Goddammit. Every time I say no more Dunnys, Kidrobot drops a hot new lineup. Officially Launching September 10th, is the Kidrobot Dunny Series 2009! Artists in this series include Amanda Visell, Andrew Bell, Amy Ruppel, Brandt Peters, Dalek, Devilrobots, Gary Taxali, Mori Chack, Huck Gee, Jeremyville, Kozik, Kronk, Luke Chueh, Mad, Pon, MR. Shane Jessup, Shawnimal, SupaKitch, Travis Cain, and Thomas Han. Your chance to snap up the whole set comes a day early when you hit up an Official Trading Party the night before, at a Kidrobot store, or official retailer. If you live in Buffalo, or Western NY, then your shop to go to is Hero Design Studio and Boutique. Even if you live in the good ole Canada, come on down to  93 Allen st, in Buffalo, NY, for a crazy night of toy unleashment. Trade new toys, old toys, con Mark, get conned by me, and win sweet prizes from Mark and Beth.  Last year, I nabbed the entire Series 5 in one night, and I only made one little kid cry. The party starts at six, and ends around 9 or so. If you live elsewhere, scroll to the bottom to find the location for an Official Trading Party near you.

"Joe Ledbetter"

This special series of 3-inch Dunnys dropped Thursday and are already sold out on Kidrobot. Not to fear as Hero and Sound has a nice stock of em for sale. I'd really get on these quick though, they're endangered for a reason. Since these are a special release, price is $8.99 a piece, but totally worth it. Every Dunny comes with an accessory or breaks the mold someway. Stop by Hero and Sound at 93 Allen St in Buffalo and get your fix!

Animal instincts are sharper than ever in the limited edition hyper series, Dunny Endangered! Featuring 15 designs (and 2 chases) by 13 incredible artists, this ultra-fierce series will disappear soon...Contributing artists include Amanda Visell, Aya Kakeda, Elizabeth Berdann, Chuckboy, Frank Kozik, Jeremyville, Joe Ledbetter, Kronk, Michelle Valigura, Mr. Shane Jessup, Sket One, Tad Carpenter, Triclops Studio and Touma.

Its good to see Hero finally getting some KidRobot love for being the awesomest toy shop in the WNY area. Coming tomorrow, Hero will have a stupid limited (can't say, its so small) amount of 8" Tree Huggr Dunny's AWOL editions by Kronk for sale. No presales, no holds, no multiples, just be there at Noon, Thursday , April 9th at Hero (93 Allen St)  with money ($75 bucks). These will not be available at Official KidRobot Stores, just loyal shops like Hero. If you don't live in the Buffalo, NY area, then check out these other places that the Kronk will show up at. Just remember, with 500 made, these will be gone fast.

Saw this on the Clutter blog this morning, it appears that UK artist McFaul and IloveDust, two participants in Kidrobot's latest Dunny release, are waging a little photo war. First volley, a little bit of bum action with ILD givin it up to McFaul, doggy style... then ILD takes an interest in McFauls poofy hat and really ignites this little playful conflict... And just now, McFaul went for the Meaty bits.... Now its ILD's turn, lets see what they can do to top this... http://blog.mcfaul.net/ http://ilovedust.wordpress.com/

Posting this because Scranto loves Wayne Coyne, and I love KidRobot and Nylon TV. Watch as he talks about music and aliens and makes a custom Dunny.

One of the greatest things about the Le French Dunny Series is how there are visible connections and proof of collaboration between some of the artists. Instead in some series' where each character is completely different, I'm gonna point out a few details on some of the French figures that bring them together.. as well as explain why the Easy Hey is so goddamn ugly unique. First off, the French Color Trio. Look at the 123KLAN, Oktus (I've yet to score this figure), and Superduex  together, notice anything? The three colors (blue white red) aren't just the French national colors, they are a prevalent design aesthetic for Superduex, who also did the packaging design for the series. Superduex, 123KLAN and Oktus all have collabo'd together via french Design groups like UNCHI. Looking at the art styles of 123KLAN, I'd assume that they followed Superduex's concept to create a matching figure. And Oktus was more of a color adherence. either way, the three look appropriate placed next to each other. Now, onto the the Peen and the Sourpatch. We found the cock and balls "discreetly" painted on the underside of the SecretLab figure during the Hero Party. It wasn't till the end of the night that I discovered that the Koralie I just traded for had a raspberry under her. I refuse to believe that this is a coincidence. Ok, now why Easy Hey is so.. Unique. For being 1/400, this is a real stinker of a figure. I guess thats makes sense, seeing it was based off of Easy Hey's Kid Onion "pet" character.... On another note, Oktus and Easy Hey are both part of the same French Design Group called Delkographik The French Dunnys are selling fast and strong, stop by Hero Design in Buffalo and pick up a few, or visit the KidRobot page to learn more.

