HaynMade hits up Cali Day 3...

Being that my first day at DCon I dropped a bunch of dead prez on paper,

Today was more about me photographing the booths, artists n stuff I thought was hella cool.  So here we go with more cool photos straight from DCon...

First up to bat, a closeup of a stem punk version of Gizmo Duck by Timbone.  I've seen a bunch of pics of this bad boy online, but nothing compares to seeing this amazing sculpt up close in person.  Friggen UNREAL!

Also by Timbone is this mechanical Mickey, again, the detail work is insane...

Right around the corner were the folks at Silent Stage Gallery.  Gotta love Woes' uncrowned Panda Prince figs in all of the color ways released thus far...

Oh and this too...

Along with Slick's version of Mickey with his most current and upcoming colorway releases...

And there's the insane sculpting skills of JRyu, got to see his mad sculpting skills up close and personal...

There were these insane pieces at DCon...

For you Huck and Coarsetoys fans...

For you 3A lovers...

For you Munny, MadL and Dunny lovers (by Jenn and Tony Bot).  Very cool peopz may I add...

On over to Grimsheep's stand where he had a bunch of peopz (including himself) hit up his new vinyl fig he came out with...

On over to the Hit Squad's table.  Jus' wanna throw it out there, they were all hella cool peopz...

Some soon to be released goodies from Luke Chueh...

Some insane pieces from Jason Limon.  I got to talk to both him and his wife during DCon, they were both very very nice people, what an honor...

Goodies at Spanky Stokes' display...

Insane pieces by Ardabus Rubber, unreal precision...

Martin Hsu's booth, another cool and artist to talk to...

One of my fav artists, MAD, I was hella stoked to finally meet him in person...

A cool closeup of another artist's booth...

If I remember correctly, James Ramos...

Colus, he was super duper cool to talk to...

Leecifer, amazing pieces to see in person...

I can't remember who did these pieces, but I thought they were pretty awesome sauce...

At the Circus Posterus table...

Giant Robot booth, with some cool customs...

More custom yummies...

Bad Juju's insane resin casting...

One-Eyed Girl's amazing work...

F+...

Booty Babes...

Some killer Lego displays...

Zombiemonkie's UNREAL Monster Dunny display...

I was so tempted to pick this up...

Monster dioramas, amazing detail work...

Giltstudios...

Right at the ending of day 2 of DCon, I had the honor of meeting Mr. JPK, what a hella cool guy he was (and amazingly talented too)...

HaynMade hits up Cali Day 2...

On this wonderful morning,

My Cali buddy and I headed on over to Pasadena, for my first over DesignerCon!  Ah man, I could feel the crazed collector in me getting all excited!  We got our passes and met up with one of my persuading buddies Soljah52 and walked on it.  Man, it was urban art and creative heaven for me!  I met up and conversed with some of my favorite artists and hooked them up with some Hawaiian Host chocolates from the 808.  Many of them were hella stoked

With over 200 booths there, I was very well impressed with how calm the flow was, and how everyone was pretty much respectful of each other's space.  At the entrance there was a huge Ad-At statue, put together from the mind of Bill McMullen...beast.  I quickly got my hands on some DokA figs, that I was hella stoked to get.

We also attended a a panel discussion, which addressed the question, "Custom Resin Figures: Art or Theft?"  It was pretty interesting.  The panel, amongst a bunch of themes and questions looked at the controversy of casting "remixed figs" or "bootlegs/bootlegs of bootlegs" (and I use this term very loosely because of its controversial nature).  The (hilarious and insightful) panel consisted of Jeff Rawson and Sean Sanford from Galacticjerkbags, The Sucklord, Healeymade, Scoott Wilkowski of Waxbean Studios, Peter Goral of Killer Bootlegs, and Dov Kelemer of SKE Toys.

We then went to get us some grub to eat at a nearby BJ's a sports-ish restaurant with salads, pizzas, and other yummies.

Also worthy of mentioning, this awesome dessert cookie pizza, yummers...

We returned to the convention where I met up with a few more artists, good times, good times.  We stayed at DCon until the end and then headed for my hotel room, where I checked in, and zonked out, with lights and tv on n all.  Whew what a day of awesome sauce!

HaynMade hits up Cali (again)

Man, 

I'm so long overdue for a vacation, and if you've been following my blog closely, you'll see when it was the last time I hit up California for some r n r.  Well, guess what, I took a week off for some much needed recharging and off to Cali I went.  

What makes this particular trip a special one is that for the first time ever I'm going to be checking out DCon, an annual predominantly urban vinyl event held annually in Pasadena.  For quite some time I've been wanting to check out this convention to meet some of my favorite artists and see their work up close and personal.  

The planets finally aligned for me to go.  With some friendly "pushing me along" by a couple of my fellow 808 collector buddies (shout out to Soljah52 n Lofa), my finances in check and reasonable airfare, I made the decision to go.

It was a pretty good flight, there was only me and this other dude sharing a 4-seater row, so yep, we both had quite an amount of space to move about and relax during our flight to California.  Our two in flight "meals" consisted of fresh fruit and then later a bag of Maui style potato chips.

I uploaded Maleficent and Transformers Age of Extinction on to my iPad.  Both were pretty good movies that took up just about the entire flight.

When I landed one of my Cali buddies picked me up and we headed over to Sushi Stop, one of my fav eateries right in Japan Town, yummerz...

After that whole ordeal of sushi madness, we headed on over jus' a couple of shops nearby to get some dessert.  OMG, there was every dessert sin to be served at BSweet.  From bread putting, to ice-cream sandwiches, to cookies to even their "sluttiest" brownie, there was sinful goodness to be eaten at this dessert bar eatery.  My friend and I got us their fresh Belgian waffle ala mode, complete with fudge, caramel AND maple syrup topping.  Hot damn, talk about food coma.

After our dinner adventure we had an immediate departure for my friend's crib and...crashed.  Another adventure awaits!

Belated bday lunch with a good friend...

So a good friend of mine contacted me,

And offered to take me out to lunch as a belated birthday gift.  And if you know me and food, I always jump at the opportunity, lol.  One cool thing about this particular friend is that she always gets me to try different kinds of food that I've never tried before.  So we headed on over to the urban Kaka‘ako area to Cocina's for some Mex-mix food.  It was a first time for me, but I was super impressed with their infusion of locally grown products to create their mouth watering dishes.  So on the menu we had...

Their version of french fries, oh man, to good to even try and explain...

Then we had us some fish tacos, hella yummy...

And the ultimate kicker in yummy-ness were these tree hugger tacos, made entirely out of vegetables.  OMG, these were the bomb diggity!

And as if that wasn't enough, she took me over to a very memorable dessert experience to Wing's Ice Cream in Downtown Honolulu, for some, get this, for a scoop of hurricane (nori and mochi crunch) popcorn and a scoop of garlic ice cream.

In all honesty, it was preeeeeeeeety good!  But much thanks "A" for some hella good food!