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. . . it’s another. January has been very interesting.

I started off working on a package designs for a client who will be pitching an oh-so-cool toy to Disney soon. What started out as a series of 2-D box-fronts quickly turned into full-blown CG renders (at no request of the client, mind you). And, that led to to teaching myself how to texture objects in Blender. To escalate matters, there were no good high-res images of the existing toy that I could use on the packaging art, so I took it upon myself to both design and render that in 3-D, too! It took two solid weeks of work with no days off to get everything learned and rendered. In the end, it was worth the effort and newly-gained knowledge.

Next, I shifted my focus to working on Nava Designs. There’s a new Etsy store, and a Twitter feed. In the coming weeks (hopefully), I will be adding some unique items to the store. It’s been exhausting, but the items are fun, and the artwork is way cool!

A few years ago, I signed a contract with Disney, specifically with the international division of the former Walt Disney Internet Group (now the Disney Interactive Media Group). One of the details gave the company the right to publish certain paper models that I have designed. I cannot go into contract details, but it appears that the models are finally popping up on Disney websites, specifically the Disney Insider. Many thanks to Caleb for finding this and bringing it to my attention.

Back in December, after I got my hair cut, I noticed a small image in the distance out of the corner of my eye. It was a lucky catch. I swore that I saw a solid, white silhouette of Jiminy Cricket above the name “Perris.” I tried to get a good look from where I was, but I couldn’t quite focus on it enough to be absolutely certain. The odd part was that the sign is at our town’s (Perris) new bus/Metrolink station (the Metrolink part is still not complete). I knew that Ward Kimball had donated his train collection to the Orange Empire Railway Museum (yup, that’s in Perris, too!) years ago, but I didn’t think that there were any other connections to him.

Head on over to Zombo’s Closet to read my answers to five Halloween questions. Learn what I love and hate about Halloween. I even recall my first Halloween memory!

Oh, eBay pirates are fun. I’ve been fighting them for years. They like to sell my paper models, and the photos that they use to promote their auctions are my own. They don’t take them from this website but from my Flickr photo album.

Most pirates leave the Disney Experience logo and copyright notice intact, but place their own logo or trademark on top. They’re typically unwilling to Photoshop anything out or, better yet, build the models themselves and take their own photos. But, today, I finally found one who not only Photoshopped my logo out, but placed their own logo, in a similar design, on top of the area to help mask any imperfections. It’s a nice try, but that doesn’t stop me from reporting the violation.

While I design a better watermark for all 174 of my Flickr photos, I’ve made them private, and I have temporarily closed the 3-D art gallery.

The Halloween papercrafts that I’ve been working on are now available for sale through the first week of November. Grab ’em while you can!

There are also two new videos of the piranha and vampire bat in action.

Photos are now online of the first three Halloween papercrafts. I’ve decided to really run with this new trick-or-treat idea. Each toy is printed on 4×6 sheets, and is both pre-punched & pre-scored. The only tool needed to assemble them is a very small amount of glue.

These treats are packed in resealable polypropylene bags and stiffened with some cardstock. They are free to trick-or-treaters (one per person), and I may offer them as an online purchase in the future (maybe around October).