Pimp My Batmobile!

Archive for July, 2008

Back from “vacation” though this was one of those trips that pushed the term’s definition a bit. Nice place (Deep Creek Maryland) and some fun but not a ton of relaxation. I did enjoy being initiated to Disc Golf and am now a sore elbow-sporting fan. (don’t call it Frolf) And my sister and her boyfriend just announced their engagement so that was fun too. But now I’m home and dealing with orders and painting and now we are on full-tilt boogie alert to get our act together for our first (and most likely last and only) public appearance at this year’s Screaming Tiki Con!

 I stopped doing cons almost 10 years ago but with the stellar cast from the Batman show coming and this being Yvonne Craig’s ONLY appearance this year,  and the show only being about 1.5 hours away from my home, and with us having a ton of stuff to show, sell, display – We thought – Why not!? It will be a chance to finally put some faces with names that we’ve only talked to online for years. This promises to be the coolest con in the MidWest and certainly will be our ONLY physical appearance for some time. 

We hope to have some really cool items to sell, perhaps some giveaways and definitely several TIKI-ONLY items are in the works if we can get it all done in a few short months. Look here for updates and we hope to see you at the show. Tim Meyer from TPM Customs and I will be manning the booth. Stop by!

 That reference never gets old. Well it’s a good news, bad news world I live in some days.

The good news is that the most of the seated figure sets have now arrived.
The bad news is I am leaving for a week tomorrow.

So yes, I will be up all night checking, packaging, packing and postag-ing as many as I can before we leave. But I probably won’t get them all out in time. I will be working oldes to newest order-wise, so if you placed your order back in April – you’ll probably get yours first. Any that I don’t get to tonight will be sent out after the 28th. You will probably get a ship notice from your PayPal account.

The other news is that we won’t be producing any more of these figure sets. There may be other figures on the horizon, but these are done and done.

-S

UPDATE: The ones going out right away that I am referring to are the unfinished ones. The painted ones will be a while yet, obviously.

I have long been an admirer of artist Jim Hopkins’ work. Jim is an illustrator living in New Jersey and in addition to traditional illustration techniques, he has developed something he calls “3D Art” that I think is really amazing. I first saw his ‘66 bat-themed work many years ago and was blown away by the process. It is very hard to describe in text or over the internet. It has to be seen in person to be fully appreciated. But here’s Jim’s description:

 ”I always wanted to be an animator and was fascinated by the multi-plane cameras created by Disney Studios and how animators used it to create a 3d effect in animation movies. My art has the same basic principle. each illustration is cut out by hand with an exacto knife then all the whited edges from the cuts are hand painted to match the illustration. each illustration is accompanied by one to two sheets of glass, sometimes I will have to paint portions of the illustration right on the glass. For example if I do a Read the rest of this entry »

Well I had 4 days there with virtually no internet except my new iphone and as cool as it is, I can’t really process orders with it easily. :) So I’ll be getting as many orders out as possible in the next 2 days. If you’re waiting on something that’s not figures – hang tight. Thanks to Tim for helping me get back online and no thanks to Verizon because their international call center truly sucks. Anyway, a brand new computer later (when it was the modem) and huge destruction in my office/studio and we’re semi-back up.

Figures – as mentioned previously, we got in a first small order of figures from the caster and are starting to assemble and paint them for those orders first. The next run is due soon and we will get them all out as soon as they come in.

As we’ve said all along – this was the first time we worked with an outside production company and we won’t make the mistake of taking preorders again. I will refund anyone who is sick of waiting. Otherwise – I have to keep saying hang on, we’re working on them.

I’ll be out of town from 7/20 – 7/27 so nothing will be going out that week.

-S

 Thanks to our good friend Brett we got these pics of the Batgirl boxed Promo from the San Diego Comic Con. Looks nice! (more pics on our message board)