1. DRAGATOMI

2. BAY FITTED

3. JAY222

CONGRATULATIONS and thank you for participating and giving us your time!  Stay tuned to see what Dragatomi does with our wall!

Q&A

How did you come up with the name 64 Colors?
Well, we both started out with a box of Crayola crayons. There were 64 in the pack so… 64 Colors.

How did you guys get your start in custom toy design?  Who/how were you introduced to it?
It’s a by product of having so many toys in the studio and having a toy that just released.  “Marshall” which we designed and was produced by Rotofugi and Squibbles Ink in Chicago.  Check out www.marshalltoys.com. Through that, we met Ryan Crippen from Reactor 88 who introduced us to Alex Dril. Alex was kind enough to let us create a  custom for the IWG show
he curated. Super nice people!

What are your inspirations?
Nature, art, Japan, cartoons, toys, seeing great work by other people.  Everyday we see inspiring work!

What training have you had to bring you to this point in your  career?
Both went to art school. Lot’s of live model + painting classes. Classic training we suppose. Also work as a design, illustration studio and do a wide range of character design, packaging, illustrations and graphic design projects.

How do you guys know each other?

Met in art school, got married.

Do you guys ever get on each other’s nerves?

Yes! One of us is generally calm while the other is a bit high strung. There are occationally shouting matches but we have short attention spans and forget quickly.

If you had to designate roles to each other, what would they be? (e.g. who is the slave driver, the visionary, etc)
Depends on the project. It’s really a 50/50 collaboration. No one is in charge and maybe that makes things work best for us.

Tell us something that people don’t know about you guys but you want them to know.
Ummmm, Hmmmm, Uhhhh… :\ *draws blank*

When you were given the task of creating a piece for “Into the Darkness”, how did you interpret it?
Moonlight, creatures of the night, loneliness, wandering, dreams, nightmares, tree branches, wind, wonder and dark colors. Then wrap that into one character with a back story. We hope that our customs project personality and emotion as that is what we try to do with each piece.

How long did it take to make a piece like “Night Mary”?
About 3 weeks total. The project gets placed into our regular work flow and we toss it back and forth so the piece evolves over time.

For your Munny customs, who is your muse/model for the eyes (e.g. Natural Beauty and Night Mary)?
That’s just how Laura paints them. No particular muse or model. Just a style developed over time and trial and error. The eyes are the window to the soul you know.

Can you tell us what our fans can expect from 64 Colors in the next 5 years?
5 years is a long time. More customs, paintings, toys, animation, some books.  We hope our work will improve and opportunities will happen that will allow us to work on a wide variety of projects all over the globe. That sounds good to us!

Quick Answers to Your Favorite…

… Toy growing up

Laura: Barbie / Eric: Legos and maple blocks.

… Toy now
Laura: Friends with You Super Malfi / Eric: ThreeA Squares (I love Malfi too!)

… Artist (dead or alive)
Laura: Tamara de Lempicka / Eric: Mark Ryden

... Magazine
Laura: High Fructose / Eric: Giant Robot

… Books
Laura: Science Fiction/Fantasy / Eric: Biographies/History

… Place to go to get your creative juice flowin’
A museum, a car ride, a bike ride… could be anywhere and we always carry a sketchbook.

… Kind of Coffee
Laura: No coffee, Rootbeer / Eric: coffee black from anywhere as long as it’s good.

by 64 Colors...visit www.marshalltoys.com

"Night Mary" by 64 Colors @ 1AM SF Gallery

“Into the Darkness” exhibit will be at 1AM SF gallery through July 3rd.  Come on by or visit www.toyjunkiesf.com.

Last Friday (6.5.09), 1AM hosted the opening reception of “Into the Darkness” with DrilOne.  The custom vinyl toys were out of this world.  Over 40 artists are participating in this show representing their interpretation of “Into the Darkness”.

Besides the art pieces, the cool thing was that a lot of the artists were there kickin’ it with the common folks.  They were chillin’, drinking beer, answering questions about their art, admiring other artists’ pieces, taking lots of pix of each other, and talkin’ about whatever came up in discussions.  Big ups to DrilOne, Leecifer, Brian Colin, Gatchbert, Leonard Amaral, Phoneticontrol, Delicious Drips, Gray and Lily Black.

Come on by and check out the show at 1AM SF gallery.  The show will run through July 3rd 2009 or you can visit www.toyjunkiesf.com “Into the Darkness”.

Here are some photos capturing the evening (visit  http://tiny.cc/3osny for more pix on Flickr):

The Usual Suspects - the Artists -

Into the Darkness Opening ReceptionKids in Awe of Lily

Wall Mural was a big hit...watch for it in blogs, tweets, fb, etc

Leonard Amaral taking a moment to pose by his "Deep Into the Darkness Peering"

Brilliant piece... "Shroud of Darkness" by Brian Colin

Meeting of two worlds...Lily Black and Delicious Drips

The Lineup.