The Le French Dunny's were released yesterday from Kidrobot, and toy shops all over the States held trading parties to celebrate. Hero's Party was a blast, natch. We had french food (French Fries, Croissants, and French Toast, FTW!), beer, wine, and a store packed full of people hovering over the boxes, bartering and buying from one another; the atmosphere was one of a kind. I rounded up 18 Dunny's total, including the two rare chases, thanks to luck and the awesomeness that is Beth and Mark. Of course, Mark was up to his usual trickeries and greed for his own collection, and I was finding ways to manipulate points and punches and free tickets for the raffle. Turns out my luck was well enough, because I won the $50 hero gift card, which I promptly spent. I managed to score a good amount of the ones I wanted, and now that I have the two chases, I feel like I could possibly complete this set. It really sucks that the most common pull was the Mist. I feel like it's a garbage toy because the design was simply a different colorway from a previous series, nothing new, nothing to terribly attractive. I have an army of them now (five!), and I'm sure I'll get more. I don't mind too much that the SecretLab was  common as well.. at least it has a white cockandballs painted on the underside. Since it was a trading party, I also brought my Be@rbrick 2007 Wondercon Transformers pack to trade with Mark. He gave me a Stomp Super7 Kaiju for it, and I feel great about it. When I bought the Be@rbricks, it was an attempt to build a connection between Mike's love for Transformers, and my love for the art toy collection. Obviously it didn't work; Mikes' out of the picture, and I'm moving on.

It seems that the theme for gifting Buffawhat this Holiday season has been vinyl. I'm not complaining.. less I have to buy for myself! Kevin, my buddy from Singapore (he's from Buffalo,but he sold his soul to a bank for two years and they promptly shipped him overseas) gave me the 8-inch Ninja Dunny by MAD. He's kinda baddass, not so much for the paintjob -- pretty basic in that aspect -- but the ninja sword and star are really beefy and make the ninja Dunny a great collect.  There are two more colorways: a black chase and a exclusive red Ninja, but the standard white with blood looks better than the chases. The dunny is standing behind something else that Kevin gave me: a gold and enamel embellished coffee cup with saucer and lid. The crazy thing is that its made in Thailand by little kids, because their hands are so small they can hold the tiny brushes to paint the fine details. Once they reach a certain age, they can't hold the brushes steady any more and have to find another career. All this for rice and a few coins. Child labor has never been so pretty. I'll try to post a better pic of it on flickr once I get out of my office.

Since the Kidrobot forums are now cracking down on unofficial announcements, the leaked images of the new Dunny "I'm French" series are slowly creeping out to the blogosphere.  These images were supposedly uploaded to the wrong server by Kidrobot, and meant only as a sample for wholesalers.

There really isn't too much known about this, except that The toys should be released in February, around Valentine's Day, and in the 3-inch variety. Oh, yea: all the designers are French.

He's cute ^

Beth, from that super little toy and poster shop on Allen was explaining to me how these things go from artist renderings like this off to custom mold makers and back and forth till they arrive at Hero waiting for my greedy consumption. I think I'm gonna research that a bit more and do a "How Dunny's Are Made" post. For, now, I quiver in deep anticipation for what looks like a killer follow up to a great Series 4.

Sorry for the delay, a slight glitch in office the office tubes, and a trip to the YMCA prevented a same day update to part 1.

Of Grumpy Bears, Mummras, and Giant Black Hoovers

Mummra promised Saturday that we'd make the dough Sunday when I came over with the Grumpybear. We figured out the recipe and let the dough chill all day. I made the cutout for a six-inch Gingerdunny this time; even with perfect dough, they will spread, and I wanted to keep as much detail as I could. Rolling and cutting was SO much easier this time.... keeping the poor cookies alive: not so easy. See, Marc -- Mummra's "it's complicated" man-slave companion -- likes to bring his two black labs over to hang out, too. We call them the Hoovers. They see food, its gone. Nailed down, no matter. The only way to keep them away is to literally put a wall or door between the Hoovers and the food. I'm sad to say about half of the batch was lost to the never ending gullets of these beasts. After everything was done, I had 10 Gingerman Dunny's safe and sound.

Success and the icing on the cake... er, Dunny

I met up with Angel on Monday and we started decorating. I was so excited, they came out so much better than I thought, and I think I have the first documented batch of Real Gingerman Dunny's to reveal: Take that AllthingsJen! Angel of course had to turn his into a GingerTranny, her name is Dunnicia, and her boyfriend is the best of the bunch We even made the rare "bitten" chase:

What I've learned

• Never trust designer fluff as fact. I should know this. Just because you see a cute little recipe for Gingerbread cookies that came with a toy doesn't mean you should follow it.
• I really miss baking cookies.
• Dogs are fucking annoyances when baking in the kitchen. Thats why cats are the rulzer.

Oh yea, one more thing. Here's a little homage we made to a great little video that NO ONE should ever watch. We call it: 2 fags, 1 cup.....