Stripey Legged Forest Dweller is my piece for the Dudebox launch party at Village Underground, London on May 10th. He began life as a blank white 7.5″ dude, i sculpted his face, antlers, hands and feet from scratch using Fimo. I added extra long legs and poseable plush arms. His body is covered in a multi-tone faux fur and trrimmed to give a textured look.
Stripey Legged Forest Dweller is £180 and available to purchase through Dudebox – hello@dudebox.com
WIP shot – making his legs
On display at the event
Ahead of this coming Thursdays Meet The Artists Session, Fugi.me have produced a 64 page, full color book for the Heavy Metal Qee show. Myself and the other 30 artist’s customs will get a two-page spread in the book, alongside information about the custom and the artist. The book is £14.99 and can be purchased in the Fugi.me shop or in-person at the event. Most of the artists, including myself, will be on-hand to sign & doodle in copies.
Heavy Metal Qee opens April 12th and runs through April 19th at Forbidden Planet, 179 Shaftesbury Ave, London, WC2H 8JR. The Heavy Metal Qee Meet The Artist Session will be from 6pm – 8pm on Thursday the 19th of April. Hope to see you there!
There are 30 artists involved including: Jon-Paul Kaiser, Matt JOnes, Jim Freckingham, Fark FK, DMS, A Little Stranger, Lisa Rae Hansen, Michael Harrism, Zro, RunDMB, Chris Morris, Fadeworks, Sneaky Raccoon, Lunabee, Penny Taylor, Adam Lister, Hoakser, Alto, Mimic, Zukaty, Fordybo, Amigurumi Island, Tesselate, Jack Wade, Flatties, Mark Treharne, Rhys Inkbotz Brown, PJ Constable, Planet Domu, and Lex Luthor.
Pictures of my custom for the show are here. Visit the Heavy Metal Qee site, here.
‘Fly Me to the Moon’ started life as a blank Bellicose Bunny. I started by separating bunny from her rocket, painting the rocket with acrylic paint and sealing with a heavy gloss lacquer. I then sculpted her face and hands in sculpey, and sewed her a full, faux fur, fluffy bunny costume complete with fluffy bunny tail. Finally i added a pair of little goggles which i made from scratch using found items and orange vinyl, reconnected her to her rocket, and she’s ready for take off!
‘Fly Me to the Moon’ is part of Bellicosity and will be on display at TAG gallery, LA March 3-18. Opening reception 7-11pm. TAG, 7571 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles CA 90046, Get directions.
Some work in progress shots… (I post these on Instagram follow me: ALittleStranger)
A Little Stranger / The Tarantulas / Real x Head / Onell Design presents: Niblette. Ok, so he’s a GID Nibbler in a hot pink hoodie, but as the pretty counterpart to the SDCC release i thought he needed a pretty name 
These Nibblers are really, REALLY, GID and glow like crazy in the dark or under blacklight.
Each GID Nibbler comes with a hot pink hood and specially designed header cards. Vinyl Made in Japan by Real x Head. Cloak Made in UK by A Little Stranger.
They go on sale in the A Little Stranger Shop Wednesday February 1st at 8pm London time (15:00 Eastern, 12:00 Pacific time. if you are unsure what time this is in your country use this time convertor.)
Urban Vinyl Daily have kindly made me featured artist of the month, thank you Ben for the great interview questions! Head on over now to read about how i got into the toy biz, upcoming plans for Cavey, my influences, customs and more…
Christmas Eve at midnight marked the secret release of the Dune Sea II Nibblers over on The Tarantulas webshop. This figure was a a collab between Onell Design x Real x Head x A Little Stranger x The Tarantulas. Vinyl figure made in Japan by Real x Head. Their little cloaks are handmade in the UK by yours truly.
Stay tuned for a special A Little Stranger colourway, available exclusively through the A Little Stranger shop at the end of January. This morning the postman brought a big box of goodies from Chris for a photo shoot, man am i excited about this release! More news soon
Links: The Tarantulas blog / The Tarantulas shop
Phew! It’s been a crazy few months which has left my online shop a little neglected as things seem to fly out of shows before i can get them up online. So i’ve been putting my free time over Christmas to good use and updated the A Little Stranger Shop.
A great big sort out of all my stock following all the live events and custom shows i’ve done this year has left me with two customs and half a dozen Bunny Brooches to add to the shop! Visit alittlestranger.bigcartel.com for a browse.
Grey Fancy Snow Bunny follows on from my custom 11″ Eeerz The Fancy Snow bunny, for the Eeerz Invasion Tour at Forbidden Planet. He started life as one of the Eeerz white DIY vinyls, onto which i sculpted his face with polymer clay and painted it with acrylics and pastels, and added ‘fluff’ lines to his body. I made his fluffy head and ‘eeerz’ from soft grey faux fur and off-white velvet. Lastly i made him a little black velvet bow tie and fluffy white tail.
Grey Fancy Snow Bunny was a private commission and is now sold.
