heysoupface

This short video is one of the last things I made in 2020. For the music, I used a song entitled "Further Discovery" by an artist named Blear Moon; the song itself is actually what sparked the idea of a little traveller travelling someplace. I made the video is a hurry, but it turned out well enough that I don't feel too embarrased to share it on the world wide web! Let me know what you think after you've watched it, okay? The Nomad from Douglas Gauthier on Vimeo .

While I'm posting pictures of the making of things, it's only fair that I post some Capsule Castaways work-in-progress pics. These are all from the first series of Capsule Castaways which I made in the summer of 2019. For this toy series, I tried to do as little shaping of the wood pieces as possible and instead attempted to "figure out" what the tiny bits already were (people, cars, houses, etc). It felt almost like doodling with wood, if that makes sense? I was only able to make these the way that I did, because I had kept all of the little cast-off bits leftover from previous wood toys. A couple of the finished pieces were too good to let go, so my wife and I each decided to kept our favorites. I kept this orange one below and she kept the purple bookworm underneath it. But the rest were up for grabs and there wasn't really a stinker in the bunch (but I might not be entirely objective in this matter). Looking back through these pictures, I'm getting a creat...

Lump Body! These clay figurines were heavily influenced by my love of The Gumby Show - especially the first season (from 1956) which is my favorite. I used to make stop motion videos and these little dudes could've been perfect plasticine puppets...if only I hadn't baked them to be hard as rocks. When I sold these at fests, people would always *poke* them to find out if they were squishy (nope - rock hard, sorry?). See here! I had the foresight to take some pictures of the process. How nifty. Once they were painted and varnished, I bagged them up with mini handdrawn header cards. I would've preferred to print the cards, but my doggone printer crapped out on me just as I was starting this project... Now that I think about it, my printer breaking down was just one of many less-than-ideal events that sandwiched the making of these lumpy bodies. From months of moldy apartment walls to a temporary sojourn in an Air BnB where I caught a nasty case of vertigo (long story) and then...

It's been nearly a decade since I regularly posted here, so I thought to myself, "Why not catch up on a few more things that have happened in between?" Like the very first series of wood toys I made a few years back (2018 to be precise). Those little buddies at the top of the post were called Friendly Friends. There were six variants in total (go and count them, I'll wait), and all of them had cute shape-y heads that swiveled on their little bodies. Friendly Friends came bagged with a tiny comic zine imbedded into the header card. There were instructions on the back of the header to "cut along the dotted line" which would reveal the zine underneath. Can you imagine? I had completely forgotten about doing that sneaky zine header card until looking back at these pics. Neat. These two purple babies below were my favorite of the bunch (because purple is my favorite color, you see). And the little triangle-y headed one was far and away the best out of all of them...

This blog used to be all about "plush this" and "plush that." Well, not anymore, chum! These days I'm strictly a tiny toy man, and I can assure you that I come by my love of the small stuff honestly. In fact, my earliest childhood memories are of visiting the neighborhood toy store to pick out Starcom and Air Raiders mini-figures. Even now, as a fully-grown adult person, I frequently dream about finding tiny toys. Those are my favorite dreams until I wake up to the disappointment of NOTHING. :'-r Uhh, segue... Did you know that my wood toys are heavily influenced by the old wooden Erzgebirge-style Christmas ornaments I grew up with? (That would be pretty spooky if you did already know that.) The very first wood toy I made was supposed to become a Christmas ornament itself, but I liked the darn thing so much as a standalone figurine that I kept it that way. See! It's got a cute little gold hat and everything.   Back in the pre-2020 year of 2019, I started...

Being "trapped" inside my apartment for nearly a year has got me pining for things I never cared to revisit before now. Case in point - this blog! I thought I had moved from this place for good, but using tumblr  was never my cup of tea and  instagram  feels increasingly like a pale shadow of its former self. So, umm, maybe I'll start blogging again...at least until the outside world returns, you know? We'll see what happens! ;-y

In case you were wondering, I've moved my tuckus to Tumblr:  http://heysoupface.tumblr.com/

Do something good for once in your life and head over to Q Pop before November 30th to check out the TOKUSATSU 2 art show. You won't be disappointed with what you see there. How do I know this? Because I was at the opening last night and saw the art with my very own eyes. It is all magnificent. But don't just take my word for it! Look at the Guiron plush I made especial for the show. Then go see it and the rest of the art for yourself in person!

Halloween. Can you dig it? I surely can. Eating candy! Watching horror movies! Playing dress up! All of these things are good. However, most years my Halloween costumes are so bad I could blush. Why does this happen? One reason is my extreme aversion to buying articles of clothing that I'll have no use for beyond Halloween. I'm too darned practical. The other reason is my remarkable inability to think of costume ideas. I'm a creative man, but when I sit myself down to brainstorm costumes I almost always come up with zilch. So this year I asked the roommate to throw some ideas at me and against all odds, he suggested Mr. Rogers. "That is who I'll be!" thought me. Yet the next day I couldn't get the notion of dressing up as Charles Bronson out of my head. Oh, have I mention my all abiding love for Charles Bronson and the intense longing I have to dress up as him for Halloween (or all the time)? Well, I mentioned it to my roommate, but told him I couldn...

You knew this day would come, didn't you? The day when I would post pictures of the art show that I had pieces in just the night before... Well, the day you knew would come is come and the pictures you knew I'd post have posted. Look at them!! Oh, before I forget! If you didn't make it to the FUWA FUWA opening reception at Q Pop -- don't fret! The show will be up until July 28th. Go there to look at and buy some art!