Just A Dream

Mess'n

2008-05-21T10:04:00.000-07:00

I am working on updating and actually building the web site for The Bedtime Monsters and have been mess'n around with photoshop trying to get different styles of images. I like the look of old poloroids so I have been trying to make that look. I think it is just better to get an old camera and do it right. But sad news is that photoshop will be the only way in the future cause poloroid is not making film anymore. Sad.

Welcom(e) Baby Liam!

2008-05-01T12:17:00.001-07:00

On April 26 at 3:14pm we welcome baby Liam! We are so excited to add another member to our growing family.

Even Niro is excited

Temporary SIte.

2008-04-21T09:27:00.000-07:00

So I have been working on getting thebetimemonster.com site up. I have had the domain name since 2006 so it has only taken 2 years to get to this point.?... It is not there yet but thanks to the help of my good buddy Jon it is well on it's way. Be sure to check back often as I will try and add new features (as I learn HTML) The "go live" date of July 1st is my plan to be when it is fully functional and up to date. So excited!

The Flakes Keep Falling.

2008-03-28T09:20:00.000-07:00

I have been keeping super busy as of late with ideas and sketching and just revamping the bedtime monsters. Here is a few of what I have been doing.

Prep for a felt applique.
All cut out and ready to apply.
Final all pressed and attached to the hoodie. Yea Niro on the left chest!

Started to paint a few canvases the other day.
Up top a final sketch for a banner logo all inked and ready to be scanned into the computer for final touch.
Also started to prep a pair of Vans for a bedtime monster touch.

I will update when things are compleated.

My 29th On The 22nd.

2008-03-27T16:02:00.001-07:00

I recently made it to my 29th year of life (thanks Mum and Dad) It happened to fall on Saturday this year so I had to make the best of it for sure.

I got to sleep in and get woken up by Aiden and fresh strawberry french toast and ham and eggs.
Then a little gift opening. So stoked on the gifts that Meg suprized me with.
I got two table tennis training manuals to help out in learning better skills. and an amazing rotary tool from Olfa that cuts perfect circles. (side note: Meg really had to search to find this, thanks love)
Most of the day I spent working on an appliqué for one of my hoodies that I have. (I'll post about that later)
At around 5:30 or so I had planned to go up to LA to visit on of my fave shops and check on an art / studio opening and realized that we should go to my favorite restaurant ever, C&O's, up in Venice. They have 2 locations on the same street but we have never been to the newer location so we decided to try it cause the original location is always super busy. SO stoked, we called at 6 for a reservation for the 2 of us plus the little one and we got one for 6:30 so when we got there we just walked right in to our seat. And of course I got the regular for me, Penne al Fumo
Smoked Mozzarella, Cream, Fresh Roma Tomato, Sweet Basil and Roasted Eggplant with artichoke harts, chicken, and asparagus as an add on for me. So Good!!

It only took us 45min at C&O's so we still had a good hour to go up to my favorite shop, Giant Robot, before they closed for the night.
On our way to Giant Robot we had to drive by our old appartment building in LA... THat was some good times there. I miss LA sometimes. *sigh*

After GR we worked our way home via the 10 freeway and stopped off down town LA to check out sum art.
Poketo was having an art / studio opening at their new digs. It was a nice place and a good end to a really great day. Thanks Meg for the support and love.

Too Much Fun

2008-03-26T09:39:00.000-07:00

Don't ask me how I fall into things on the net but this is awesome! BusSelecta.com is a web site that lets you do layouts of classic VW's and Porsche's. Select what model you what to work on and then with drop down menues you mock up the look you want. Color, wheels, bumpers and even how low you want to drop the suspension. After all is said and done print it out and paste it to your fridge... What a great way to pass the time... at work. Have fun.

On Point.

2008-03-24T17:50:00.000-07:00

So just stumbled onto Noferin... From what I can gather they are a couple out in AZ (Australia)
that make good art and wooded toys of their characters. The wooden toys are awesome! They are hand made and hand painted and are true works of art.
Check them out. Also look at their flickr site as well lots of behind the making stuff.

Scratch Scratch.

2008-03-18T09:50:00.000-07:00

I am scratching and scratching... Hopefully something will come of it........

More Inspo.

2008-03-05T11:06:00.000-08:00

Today I thought I would share a few illustrators that I like. I will not go into detail just share a few of their work and a link to their web sites and let you do more research on them if you like. I know not very descriptive just, I see, I like and now I share. No deep thoughts on how I feel or whatever. So enjoy.

Nate Willams. and here is a podcast with him if you like.

Sara Fanelli

Seonna Hong

Shag

Gery Taxali

Well that is just a few I have way to many to list that I like... SO go and look them up and then go make something on your own and be a creative!

Such Color.

