Tiki Machine, LLC

Tiki Bar iPhone Game

2012-01-27T15:49:00.000-08:00

Happy Friday all! Tiki Machine shares the talented Nate Funaro with what we consider to be our sister company, Caldera Studios. Nate has worked with them on several fun (and sometimes educational) iPhone games, like Abby Crabby and iSkream in the past. You can check them out in the iTunes App Store. And they have a game that we find near to our collective Tiki-Loving Hearts. We thought you all would like to hear about it.

Most recently Caldera Studios has updated their awesome new tiki drink-mixing iPhone game, “Tikibar” and now it’s free! Can you believe that?! It’s a very cool (not to mention extremely fun and addicting!) game where you get to mix up tiki cocktails for crazy bar patrons and work for tips before the clock runs out. Bar patrons come up and order drinks and you, the tiki bartender get to shake, chop, mix and serve up the drinks!

So if you like tiki, cocktails, iPhone games, free stuff, or all of the above, then check out Tiki Bar for iPhone!

CLICK HERE

Have a great weekend and we'll see you here Monday! Try not to spend all your time playing the game. :)

Tightened Pencil Pages

2012-01-24T10:00:00.000-08:00

Good Morning! For those of you who might be wondering, yes, we are still alive. Friday's post was eclipsed by an anniversary and yesterday was a day that just ran away from us. To make up for the radio silence, so to speak, we have 2 more pencilled pages from The Destiny Gauntlets.

The 1st page is the tight pencils from page 3, whose rough pencils was the previous post. We find it fun and interesting to see what Rowel does once the pages are approved. His attention to detail as well as all the subtleties he includes in his backgrounds is eye-catching and frankly, beautiful.

The 2nd page is the rough thumbnails of the next page of the comic, page 4. Due to unforeseen circumstances, we are currently getting a new inker on board. This little hiccup shouldn't upset our goal of a 2012 release but unfortunately, we cannot give a date just yet. Stay tuned to the blog because as soon as we know the details or projected dates, we'll post them here. Thanks for being patient, we appreciate and hope our little fantasy comic will excite and please you as it has thus far for us. Have a great week! We'll see you on Friday.

Destiny Gauntlets Page 3

2012-01-16T21:13:00.000-08:00

We're trying to not give away too much but then without the dialogue balloons, there isn't a whole lot of revealing. Not to say that the comic is reliant on word balloons to push the narrative but we approached this first issue wanting the dialogue to drop some hints at a larger back story while letting Rowel's great pencils propel the story forward. Hopefully with an enthusiasm to turn quickly to the next page. Here's page 3. We hope you enjoy the little comic snacks. Hopefully in the next couple of weeks, we'll have some more sneak peeks at most of the 2012 projects, and not just the Lucy and Destiny Gauntlets stuff. We'll see you on Friday. You survived Monday, so here's to getting through the rest of the week!

ps - For those of you new viewers, if you'd like to see/read more about The Destiny Gauntlets, click on the label. It'll bring up a whole slew of posts regarding the world Mike created and Brook brought to life before Rowel got his pencils moving. :)

Friday the 13th

2012-01-13T15:28:00.000-08:00

It's Friday and it's the 13th. That pretty much sums it up. No post beyond a little fan piece. We don't have anything from the new 2012 projects that are quite ready to show just yet. So, have a great weekend and we'll see you on Monday. Be safe out there. Avoid cracks in the sidewalk, abandoned forest roads/cabins and all that. :)

First of many 2012 projects

2012-01-09T18:30:00.000-08:00

One of the projects that we've been hinting at over the coarse of the last couple weeks is about to see the light of day. Well, online anyway. Regardless, we are excited to announce our little foray into illustrative online recipes. Here are the details of this new adventure for all of us.

Little Lucy is teaming up with food blogger La Fuji Mama for a new online adventure in cooking and delicious, fun and kid-friendly recipes. Lucy was featured in a post and gift giveaway in early December. Once a month, our favorite little imaginative redhead will be featured in a new illustration (an illustration of the month so to speak) and posted jointly here and on La Fuji Mama's website along with a new and exciting (did we mention kid-friendly?) recipe. Be sure to check out the book she authored about Family Friendly Japanese Cuisine, here. (Side note: Lucy artist Mike redesigned Fuji's Sea Bream logo which was featured in a post here.)

Our plan, after we arrive at December 2012, is to put all the illustrations and the recipes into a fun little kid's cookbook. More details to come, since we did just start the year 2012. So, here's the full illustration for January. The post is now live! Go check it out by clinking on the La Fuji Mama link above. The recipe post will appear on La Fuji Mama's website within the next couple of days. So, go check it out and if Lucy isn't on there, come back at a later time. We are trying to coordinate our joint efforts so please bear with us as we figure all this out. All we know is that we are super-excited to do this and hope you join us in our imaginary culinary adventures! They should be quite tasty.