Fancy Snow Bunny is a custom 11″ Eeerz for the Eeerz Custom Invasion Tour launch party at Forbidden Planet, London. He started life as one of the Eeerz white DIY vinyls, onto which i sculpted his face with polymer clay and painted it with acrylics and pastels, and added ‘fluff’ lines to his body. I made his fluffy head and ‘eeerz’ from white faux fur and velvet, trimmed to give a graduated look. Lastly i made him a little bow tie and tail 
All the customs are on display now at Forbidden Planet London and has some beautiful customs up on display.
Thank you to the guys at Flatties for having me as a part of Codename: Babushka. This is such a great idea for a project and i’m really happy to be a part of it! There’s 15 artists involved in the project (head here to see a list) each artist’s set is then split up, muddled about with the other dolls and put back together at random, so you will receive 5 pieces of original art from 5 different artists! A Set of 5 russian dolls is £140, they also offer a payment plan, details here.
Codename Babushka is designed for the ulitmate blindbox experience and collectors in mind. Russian Dolls have been sent to all the artists below, each artist has a nest of 5 russian dolls starting at 5.5″ and shrinking down to 1.5″. They have been commissioned to create 5 artworks which will fit back inside each other. Once completed and collected up at Flatties HQ we will mix them all up and put them into blindboxes.
I handpainted my wooden dolls with acrylics in thin layers, leaving the woodgrain exposed underneath. They are then sealed with layers of lacquer for protection and shine. Each doll in the set is inspired by a different animal, going up in size: Hamster, rabbit, red panda, lemur, ram.
Don’t Forget Your Mittens is my piece for the Icons show at Fullcircle, Leeds, on October 28th 2011. She started life as a 1000% Bearbrick, i sculpted her face from scratch using polymer clay and glass eyes. I then painted her face with chalk pastels, acrylics and matt lacquer before sealing her lips with a few coats of gloss varnish and adding real human hair. Her bear suit was made from scratch in a soft caramel teddy bear style fabric, with fleece trims and a giant zipper in front. I then added the finishing touch of her little knitted mittens on a string through her bear suit.
I had a great time working on this custom, i think its my favourite piece i’ve worked on to date! Although slightly daunting at first i thoroughly enjoyed working at this massive scale – she’s the size of a toddler, and currently resides in our living room while she waits to be shipped up to Leeds for the show, creeping out everyone who comes over.
The line up for the show is insane and i’m humbled to be in the midst of such a fantastic selection of artists. You can see a work-in-progress shot of Map Map’s uh-mazing custom over on the Hang Gang site.
Baby Kraken started life as a 9″ white vinylmation Mickey Mouse vinyl. The skull is made from Mickey’s head with just a little light sculpting and teeth added, and a drilled hole for his gold pirates hoop I kept one of the figures hands and glued into it an arm bone i’d sculpted from sculpey. Both the skull and the arm were painted with acrylics and given a good grubby-ing up before being sealed with matt lacquer and dusted with ‘moss’.
The head of the Kraken is simply a plush skin i made to fit the upturned body from the figure. His tentacles keep their shape via a metal armature I bent into appropriately wiggly, tentacele-y positions before fixing the armature into the inside of the hard vinyl head. He has real glass eyes, and his tentacles decorated with hundreds of ‘warts’. Then i went to town fixing on coins, jewels and crystals all over his tentacles.
In the darkest depths of the briny deep,
See the baby Kraken scuttle and creep.
The floor awash with coins and treasure,
a vast amount by any measure.
The spilled contents of a treasure chest,
a bounty from an ill-fated pirates quest.
It’s collector’s bones lay decayed and forgotten,
amidst ships boards, ragged and rotten.
The baby Kraken passes over jewels blue and red,
that stick to his glistening tentacles and head.
This Coraline doll is a little project i’ve been doing in my spare time since February, and i’m really pleased to finally have her on my toy shelf all finished. Now i just need to finish customising her mini-me! I had been oohing and ahhing over the Lalaloopsy dolls i’d seen in friends flickr streams, back around Christmas you couldn’t get Lalaloopsy’s over here (I’ve recently started to see them in Toys R Us and Tesco, but they’re so much dearer than in the US) As soon as I saw Mittens Fluff ‘N’ Stuff with her blue hair and button eyes i just had to make a Coraline. So my friend Lauren was kind enough to send me a lalaloopsy doll (and her mini version, so she can have a dolly of herself!) from the US.
I made all her clothes from scratch (you can get the patterns here) and made her hair bows from polymer clay. I didnt’t make the boots (oh how i wish i knew how to make doll shoes!) just painted them yellow to match her raincoat.
Lots of In-progress shots….
The lovely Andy of Toysrevil just posted an interview we did over on Toysrevil.com. Thanks andy!
I am really happy to share these pictures of my custom for Lunartik’s Mini Tea Tour 2011, meet Monster Brew. Matt gave me a blank Mini Tea vinyl last year, and after a long time pondering what to do with the adorable little fella i found a little scrap of this gorgeous vintage brown fur in my fabric stash and Monster Brew was born! I took all the Mini Tea components apart, and he really is mini – Monster Brew is only 13cm tall including his arm in the air! I painted his eyes black, sanded the seam-lines off the head, put the head back together and gave it a coat of matt lacquer.
