AW177 "Eyes of the Dragon" Mystery Machine for the Tenacious Toys Candy-Coated Custom Show!

I was invited by Benny of Tenacious Toys to be a part of their first custom toy show, the Candy-Coated Custom Show. The show was held on April 21, 7-9pm at The London Candy Company, 1442 Lexington Ave. New York, NY 10128.

The theme of the show was either candy or something British; I decided to focus on doing something totally different than my usual work. I wanted to create a piece that not only would allow people to view it but also had them play with it. After much deliberation and trial-and-errors, I decided to concentrate on making a real working gumball/mystery machine.

 This was created using a 10" Mad*L and incorporating parts from a gumball machine into it. There were many obstacles in making this:
- getting the base of the figure to hold the slot/wheel
- getting the wheel to work correctly
- getting the quarter to fall into the correct place in the back
- getting a way to get into the figure to grab the quarters and locking it
- getting a way to put gumballs into the head - getting the head to have the gumballs fall into the base correctly
- etc. etc.

At the show, the idea would be to put a quarter into the slot, turn the wheel and catch the gumball that comes out. I placed 2 marbles (the "eyes of the dragon") inside with the gumballs and if you were lucky to grab one of the marbles, you would win a prize (one of my "Circuit Death" t-shirts).

Throughout the night, people were popping in quarters and only 1 person won a shirt!

See what you can win w/ only a quarter? Congrats to Barb for winning my shirt! Enjoy!

This was probably my most ambitious and first functioning custom vinyl toy. I chose to not do too much paint work on the figure and keep it more to a mystery machine. Character on the front says dragon, one on the back is my last name. My piece will be up for sale here: http://www.tenacioustoys.com/The_Candy_Coated_Custom_Show_s/176.htm

Also at the show, I tagged up Benny's poster, along w/ some of the other artists and non-artists (mine's at the bottom left hand side, power skull ninja):

And a great shot taken of all the artists by Matthew Siegelbaum for Strongtree Images Photography (I'm in the middle w/ the blue jacket in between Mike "Nemo" Mendez and Sucklord):

I hope people enjoyed my machine because I'm not sure if I would tackle something like this again! Props to Benny & Steph of Tenacious Toys for putting a great show together and allowing me to be a part of it!!!