about nvc crew's quasimoto custom
hot off the fan-acclaimed success of their MF Doom-custom [blogged], NVC Crew decided to create yet another artiste from Stones Throw Records' stable, this time with QUASIMOTO in the hot-seat!and of coz, i have one-half of the NVC Crew: Dr.Bao in my very own "TRE-hotseat" with a round of Q&As plus custom-images ... TOYSREVIL: so how did this particular project get started?
DR.BAO: Well you know that we just did the MF DOOM custom for the Moneygrip show, so in our mind, we just knew that one of these days we will come up with a Quasimoto custom! Spive and I talked about this project for a while, but we were always saying that we will do it when we will have some free time... MORE
DR.BAO: And as you probably know, in reality, we never really have free time since both of us have our daytime job and the rest of the time, well, we do customs for shows! ... so a lot of time pass by since the day we've been talked about doing this project...
But what really made us decide to start this project was the big success of MF Doom at the Grip show ... I mean, we received a lot of emails from people asking for that custom ... And for me, when you're talking about MF Doom you're talking about Stones Throw Records and of course, we all know that Madlib's Quasimoto is under that label, so just by the fact that MF was a big success for us, I just knew that it was time to give a try on our Lord Quas project!
As you probably know I'm hanging out quite often on the KR forum, and just like coincidence, people started to talk about wanting a Quasimoto toy and stuff like that ... and that even motivated me more to do it!!!! Hhahahaha!!!!! So to please all the fans out there, well we decide to do the project...
I can easily see a fan having the KR's Madvilain along with our MF Doom grip custom.......and then having a Quasimoto custom besides the previous two!!!!! Hhahahahaah!!!!!!
TOYSREVIL: (dude's original form reminds me of Cerebus the Aardvark LOL) ... so what was the base figure you guys made Quas out of? tis not of any figure i recognize...
DR.BAO: Well we just took some toy with a shape that we found close to what we wanted to do and from there Spive started the sculpting job! Because Quasimoto is such an irregular character, we could really do anything to it ... And I think Spive took an action figure to use as the platform! LOL
You know what? Quasimoto looks easy to do, but in reality it is much harder than it looks ... Because it is so irregular and with no real shapes, we had to find a way to create the effect and the texture of the drawing of the character that everyone's used to seeing.
TOYSEVIL: yeh, he looks like a glob of walking "sponge" from the pics LOL
DR.BAO: So Spive worked quite hard on this before he found a way to make the texture that looks like the drawing! But Spive is very good for that kind of thing, so I just knew that he won't have trouble to come with something that I'll approve - and it's exactly what he did. I think the way he did the texture looks very close to what Quasimoto have looked like!
Well actually, I had a "test" with my son, daughter and wife by asking them if the sculpt look like Quas, and they all recognize him! hhahahahah! Well my son always found that Quasimoto look like a pig, and he also found that the sculpt look like a pig too - so the match is good! hhahahahahaahh!
But more seriously, what was the most important thing was that the head has to look like the real character, because the rest of the body is nothing! no hands, no real legs, you know what I mean?
TOYSREVIL: props to your son for knowing about Quasimoto in the first place, Bao! LOL
DR.BAO: Actually there's something else that really characterize Quasimoto, and it is his smoke in his mouth! And the brick in his hand! So once we finished the character, we added these important elements! What is Quasimoto without his smoke?
TOYSREVIL: Spive did a sweet job on Quas, i reckon ... how big is the figure?
DR.BAO: The whole figure is approximatively 6'' height. You know, of course it would be great if we could work with Stones Throw Records and see if we can do something with them and do a real master sculpt of Quasimoto, or MF Doom and produce them ... But as you probaly know, most of the time, it's majors that get these deals ...
So because we know that we're only artists and not a major toy company, well we just decided to make it for fun, and because we like Quasimoto and are fans of Madlib, we just decide to make a tribute to him :)
TOYSREVIL: who knows, Bao - maybe you should hook up with them? i'd recommend you send them the figure LOL (but that's just me). is this the only figure you're going to make?DR.BAO: What's cool about Quasimoto is that he's just so f$%# up that we could do tons of variations of it - actually we have like 10 versions already in our head! So we will have fun doing them slowly, when we have time of course! Hahhahahaah! With the first one that we did, we just want to make a traditional and classic Quasimoto, but a few funky ones will come soon!
Also I don't know if you notice it, but this project really make us try something new ... Quasimoto is a character that is very simple and that is very close to the spirit of the designer toy industry compared to what we are used to doing, so for this proejct there was no question about doing details of whatever! It was very straight forward, no worries about what to put on the character! And you know how much work we are normally used to putting into our customs! So sometimes, when I'm looking at this custom, I'm like; he looks nude man! hahahaaha!
But hey, we learned something new and that's what important for us; to be versatile enough to be able to do whatever idea we have in our heads, and this one is another very good example!
TOYSREVIL: now you've gone and put a mental image in my head (a nude-Quas LOL) cheers for your time and trouble Dr.Bao and we look forward to more goodies from you in 2008! and a very Happy New Year to you and your family, and to Spive too! hope you had a great holiday? cheers :)