Monster Brew’s furry body was stitched by hand (he was too small to get on the sewing machine!) and designed to fit over the little wire armature i made, fitting the Mini Tea arms to the ends of the wire armature arms, letting the fur stop short to expose the hands. I then trimmed the fur to varying lengths to give him a disheveled “oof i’ve just woken up” look. The ‘tea’ in the cup was made from brown, white and yellow sculpey mixed into transparent fimo until it looked like a good strong cuppa, then sculpted, baked and polished to a shine.
I’m really pleased with how the little guy turned out, and can’t wait to catch up with him in Berlin. Find out more about the Mini Tea Tour, and see the wonderful artists involved on Lunartik’s site.
Lunartik’s Mini Tea Tour featuring 70+ custom works of art, created from Matt JOnes’ platform toy, Lunartik in a Cup of Tea. These artistic interpretations have been brewed to perfection by a fine selection of World Artists. The Mini Tea Tour debuts at the 43° Gallery in Berlin, then moves on to Vienna to the Sixxa store for spring, then off to the USA and to Dragatomi for summer, and lastly we see this year’s tour come to rest in Forbidden Planet’s Mega Store in London for the Christmas season. At each location, Matt JOnes will be on hand to sign toys and chat. Mini Tea website
The Heavy Metal Qee project is being curated by Daniel Perry, using the 8″ qee as a base platform 17 designers (with more coming on board as the project progresses) are realising in 3D their interpretation of a Heavy Metal Qee. You can follow the progress of the Heavy Metal Qee Project, check out the artists involved and finished pieces so far on http://www.heavymetalqee.com/ or the HMQ facebook page.
I was asked aboard the Heavy Metal Qee project pretty early on, so i got first pick on the blank qee’s; I plumped for an 8″white Toyer Qee partly cause they’re the most ‘metal’ and partly cause anything with a skull appeals to my inner goth. I wanted to to my interpretation of the over-the-top monsters notorised by Iron Maiden, Lordi, Gwa, Manowar etc. I sculpted his face form scratch using white fimo, and gold glass eyes for realism and depth. I then kept the rest of the custom in monochrome black and white so the eyes would really pop.
I made a faux-fur cover for the head, complete with a black mohawk, giant bat ears and glossy black PVC horns, and a set of grey felt wings with an inner wire armature that allows them to be posed easily. I painted the body with acrylic paint and sealed it with matt UV protect lacquer before adding a furry chest to the front. He was a really fun custom to work on, thanks Dan for having me as one of the artists
I welcome commissions on a variety of different toy platforms. Please get in touch! holly@alittlestranger.com
Forest Sprite is my custom mini qee for the NYC ♥QEE show, February 14th at Yoyamart, New York. He started life as a blank bear 5″ Qee, I added glass eyes, sculpted his face in sculpey and made a fur ‘skin’ that covers his entire head. His body is painted with acrylic paint and sealed with a matt UV protective lacquer, and his little yellow friends are made from pom poms and beads.
I enjoyed working on this Qee more than any I had before and i already have plans for my next 5″ Qee (i want the bunny!) I think Toy2r have got it spot on with this new platform size; its the perfect size for customizing, big enough to get a lot of detail in but without not so big that it becomes overwhelming.
This is my piece for The Omi Show, December 11th 2010 at Munky King, 7308 Melrose Ave, LA, CA 90046.
Inspired by those documentaries about all the creepy creature that live way deep down under the sea, the tentacles and muzzle give off an eerie glow when the lights go out, and coupled with the white fur he glows bright cyan and yellow under UV light. From The Deep started life as a blank white monkey Omi, and i used glow-in-the-dark polymer clay, faux fur, acrylic paint and glass eyes to create him as you see him now. The mount-board is solid wood, varnished to a high gloss finish. He comes with a picture hook for hanging on a wall, and a kickstand so he can be displayed on a flat surface or shelf.
The day of the Sketchbot 2 show at Munky King LA is finally upon us! If like me you’ve been checking out the sneak previews over the last few weeks on Steves blog today is your chance to see all the great customs in the vinyl-y flesh! Sketchbot 2 7:00pm – 10:00pm Munky King, 7308 Melrose Ave, Los Angeles, CA.
The Navigator started life as a blank Sketchbot vinyl toy, i cut off his head (eep!) and painted his body with acrylic paint before sealing with lacquer. To really make the paint job pop i used a metallic flake in the pink-coloured parts before giving him a thick full gloss coat all over. The Navigator himself is a tiny plush in his own right, i sculpted his face from sculpey, painted with acrylic paint and pastels and sealed with matte lacquer. His body, including his ears, has a tiny metal armature inside to let him keep his pose. All finished off with a heart shaped nose and teeny eyepatch.
Edit: Now available for purchase in the Munky King Online Store.