See you all on Friday!

First Arts Walk of 2012 Aftermath

2012-01-06T20:44:00.000-08:00

Good evening everyone! Last night marked the first Arts Walk of the new year. With everybody making changes (or at least thinking about it), the event itself made a couple of changes. There is a new organizer of the event and as sad as we are to see Van Doren no longer a part of the Arts Walk, we were excited and happy to meet Jo, the new organizer.

We wonder if the ringing in of the new year thinned out attendance as there were not as many people as we've come to expect, and even though the Arts Walk was a little more sparse in exhibitor/vendor attendance, we had a great time! (See the empty tables next to us?) We made some new friends and saw some old ones show up. We even had someone recognize us from the Long Beach Comic Con! Lucy made some new friends and Deus Libris and Monster Mythos tickled some fancies. All in all, it was a good night and we're glad to have participated. And we look forward to being a part of next months! So, with that, have a great weekend! We'll see you all back here on Monday morning with something new, unless Jury Duty needs us and then it will be an evening post. Don't say we didn't warn you...

January Arts Walk

2012-01-04T18:02:00.000-08:00

We've heard that everywhere outside of California is enjoying an actual winter. Like with cold temperatures and whatnot. Which is not the case here! But despite the nice summer weather starting off a year, we have little Lucy enjoying her winter. As well as being excited for tomorrow's event. Tomorrow is the first Thursday of January and like every first Thursday for the last year and a half, we will be participating in the downtown Riverside Arts Walk. We always enjoy this little local show. We meet wonderful new people, artists and vendors and enjoy being a part of the event.

Once again, we will be found inside the Life Arts Building on the corner of Lemon and University. It's the old red-brick building - actual address is 3485 University Avenue in Downtown Riverside, CA. Doors open at 6pm and then close at 9pm. It's always a fun time so if you are in the area, you should swing by and say hi!

We have been advised that parking is still kind of tricky as several of the lots are being worked on by the city. There are lots of vendors lining the streets as well as inside the building, so make sure you come with plenty of time to check everything and everybody out. See you tomorrow night!

2012!

2012-01-02T18:11:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year! Wow, can you believe it's actually 2012?! It is and as we start out this new year, we look forward to meeting new people, participating in new events, arts walks and comic cons. We also look forward to continuing the great friendships we made last year. Here's to a productive and exciting new year!

We might be jumping the gun a bit but we really wanted to share this with you all. Yes, we are still in the inking and lettering stages of The Destiny Gauntlets #1 but how about seeing the rough thumbnails of possible covers for #2? Yeah?! Well, enjoy Rowel's thumbs as we are trying our Tiki-hardest to get this little comic of ours into the light of day as well as your hands. Stay tuned for more information as it develops.

And we hope to have some very exciting new news to announce within the next couple of weeks. Barring an emergency, we should have a cool post. But per our usual when beginning a new month, we will be participating in the downtown Riverside Arts Walk this Thursday. We'll post the details on Wednesday and pics on Friday. Have a great week! See you back here in a couple of days. Wheee!!

Irons in the Fire

2011-12-30T15:44:00.000-08:00

Happy Friday All! And a New Year's Eve eve we guess...

Well, like we posted last week, we are feeling very grateful for all the fun we had this past year. We've also learned quite a bit and are hoping to gain some momentum on future projects.

We are already planning out next summer's collaborative art book (the theme has been decided but we're going to wait a little while before announcing it). We are also planning Lucy's next children's book adventure as well as a fun monthly post idea working with La Fuji Mama and her Foodie blog. And we're trying our hardest to get some of our one-shot comic ideas launched in web-comic form as well as printed comics. Plus, we still have our graphic novels in production. (See?! We have new Destiny Gauntlets promo work which should prove we're still working on it. Right?)

Please continue to stay tuned here, Twitter and the website. We are very excited about everything we're working on! We're trying our hardest to find the time to get it all done.

Cheers and much Mahalo to you all. Here's to a prosperous New Year and all the great creative opportunities and challenges 2012 will present. See you all next year. ;)

Season's Greetings!

2011-12-23T12:35:00.000-08:00

We wish you all the Season's Best! Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, Merry Solstice or whatever you might celebrate. We hope that the Holiday Season is full of good food, great friends & family, and wonderful memories.

We've enjoyed all of those things this year due to Arts Walks, Comic Cons, Twitter, Facebook, meeting and getting to know you all. So let's finish out the year with a fantastic and cheery note. So a great Mahalo from us to you!

- The Tiki Machine Crew

First Lucy Reading!