2008-02-28T10:18:00.000-08:00

While Playing around on the ol' Net I was introduced to Matte Stephens. His style and work is amazing. I love his choice of color. Color is not one of my strong points but something I hope to work on developing. I am really drawn to muddy earthy tones and hues. I think that is why I like Margaret so much as well.

If you are interested there is a podcast with him on Creative Thursday.
Also if you want to own some of Mattes work you can get it here.

Sneek a Peek.

2008-02-27T23:54:00.001-08:00

Starting to throw down some paint on a few canvases that we have had unfinished since 2005.
Soon Niro and Sami will be on the wall.

Also plan to tweak the Bedtime Monsters plush pattern having been away from it for... wow almost a year!... Anyway I feel that they can be better, we shall see.

2008-02-20T15:13:00.001-08:00

Must See

2008-02-20T11:34:00.000-08:00

This film looks so good I can not wait to see it!

I also plan to get the Manga maybe for the ol B-Day coming up?
All this is done by Taiyo Matsumoto.

Also a little of this if you want to check it.

In The Works.

2008-02-19T14:39:00.000-08:00

Since TraMma Built LLC. is my little playground of ideas and productions I thought I would share an idea that I just started to play with. No names or title yet. It has to do with my new sporting love of table tennis in a round about kind of way. Think battling and sword fights but with table tennis. Think anime action and story line.....ok bye.

Bizar Moving Picture.

2008-02-09T20:37:00.000-08:00

Been searching around while up in Washington for ideas for sum stuff I got brewing in the old noggin and came accross this Anime that is both amazing and disturbing, also very well made.
Please enjoy this from Koji Yamamura. He got an Oscar nomination for this short. It is all in Japanese so if you do not know japanese well just enjoy the images and sound, particularly the images....

Here is another short for your viewing plesure by Koji Yamamura

And now something that just looks good and action packed, Sword of the Stranger...

A Sketch.

2008-02-08T15:03:00.000-08:00

It has been a long time since I have drawn Niro, Hana, and Sami. It feels kind of weired coming back to them after haveing not played around with them and even drawn them for ages.

But like riding a bike a little rusty at first but still got it. Now to make something of it.

So Long Away.

2008-02-05T13:43:00.000-08:00

Well a lot has been going on since my last post. A lot but nothing to do with the BedTime Monsters. I have a little boy now and another on it's way in a few short months.

BTM is still on the back burner but will soon move up to the front in the next while as I begin to work with my brother in building it and the brand. So keep watching for future updates.

Tys.

Still at it.... just slow

2006-09-01T14:19:00.000-07:00

So we have moved into a new place that is much bigger than the last place. We have made the large master bedroom as our studio space so now we have more space to make a bigger mess.

It has been a while since we have done anything with the bedtime monsters. It has been hard to get back into doing them cause of the move and loosing all of the work that I have done on them over the last year when the disk went blank. So today I have sat down and started to work on a few niro's. They will have the actual labels on them so they will be the actual final product.

With in the next few weeks I want to get our web site up with picures of the kids and a few shots of the shirts that we have printed. Like to start selling them as well and see if there is any interest at all from the general public. Build 10 of each of the kids, sell em and build 10 more when we get down to 5 left. The nice thing with the plush is that it is only 1 size and 1 pattern unlike clothing were you have to do gradeing on each pattern for each size.

Well back to work.

Oh Bother!

2006-06-19T11:15:00.000-07:00

So the other day as I was working on setting up a hang tag for our goods I got some strange error message. I thought nothing of it and went about my work but when I go to put my disk with all of the work I have done over the past few months back into the computer..... It was all blank!
I lost everything I have done for BTM! Every thing! I have never had that happen before, were a disk erases its self.... Oh well, now I get to redo everything and maybe even try to make it better. Though it is never the same. Maybe I will make a few new things instead. It is hard to get back into doing the work when things like this happen. So now I have to find the motivation to get back on it.

On another note, all of the label info has been turned into the manufacture and now I am just waiting to get that back. Once we have the labels we can start finishing some of the kids that Meg. has cut out. All we are doing is waiting for the labels. Oh ya, and we can sew the labels into the tee shirt samples that we have as well.

Photo shoot

2006-06-06T12:06:00.000-07:00

So it has been a while since I have updated this blog. But a lot has happened!
Lets see, we got our first tee shirts back from the printers.

On May 13th we did a small little photo shoot with my best friend Jon Glover, who is an awesome foto taker and maker! He has been my foto friend for a long time and he keeps getting better all the time.
here are a few more pics from the shoot.
Niro and Samy play'n around

All of the kids pose'n for a shot.
We set up our web site, well we at least registered it and have a "coming soon" page up. (thank you Jon again for that) http://www.thebedtimemonsters.com
We also found ourselves a label maker and are getting our labels made for the dolls and the tee shirts.
Megan has also started sewing a bunch of the Niro monsters so we have a few on hand.

