Halloween is coming!!!!

If you’re like me. …Halloween is one of your favorite holidays. Witches, Walking Dead, Mummies, Vampires, Ghosts, Superheroes, and ever so much more!! One of my favorite things to do with Halloween is Pumpkins!! I love Pumpkins. I love their robust color, the pies made with them, and the creepy or cool images carved into them. One of my favorite things to do on Cabbage night or Halloween is to go to Ellie’s Farm Market in Berlin, just outside of Northfield Vermont. They have hundreds of carved pumpkins lit in the woods. It is such a warming event. I love to look at all the lit designs and partake of hot apple cider and a donut. Before I move from Vermont and head out west to Utah, I must make sure I get a t shirt or pullover from them. I have video taped all the pumpkins lit, so I can show others. A small event, but it will warm your heart and light up your eyes. In honor of Halloween we will be releasing an Evil Pumpkin Toy, for whom a naming contest is going on over on my Facebook page (@Rich Dufresne or @Imagination Asylum). My favorite thus far is Squashwork Orange!! Way to go on that one Harry. Harry knows I am a fan of all things Sci Fi and cool factor. Thus the Clockwork Orange hint. We may try to finish up another project and release that as well. Our Cyberwolf project is the 2nd project, however I’m thinking I want to release him in November. We’ll see what time allows. With a new addtion to my family due December 11th, I must time things right. Here is a tease of EL PUMPKINS tree branch arms and the mock up of the figure…his eyes will be closer together. Sculpted in Super Sculpey and Willow Products Fuse wax!!

Grand Re-opening of our Store and website!!

Our store has been down for a while, and our website is incomplete. Look for our newly updated website and store reopening on MAY 31st. look for new content and toys, plus exciting an exciting new addition that allows you fans to pick the toy to be made. We look forward to expanding and will be giving away toys to unsuspecting visitors. So come join us on MAY 31st for our Grand Re-opening!! @ ImaginationAsylum.Com

Being an Artist / Toy Designer / Sculptor / Businessman

The world looks at artists in a different way than we look at ourselves. …and often their perspective depends on what you do as an artist.  I for one have people thinking I am some kind of weirdo who makes toys because he never grew up, and wants to play with the toys and play with the children. I have others who think I am some kind of Toy Guru because of what I do. Others think I have it easy and wouldn’t  know what an honest work day entailled. Truth is I work hard. I conceptualize. I design. I sculpt. I mold and cast. I talk to factories and work with them to get the right pricing. How I got the info is a miracle. I do accounting. I brain storm. I work a lathe and other heavy tools. I paint. I experiment. I maintain our website and blog, …the website I built. I do artwork and graphic design for upcoming packaging.

 I meet with potential investors, order materials, and often experiment to get cool results with new finishes. Now I’m not whinning because truth be told, ..I don’t care what people think. I create what I think, and others think is cool. I do it because I like it. This week I’ll be ordering packaging, making molds, working  on a few sculpts, brainstorming some more on my Steampunk line, and casting up a storm. I will be showing some pics of new stuff either here or on the website. ImaginationAsylum.Com for those wondering. Artists like myself work hard. We have to because not only are we artists, but we are also businessmen / women and everything people. So please don’t think we have it easy. Support your local artists!!

Rich

Procrastination is not a good thing at times!!

So I started this blog to talk about conceptualizing, designing, sculpting , molding , and casting toys. (WHEW!) …But I let life happen and procrastinated while paying attention to other things like Facebook, Ebay, other aspects of my business, and my seriously expensive mountain bike build up. I forgot about this blog almost completely. Then I had an accident where I decided to cut my index finger (to the bone, and through the extensor tendon), and the 2 fingers next to it. I couldn’t work, or even sculpt. It completely sucked!!

So finally I went back to work 3 weeks ago at the Hospital, and with my business. I am sculpting, we just launched the new website. New Islander figures are up for sale, and 2 new lines are coming in August, Space Zombies (created in 1995), and Proteus Factor Z. Proteus Factor Z is part Micronauts, part Mcfarlane Toys. I have much to do, and much to show you,.. who are reading this. I want to delve into aspects of the business, from sculpting to conceptualizing, to molding  and casting, and finally dealing with factories and more. I will be spending the next month getting 1 Space Zombie, and 1 Proteus Figure ready for sale. I will try to show some photos and talk a bit about the process. To those who came and found the same blog for the past year, …my apologies. I will try to make this a monthly or bi weekly process. Until then ..a few images of the Space Zombie: Heavy Metal.

Professor Z

Imagination Asylum’s First Blog

Kaiju (strange Monster)

Kaiju backside

I like toys, Mostly action figures, and vinyl art toys

The Islanders...

So this is my first blog, 2nd if you count the one my Wife and I have together, but she posts on that one. This one is directed at my creative side. Back in 1998, I formed Imagination Asylum with the intent to create my own toy lines, mainly action figures. I gave up that dream for a while when my ex-wife told me she would consider getting back together with me if I gave up toys. Needless to say I am re-married to another woman (a very wonderful woman!!) if that tells you anything. So my new Wife tells asks me if I would like to attend college?? I said “Sure”. Then her and my brother asked me why aren’t you doing anything with this toy business. My passion for it had kinda died with the divorce. Well their encouragement and having one of my toys in a leading magazine gave me a new passion for creating toys and creating art. I have been an artist since I was very little. Always I could be found drawing something. When I saw Star Wars Episode 4, A New Hope, My love for creating whole new worlds and odd characters was born. So how did I become a sculptor?? I wanted to draw comic books, but never felt my art was up to snuff. I was told about long hours and horrible pay, so I avoided that. I then started to kitbash models, making something from something else or parts from different kits. I gave that up when I realized that it was too risky to leave all that I knew for a career that might not pan out. i still build stuff to this day, but I have applied that skill to toys. Well, in the 90s my kids would ask for toys that didn’t exist, so I started making them. I started collecting action figures, and would make myself characters that weren’t made yet. This led to sculpting with Super Sculpey and eventually sculpting things from scratch. I learned all I could online from other sculptors. My skills have grown since I started 15 years ago. I started with clay, but now most of my work is done in Willow Products sculpting wax, mostly their 360, Vapor, Zen, and Fuse. I like wax over clay, because you can handle the piece with out ruining your work. So this week we launch our new website ImaginationAsylum.com with an online store for some of our product. We have 2 toys that we are gearing up for release this summer. One is a 10 inch Kaiju rotocast vinyl action figure, and the other will be a designer vinyl toy. I will be showing the innermost workings of my business, and try to share tips from time to time. If you have questions, please ask. I only ask that you be mindful that I can’t always reply right away. My time is very tight at times. Next week I will show some quick pics of my shop, and some prototype shots. I will try to throw in sculpting tips from time to time for those who want to learn.

Rich Dufresne

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