2011-12-19T11:56:00.000-08:00

Good Morning friends! We had a wonderful weekend and we hope that you all did too, whatever you did or wherever you were.

On Saturday, Deb was asked to do a reading of The ABC's of Lucy as Imagined by Lucy for a birthday party. It went really well, considering she was reading to a gaggle of 2 year olds. Both the kids and their parents enjoyed hearing Lucy's alphabet exploits and looking at all the costume ideas. We're glad that Deb (the author of the book) was willing to do a reading and that she had such a good time doing it. We're pretty sure that won't be the last time. Way to go Deb! And a special Tiki-thanks to all the party-goers for being so kind to little Lucy.

That is the biggest news we have to share from this past weekend. We're juggling holiday parties, visits to and from family and friends, as well as writing/fleshing out some comic ideas, finalizing the theme for next summer's art book, next year's Lucy children's book and other creative ideas. Be sure to come back to see what we are up to and any special announcements.

If you are interested in setting up a special reading of The ABC's of Halloween as Imagined by Lucy, feel free to drop us an email at tiki.machine@gmail.com

See you on Friday!

Destiny Gauntlets Page 2 Process

2011-12-16T19:20:00.000-08:00

Happy Friday all! Congrats to another week survived. It sure feels like that's what the week was like for us. As we finish out 2011, we are trying to keep the blog posts going but this lull in projects makes it a little more difficult than we had imagined. Which is okay because that gives us a chance to share the pencilled pages of the debut issue of The Destiny Gauntlets.

At the beginning of this post, we have our penciller's (Rowel Roque) tightened pencils as they went to Sean for inking. But today we have a special treat. Here's the process of how page 2 came to be. From Mike's mind, to Brook's computer, to Rowel's pencil. Which is the point that it finds itself at now....

Script by Brook Chalmers -

Page 2…. 3 frames

Frame 1

Eva’lona is sitting lotus style in an alleyway her eyes closed. In a smaller frame they open up.

Frame 2

She looks down the alleyway with a worried expression on her face.

Frame 3

She runs down the alleyway to a now clearly visible bazaar.

Here is Rowel's first pass based on the script and a little extra info emailed to him. Rarely does anything go off without a hitch, especially when trying to get different people (with their own personal interpretations, influences and whatnot) to share the same vision. Like with all collaborative processes, there was some adjusting to get what Mike (the creator) and Brook had in mind.

The original pass didn't "feel" right. It didn't have the urgency the scene needed, so we gave Rowel some notes to help with that.

Which is how we came to this rough page. Which was exactly what we had in mind so we approved it and Rowel tightened up the pencils for Sean (which is the image at the top of the post.)

How's that for seeing behind the curtain? Pretty fun, right? It is quite the process to make a comic book but it's an exciting one. So as the weekend looms before us and the past week is behind us, please enjoy the glimpse into the machinations of working on an original creator-owned story. Once we get the inking and lettering up to par and finished, we'll post those too. Enjoy your weekend, stay sane against the insanity of malls and holiday shopping. We'll see you here on Monday morning.

New Week, New Art Post

2011-12-12T08:41:00.000-08:00

Good morning and Happy Monday to everyone! We hope the weekend was kind to you all. It was kind of hectic to us. The best of intentions sometimes take a backseat to freelance opportunities. Which is the reason Friday's post was MIA.

To make up for it, we have a rough and tightened pencil page from the debut issue of the Destiny Gauntlets. The image at the top of the post is the final approved tight pencils and the next image is the rough page layout Rowel sent over first. And the first page no less! Here's how the story kicks off. Plus, with all the historic info Brook has written about the world, you should feel at home. If you want a refresher in the history of the land of Fornera, click on the Destiny Gauntlet label at the bottom of the post and go back through all the old Destiny Gauntlet posts. Brook's vision of this mystical and mysterious world is a lot of fun to read about!

We're wrapping up the voting among the contributing artists this week for the 2012 art book. It's pretty exciting and once we have something to share, you know we will.

We're also working on the writing of two standalone one-shot comic book stories this week too. And once we have something shareworthy as well, you know it'll be posted here.

Have a great week. Tell you friends about Deus Libris and The ABC's of Halloween as Imagined by Lucy. (We're also working/setting up some signings that hopefully will be before the year's end. Once we have definitive news, you will all be invited!) Visit the new Tiki Machine store. And we'll see you here on Friday.

Fantastic News!

2011-12-05T10:57:00.001-08:00

Happy Day of the Ninja! We hope you all enjoy participating in Ninja-related activities. To help celebrate, we have the finished and final illustration of little Lucy dressed as a Ninja from her book. Speaking of little Lucy and her book, well, this weekend gave us an amazing surprise! The ABC's of Halloween as Imagined by Lucy are IN!

