in front of The American Book Center (Spui 12, Amsterdam, The Netherlands) will be an outdoor atelier, with artists creating work on-site for the public to enjoy.

Maarten Janssens (3EyedBear.com) and Matthijs Kamstra aka [mck] (MatthijsKamstra.nl) will be given a FREE papertoy workshop at ABC treehouse (Voetboogstraat 11, Amsterdam, The Netherlands).

You can meet, greet and craft with the following Dutch Papertoy Artists:

For further information on the ABC URBAN ARTS FESTIVAL please contact :

Rick Lightstone (lightstone45@zonnet.nl) or Donna DuCarme (treehouse@abc.nl)

More info about the festival:
http://www.abc.nl/blog/?p=14118
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=285334500311&ref=ts
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Urban-Arts-Festival/292157415238?ref=ts

Categories
Custom Design Urban papercraft

NOISSGrunny a MechaBunny custom

A while back Nick Knite asked me to create a custom for his MechaBunny.

I’ve created NOISSGrunny:
NOISSGrunny

But the Mecha6 are made by a all-star papertoy team: Scott Schaller, Shin Tanaka, Tougui, Castleforte, Marshall Alexander and ME.
The Mecha6 have arrived!!

Here the Nick Knite – MechaBunny slideshow on Flickr (including my custom):

Categories
Design Urban papercraft

Urban paper show – Lo Slungg

Saturday August 1st the gallery SUBWALK in Arnhem, the Netherlands opened ‘URBAN PAPER’: book launch + paper toys art show.
And it was awesome!!
If you missed it, you missed something special. (Read more about the show)

I liked it because I got to meet : LOULOU / MARSHALL ALEXANDER / MAARTEN JANSSENS / MATTHIJS KAMSTRA / RINGO KRUMBIEGEL / DOLLY OBLONG en SJORS TRIMBACH.
and a special appearance NICK KNITE.

Nice to meet them all, it was very educational (need to have better business cards and a papertoy which I can sell) and very inspiring. That was what I hoped for: get good energy to create even better stuff.

I had two new paper toys to show:Lo Slungg and NOISSGrumm.

Today I present Lo Slungg

Lo Slungg papertoy
Lo Slungg papertoy

I don’t have a logo for the little fellow yet, no instruction, it’s not finished for the public. So you can’t download it here yet πŸ™ .
But that will happen soon enough, and if you can’t wait: drop a line in the comments and I will send you the file as-it-is. πŸ˜€

My photo’s (flickr-set) about the exhibit in Subwalk can be found here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/matthijskamstra/sets/72157621946708500/
But there are more set to be found:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/funkfood/sets/72157621795665281/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/marshallalexander/sets/72157621830735865/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/3eyedbear/sets/72157621827191065/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sjorstrimbach/sets/72157621946038528/

Categories
Design Urban papercraft

My papertoy got featured in Luna

The latest issue of the German family magazine Luna features some great shots of papertoys by some great papertoy designers and me πŸ™‚

I need to make a photo/scan of the pages I’m in, but for now a image made by Marshall Alexander

There are models and customs by Sal Azad, 3EyedBear, SaltnPaper, JustUs, Nick Knite, Matt Hawkins, Marshall Alexander and me πŸ˜€

Categories
Custom Design Drukk Urban papercraft

Urban papercraft: Marshall Alexander

There are really some great dutch papertoy designers, and Marshall Alexander is one of them!

Limi-Ted

Marshall Alexander is, like me, one of the designers that are invited to contribute to the book made by Matt Hawkins (read more) and proud and active member of Nice Paper Toys!

Marshall is one of the most modest people that I know, but I don’t have to be….
He thought that he needed some practice, so before he launched his own papertoy series (Foldskool heroes) he created a series of custom:
A Hedkase by NiceBunny:
Om mani
A SIZZA by Nick Knite:
Supa-catcha-Sizza1
A Speakerdog by Ben the Illustrator
Bark to the Future Speakerdog

And some of his own papermodels:
toxicmyk
Retrobot

And after that I found his thing: the one piece papertoy…
I like this one very much:projectfatchunk
projectfatchunk
and it’s on a postcard!!!

