about sneaky raccoon's lefty-custom for diy calamari

TOYSREVIL: what is the name of your custom? [for [DIY Calamari]

SNEAKY RACCOON: My little Leftie is called Ophelia (the operatic octopus!) She likes to sing.

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TOYSREVIL: what is the toy-story behind your custom?

SNEAKY RACCOON: I wish I had a really great story for her, but I don’t. I think she evolved as I spent more time with her sitting on my desk. The Leftie shape already provided me with all the decisions that I needed to make - it’s an octopus - and I love to make work about animals and nature, so it was a no-brainer for me. The idea for her to be singing... I’m not so sure. I just thought that kids sing to themselves and thats cute. In my eyes she is about 5 years old. So I made her appear to be singing. I tend to sing along to whatever tune randomly plays on my computer while making artwork so maybe that’s what made me think of that idea. 


TOYSREVIL: im wondering what operatic-classic she's singing right now tho heheh - what was the genesis of your custom? why you designed it the way you did?

SNEAKY RACCOON:The surface of the Leftie is such a great canvas to work on to start with and so I thought that I would do a nice paint job at first, but then I discovered Milliput modelling clay as Potatomo was using it to model his horns out if clay for his Leftie. I’ve never really used clay to make my artwork with so I took a deep breathe, dived right in and tried something new. 


SNEAKY RACCOON:After drawing on a rough sketch I started to apply the clay to the surface of the Leftie. Luckily the clay dries really super fast so I wasn’t having to wait long before I could apply more. The worse part of making the custom had to be making the ‘SR’ initials on the back of the Leftie as it was really fiddly even for my tiny fingers and kept on breaking. After all the clay had dried I painted a few coats of egg-shell blue acrylic paint as a base coat and then I sprayed on a coat of baby blue enamel spray. I am my own worst nightmare as I am a perfectionist and I resprayed and repainted the Lefite 8 times before I was happy with the fine misted spray... yes - I’m a nutter. Welcome to my world. 


SNEAKY RACCOON:Octopuses are incredible in that they have magical qualities like being able to change colourful, glow, and camouflage themselves. So I wanted Ophelia to share a little of these qualites as well as look cute. I used metalic gold paint for the initials and various details on the Leftie including her hidden heart underneath her body, and I used iridescent ‘interference’ paints which I mixed into other acrylic colours to give features a shiny pearlescent sheen. 


TOYSREVIL: cheers for your time and trouble, Anna! in closing, please share with us, Who Is SneakyRaccoon? and what are you currently up to?

Sneaky Raccoon is sometimes mistaken to be an amalgamation of two artists but I assure you that it’s soley little me who makes all the artwork and illustrations. The name came to me when I was trying to think of a designer psedonym for myself under which I could continue to create character artwork as I came to the end of my universtiy course in 2006. I love animation and so I had started to think about critters and animal behaviours that made me laugh. It was the thought of being a sneaky raccoon and being caught rummaging for food and slinking away into the darkness with an apple or biscuit that made me think it was quite a similar reflection of my constant hunt for cookies and cakes that made Sneaky Raccoon such an obviously choice. It wasn’t until going to the Pictoplasma character design festival in Berlin in Ocotber 2006 that I really pushed the idea of Sneaky Raccoon further and invested in a website badges and cards to get my name known. 

As a design name Sneaky Raccoon offers character and fine artworks, illustration for a broad variety of media as well as creative graphic design. I do take commissions and I am always open to new challenges and creative experiences, all of which is blogged on my website regularly so please sign up and read it - I’d like to think that more people are interested in my work than just my teddy bear and my mummy! 

As for upcoming events and news... You can catch my work and I at the following:   

- The Custom Teddy Troops show @ the Bodhi Gallery on Brick Lane, London, Mid December 2007 (more details to come as soon as I know them myself! )

- Save the Animals show @ Go Go Plastic store in Birmingham March 14th-30th

- More shows are booked to take place way into 2008 as well as other incredible events like having my Dunny design in Series 5 due to come out next Autumn. Collaborations with some great designers, more customs, chocolate acorns creatures, possible plushes and clothing too... so it’s all happening in 2008 so watch this space get filled! 

I promise that I will host another show in the new year too as the celebration of my first Sneaky birthday this Ocotber just gone went so well that I have been inundated with emails and people asking me when the next one will be! It will be bigger and even better! 

And I just want to say a big thank you to all of you that participated in the show and whose who helped and supported the show and who also took the time to come hang out, have cake and have a chat. Much Love Sneaky x

PS - I also have been designing my christmas cards which will be available soon for purchase from my shop over the next week! 

- You can check out my website at www.sneakyraccoon.com 
- Or you can find me on Flickr www.flickr.com/sneakyraccoon
- Or on MySpace under my normal name Anna Mullin aka Sneaky Raccoon