Ok well it doesn't sound like that much but until you start and do your own thing then you may never realize how much effort and time can go into even the smallest things, especially when you have a full time job that takes the bulk of your daylight hours.
I have Just started to put together our catalog and main pages for our web site. The plan is to have it all done by the end of June so we can go out and start showing to shops and start getting some orders and interest going. Well back to work.

Keep Pushing

2006-05-11T22:37:00.000-07:00

I Have been very busy the last few days, or is it weeks?... I do not know. I want to update right after I get something done but next thing I know it is 2-3 weeks later. Anyway, I have been working on painting a canvas as well as painting on a hat. I think they both turned out kinda nice.

A few weeks ago my friend Tomoko san came by the apartment to say "hi".
She is a former LDS sister missionary who was serving in LA. She is originally from Tokyo Japan and is now studying at BYU. Some of her friends came with her, Naoto san and Yayoi san. They are very cool people I am so glad that I was able to meet them

I had the chance to show them some of the things we have been working on and they seamed to like it very much. I really like meeting new people and making new friends.

My Best friend from Utah, Jon, is coming into town tomorrow for the weekend. He is bringing along his girlfriend, Bekah, so I am said we have to go out to Disney Land for the day. He is coming out to set up and shoot some fotos for our web site and product catalog. Jon is a really great foto kid. He did all of our fotos for our wedding and engagement. Jon and I have done a lot of fun foto shoots just wandering around town and trying to shoot from deferent angles. I love getting together with Jon cause when we are around each other we just start getting all creative and start coming up with crazy ideas and building off each others ideas. I miss doing that on a more regular basis. Check out some of his car pics. http://www.autoperspective.com
I think we are going to go to the beach for one of the days and I want to do some "sand bombing". Sand bombing is a new idea that I came up with today were you go and do graphite but instead of paint and wall you build sand letters, like a sand castle, but with letter shapes. I don't know how it will turn out but I think it will be fun to try. I will post some pics if the idea works.
I am also excited for this weekend cause we should be getting our first printed tee shirts. This is going to be a busy and fun weekend.

Oil werx

2006-05-01T17:27:00.000-07:00

I was cruising around the web today checking out spots and found a link thru fecal face for new works by Kim Cogan. Man his stuff is so nice and fresh. I love the cityscapes and how raw and almost unfinished the painting looks. I am adding his link to my art stuff. http://www.kimcogan.com

I have always wanted to paint cityscapes. I think it would be fun. I guess like anything I just need to get out and do it. But I have so many other things I want to do or need to do that, well, I guess it is not so much of a priority.

Today I have a new attitude towards work, I just need to go with the flow and not fret over how much or how little creative control I have. The fact is I can do what ever creative thing I want on my own time and this job is allowing me the time (not a whole lot) and funds to be able to build my own dreams and ideas. I do have it good and at times I forget or get caught up in all of my silly little wants that I loose site of the fact that I am a clothing designer for a major company and how I get paid to draw pictures and shop and travel. So I made a list of all the things that I want and that I have in my life. It showed me that I am living the lifestyle that I want even if it is not exactly how I thought it would / should be. I want a studio space, I have one in my 2nd bedroom. I want a garden, we are starting one at our friends back yard, etc. etc.. So sometime it really helps to just step back and look at your life and list all the things that you have in your life and you might just realize how much you really have and how close to being who you want to be you are. "Count your many blessings name them one by one"...

The dream is starting...

2006-04-28T13:56:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I picked up or first order of tees from Alstyle!

Today, we just got back from dropping off our tees so they can be printed.
I am so stoked! It is starting!

I have been talking of doing something for a long time but talk is so nice and comfortable cause it is all in your head and safe cause their is no one to tell you "this is wrong" or "you should do it this way". Also in your head or on paper it can't fail. So it is easy to just "talk" but there comes a point when talk is stale and old and you look around at your life and realize all you have is notebooks full of ideas and suffocation of spoken words filling up all of your empty space. I have begun to feel that in my own life. I mean I am very fortunate to have what I have in my life, especially my job and the blessings that it provides for me and my wife and our fish.

But it is the job that is sucking my creativity and happiness away cause I am designing and creating someone else's vision and ideas and having to do what they say even if I think it is not right, or even a little too "like everyone else".
I have been reading a lot of keri smith's blog and articles that she has written and they just get me so excited to go out and chase and live the dreams that I have.
(www.kerismith.com)
So now it has begun and I hope to share with who ever is out there my process of developing and building my dream and seeing it become a reality.

Let it begin.

2006-04-25T14:46:00.000-07:00

I have put it off long enough I have been talking of doing my own blog for some time now and well I think it is time to start.
I am doing this more for a place to throw out ideas and see how it looks from a different view than in my own note book.
So here we go.....