Scott Tolleson x Erick Scarecrow Papa Sama Akuma

    This is an overload of cuteness.  Seriously, my head may explode and my wife will come home to find bits of my skull and brain strewn about the room.  She's gonna be mad because this is the room where we keep our best stuff since one of our cats has an issue with eating everything in sight.  We lock our shoes in here every night so he doesn't eat the laces.  Just about anything we think he may decide to inject we keep stored in here, so a lot will get damaged if my head does in fact explode.  I'm gonna walk away for a few minutes just to let things calm down.

    Ok, crisis averted.  Scott Tolleson and Erick Scarecrow have joined forces to create this unholy demon of adorableness.  This is Papa Sama Akuma, all decked out in his little argyle sweater and his little tooth sticking out.  Only 17 of these hand painted resin figures will be available tomorrow at http://esctoy.limitedrun.com/ so get up early if you want one.  I'm going to go and watch a snuff film now to counteract the cuteness.  

Jason Chalker x Outsmart Originals Tee Shirt

    Boba Fett is such a mysterious character.  We know he likes money, and get a kick out of turning people into fancy wall hangings.  But who new he was also into hot rod culture?  Outsmart Originals continues their popular line of toy artist t-shirts with this one from Jason Chalker.  He gives everyone's favorite bounty hunter the Rat Fink treatment on this limited edition tee and as a bonus, everyone who buys one will be entered for a chance to win the original art used to make the shirt!

Bait Exclusive Strife and Sire from Nathan Hamill

    Nathan Hamill is barely giving us time to recover from holiday spending before dropping this on us.  I forgive him though, because anger just leads to indigestion and who needs that.  This is the "Fire and Ice" edition of his Strife and Sire figures and they are an exclusive to BAIT (which is a store in California  in case you were wondering).  Only 100 of these dudes were made in this color scheme and you can get one on the 19th when Nathan will be there signing them from 5-7pm.  Each one comes with the mini print seen below, so now you can finally get rid of that Bob Marley poster and hang some real art on the wall.  

Elvis Flash Drives from Mimobot

    While visiting my family in Virginia a few years back, my wife and I stopped at a junk store that looked promising.  We looked around the store, finding nothing of real interest, until we made our way to the very back.  And there on the wall was housed the largest collection of velvet Elvis paintings I had ever seen in my life.  It was a fuzzy documentation of his entire career.  I had to have them all, so I literally ran to the clerk with credit card in hand and asked how much they would be.  Then she said something that has haunted my sleep to this day.

"Those aren't for sale."

    But they're in a store, a store where you sell goods to people such as myself so they can decorate their houses in ways that would bring shame to their parents.  No matter what I said she wouldn't budge.  So I burned the store down with her in it.  Just kidding, I was moody for a bit then I forgot about it.  Now the pain has returned.

    You wanna know the next best thing to a velvet Elvis?  An Elvis Mimobot!  The King is ready to remember all your important stuff, like how to make fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches.  Plus you get neat stuff for your computer to fancy it up, so you can finally get rid of that unicorn wallpaper you keep "forgetting" to change.   They're available now!

Custom Toy of the Week: Jon-Paul Kaiser

    Jon-Paul Kaiser could have his own weekly column here.  Everything that he makes is amazing and deserves ample recognition, but I would have to quite my job just to keep up with it all.  

    This guy was made using a 3 inch Dunny and a very teeny tiny teddy bear zipper pull.  This was based on the "Lone Wolf and Cub" story of an executioner who was falsely accused of killing the leader of a Japanese clan.  He then finds his own family (all except his newborn son) slaughtered as revenge.  Well, he's not just gonna stand for that, so he has some revenge of his own to bring to fruition.  This is quite the creative interpretation of the tale in 3d form.  

Help Mighty Jaxx Grow

    Anyone that begins a creative endeavor wants nothing more than for it to reach as many people as possible.  Whether you're writing a book or making a toy, you have to find a way to reach whomever your core audience is and then hope that it branches out from there.  Mighty Jaxx have released some pretty ambitious and very creative toys in the small amount of time they have been a company and now they need your help to allow them to get bigger and dominate the world!!!  Or something.

    They've started a Kickstarer-like campaign on their website to help raise money to move to a larger facility.  By backing them in various amounts you get various rewards; from t-shirts and stickers to toys and even a trip to visit them in Asia.  

    Starting at $55 you can get that maniacal Hug the Killer figure you see up there.  I don't feel alice would have sought the help of a caterpillar such as that, but he would look good on your toy shelf.  

    For $200 you could snag yourself one of these glow-in-the-dark Bad Apple figures.  Only 30 of these will ever be made and they're exclusive to this fundraiser.  

    I really like these guys, especially since their toys lean much more towards art than something you would have played with in your sand box as a kid.  This Snow White figure is one of the most amazing things I've seen in quite awhile and I could picture this being part of a museum's collection.  Help these guys out by going to http://mightyjaxx.com/.

Toy Giants Show at Toy Art Gallery

    When I first started collecting designer toys I limited myself to small, inexpensive blind box releases.  As the years have passed my threshold for spending money on figures I've wanted has grown.  First I would buy something for $20, then I felt more comfortable spending $40.  Now just about everything I want comes close to the $100 mark and beyond, which is not something that excites my credit rating.  But the more money you spend the bigger the figures get, which is a huge bonus.  Just when I thought my toys couldn't possibly take up anymore room in the house, Toy Art Gallery went crazy and created these.

    Starting January 12th you can visit them in Los Angeles for their Toy Giants show featuring lifesize figures made out of fiber glass.  These things are huge and I want them all pretty badly.  They'll have work from Paul Kaiju, David Flores, Nathan Hamill, and a bunch of other artists.  These guys will set you back a few grand if you wanted to bring one home, hence the reason I don't have one.  I have not quite hit that comfort level of spending.