Life In A Bungalo

Yesterday, the artist known as motorbot posted a picture of this custom Kaws designed to look like Mickey Mouse. I’ve seen a ton of his work around the Web, including a fantastic ham-shaped Labbit, but this boggled my mine. It wasn’t that the work was shocking (though it is pretty awesome)–what made me ponder it for quite a while was how much of a difference just a few simple changes can make to an existing figure. I was also surprised that the artist chose to use such a sought after, expensive toy. In the end, the custom piece is priceless, but it is still something to think about. Life In A Bungalo grabbed motorbot from his busy schedule to talk to him about his perception of lowbrow art and how he went about developing his own style.

Much of your platform work involves subtle color changes that draw out a hidden beauty in a piece, such as the Kaws. Is that why you do it, and do you get any heat from vinyl fans angered that you are changing an established piece of art?

The two first companions, the blue and the pink, were commissioned pieces that I did for a private collector. He wanted something unique and the two of us went back and forth until we found the right color combinations. The Mickey companion was actually my suggestion and he was more than happy to supply the companion for it.

I think because of these customs I am venturing into some more non-character based customs. I like the idea of making what are essentially new color variants of established toys. Right now I am working on a mars-1 recon and observer that I am treating more like limited edition colorways. Both pieces are beautiful even without paint and they just don’t need a lot of stuff slapped on them. A nice clean coat of paint with some key details is all you need.

I actually haven’t received any flack thus far for defacing such sacred pieces. I’m really quite surprised because I know how strongly some fans feel about these toys. I guess I’m doing the pieces enough justice to avoid persecution.

Your fascination with pop culture is evident in pieces such as Hellboy and SAM. How do you visualize an existing character in a piece of vinyl that looks little like the original character?

It’s hard to explain the process of visualizing some of the character pieces. I’m a comic book dork and the maxx and hellboy are two all-time favorites that I had to recreate. The mad*l is such a nice little canvas that both characters translated very easily. I drew up plans for a full set of mad*ls that maybe one day I will get around to.

The character pieces are probably some of the easiest ones to make. All you are doing is translating the character. It’s all a matter of tweaking as opposed to creating from scratch.

Since college I’ve been drawn to more primitive materials like wood and cardboard. I played around a lot with making robots out of laminated cardboard sheets, which eventually led to making a 3 ft tall, fully articulated robot out of wood. Even though I had moved away from it after graduation, those tendencies would surface occasionally, and when I got a mad*l in my hand, I knew I had to make a wood version.

The wood grain can be tedious, but it is also therapeutic. With each piece I keep refining the process in the hopes of achieving a more realistic look. The wood grain is what led to the meat themed pieces I have done. There are similarities in the grain of the wood and the strands of fat and connective tissue that run through meat. Perhaps one day the two will meld and I’ll create some kind of weird meat wood. Time will tell

You are also an illustrator. Can you talk a bit about working in a medium other than toys? How did you get into it? Do you do you illustrations on computer or with inks?

I am a very informally trained illustrator. I am actually a classically trained painter. Most all of my illustrative sensibilities were drawn from comics books, namely from the work of Bill Sienkiewicz and Ashley Wood. I have no true style because my interests are constantly changing. This tends to cause problems because I will get bored with a style in the middle of a piece and never finish it.

My techniques are mostly self-taught and rather inefficient. The general process is that I will draw out the various parts of an illustration, scan them and then mess around with them in photoshop. Sometimes I end up with something good, sometimes I don’t. I’m trying to force myself back into pen and ink work. I have some odd little characters that I’d like to develop into a series of illustrations, and maybe one day into a little comic or graphic novel.

I’m trying to teach myself illustrator too. We’ll see how that works out.

Finally, what do you think of the current low brow art/vinyl movement and where do you see it heading?

I’m pretty new to the scene. I only discovered this little world about 18 months ago so I don’t have the biggest insight into things. I do think there is a movement towards custom pieces though. I know with each month get more an more requests for pieces. The movement/scene or whatever is definitely growing and I know some are fearful of it getting too big and becoming overrun with people trying to cash in on the craze. But I think there is a strong enough base of true collectors that can support the quality work through any tidal wave of trendiness.

Well I hope some of this made sense or maybe gave some insight into my world. I just like making stuff. It’s all I’m really good at and I’m just thankful that I’ve finally made something that people actually like. I appreciate all the support from everyone in the world of vinyl. There are a lot of really stand up people.