And then he decided that he had practiced enough: and started with the amazing Foldskool heroes series:
Foldskool series 1
I must confess that I didn’t took the time to download the Foldskool template when Marshall published it…. But when I did, I wanted to create one: the template is really very smartly constructed.

Foldskool series 2

A little quote from Marshall’s site:

… aiming to make money doing what I liked to do best: graphic design and illustration. So currently I work as a graphic designer at a small company in The Netherlands and spend my spare time illustrating my childhood memories and designing papertoys. Enjoy!

I’m glad that I’m created a beautiful Foldskool heroes Batmobile, because his reaction was Nukk:
Marshall did a Drukk-custom, which I really love:
Nukk a Marshall Alexander custom
Nukk is really the bomb.

slideshow










Categories
Custom Design Drukk Urban papercraft

New homepage for Drukk, Selfish Series and Pusher Series

For the more observed reader of my blog might have noticed a extra menu item: Drukk and as the title of this post suggest it’s the new home of Drukk, the Selfish Series and the Pusher Series.

So for my rss readers I have a little image:

New homepage for Drukk, Selfish Series and Pusher Series
New homepage for Drukk, Selfish Series and Pusher Series

On this page you can find two series…. one is the Selfish Series and the other is the Pusher Series.

The Selfish Series is designed by me, and they are created to show you what is possible with Drukk (it’s not only easy to create a custom-skin but also easy to customize!)
The Pusher Series (Designers on Drukks) is a slot-series….
???wtf is that???
Every Pusher Series has 6 slots, when all slots are filled I will start with a new Selfish Series and open the next Pusher Series.

Do you want to participate in Pusher Series 1, this is still possible: get the blank Drukk template and start designing.
Four slots are already filled by other designers: Marko Zubak with Robbox, Marshall Alexander with Nukk, Nick Knite (SIZZA) with Speed racurr and Scott Carrington aka Dr Shazam with Dead Drukk.

But if you’re not that creative this page is also for you! Both series can be download there, so happy building…
πŸ™‚

Categories
Custom Design Urban papercraft

Foldskool Heroes: Batmobile

Marshall Alexander is, like me, one of the designers that are invited to contribute to the book made by Matt Hawkins (read more).

Batmobile Foldskool Promo
Batmobile Foldskool Promo

But why haven’t I written about him before? Well, Marshall didn’t have a blank template to customize!
When I started a forum topic on NicePaperToys about my todo-list Marshall wasn’t even on that list!

But Marshall decided that he had practiced enough and published 3 models in the Foldskool series.
I didn’t have the time to build or customize it at that time, but later I downloaded a template and was amazed at the skills used to create this template (it in one piece). And I needed to create a custom for this beautiful piece of paper-art!!

Perhaps the correct order would be, to first write something about Marshall, and then post the custom that I did, but what the heck. I have created a Foldskool Hero: and my Foldskool hero is the Batmobile. And customizing is more fun when you can do something extra with the model…

Batmobile Foldskool Heroes
Batmobile Foldskool Heroes

I have modified the model a little and added some extra parts…. You still can make the model in one piece, but then the tires are very slim πŸ™‚

(Marshall had no objections with putting a download link on my page, and I’m a sucker for statistics πŸ™‚ )
(The .ZIP file (use freeware like FilZip or 7zip to extract a >ZIP) contains a .PDF (which you can read with Acrobat or Foxit ))

The artist series is small, but with some great designers:

“Cenobox Pin Cushion” created by Jason Harlan
and

“Yebomaycu” created by Marko Zubak
and me:

Batmobile Foldskool Promo
Batmobile Foldskool Promo

Stay up-to-date, and visit Marshall Alexanders Foldskool Heroes customs page

Hope you like the design: don’t like it, leave a comment, like it, leave a comment …