Despite the longshoreman strike at the port of Long Beach (which had us a little concerned) the books got in and cleared customs. We've removed the Pre-Order tag for the book on both the PayPal button here and on the website. Please tell all your friends. Despite the Halloween theme, they make great gifts for kid's ages 5 and up.

Here's a pic with our printer and his lovely wife with their copy of the book. As well as their Lucy Holiday postcard and button. It's kind of crazy to think we've done 3 books in a little over a year. Right?!

And here's the pic of the stack of boxes in the garage. We didn't have a good camera with us so all you get is the dark iPhone photo. But you get the idea...

Also, it has come to our attention that a couple of bloggers have Tiki Machine books in their Must Buy Holiday Gifts lists. We are extremely honored to be on this lists as well as share spare with some very cool and talented people. If you wanna see the lists, here are the links.

Food Blogger La Fuji Mama's 2011 Fuji Gift Guide

Geek Writer/Blogger Amy Ratcliffe's Attack of the Holiday Gift Guide, Part 1: 10 Books/Comics to Give/Get

A very special Tiki-thanks to Amy and Rachael! Have a great week everyone. Enjoy the Ninja festivities and we'll see you here on Friday.

Recap and Weekend Events

2011-12-02T23:04:00.001-08:00

Happy Weekend everyone! Last night, we had a great time once again at the Downtown Riverside Arts Walk. We really enjoy our monthly attendance and wish to say thank you to those who braved the chilly night to visit us. We find it funny that only a couple of months ago we were talking about how hot it was and now, winter is in full-force. Well, by California standards. We are well-aware how much colder it is outside of the state. But to us, it's still cold. We look forward to starting 2012 with an Arts Walk and are planning for some goodies to have ready.

Deus Libris contributer Kyle Smith showed up to the festivities and we wanted to let you all know that he now has a DeviantArt account. Go check out his graffiti-inspired art, leave him some feedback and be on the lookout, as he's planning on putting more of his artwork into the public eye. He's new to the scene but very enthusiastic as well as talented and we can't wait to see what he brings to next years art book!

This weekend has a great local event that , although Tiki Machine won't be at, we have some very talented friends participating in. It's the Unique LA Holiday show and if you have no plans, you should definitely go. Here's the info from the website and some of our talented colleagues to be on the lookout for -

December 3 + 4 // 11am – 6pm both days

Where: The California Market Center (110 East Ninth Street, LA, CA 90079)

Cost: $10 at the door or in advance online (Kids 12 and under are free), 10% of ticket sales go to our great non-profit partner 826LA.

Admission includes:
• An exclusive, collectible cotton tote bag (each show features a tote designed by a guest artist)
• Unlimited re-entry for both days + our printed Vendor Directory & Mini Magazine
• Free drinks! (Holiday Punch featuring Sailor Jerry Rum, Blackstar Beer, The Naked Grape wine, IZZE, Honest Tea, GT’s Kombucha)
• Free DIY workshops + crafts by The Urban Craft Center, L.A. Zine Fest and the Craft and Folk Art Museum
• Free portraits and a print at the Oh Snap Photo Booth
• Access to Amoeba’s rockin’ downtown Pop-Up Shop – exclusive just for us!
• Two different cafe areas so you can grab a coffee or enjoy lunch, snacks or a treat

The largest independent design show in the country, attendees get the rare chance to meet and shop directly from over 325 hand-selected designers and artists. The exciting two-day shopping event makes it easy for you to buy local and support LA’s economy, discover great design and deals, join in community, and have a blast. The products at the show are proudly made right here in the USA so you’re putting your dollars right back into our economy and local community! With fun for everyone plan to spend the day with us…

Be sure to check out Matt Spangler at Robots and Racecars - Booth #150

Vince and Oliver Akuin aka Fluent Flyers Shirt Co/Studio

Have a great weekend! We'll see you here on Monday with exciting news!

December Arts Walk

2011-11-30T08:36:00.001-08:00

As promised on (late) Monday night, here is the information for the Downtown Riverside Arts Walk, taking place Thursday December 1st, 2011.

We will be inside the Life Arts Building, located at 3485 University Avenue in Downtown Riverside, CA. Doors open at 6pm and then close at 9pm.

Be aware that parking is kind of tricky as several of the lots are being worked on by the city. There are lots of vendors lining the streets as well as inside the building, so make sure you come with plenty of time to check everything and everybody out. See you tomorrow night!

Post-turkey (Late-night) Monday Post

2011-11-28T21:38:00.001-08:00

Happy Monday everyone! It looks like we all survived the turkey and pie-induced comas and were able to start a new week. It was a very delicious weekend for us and we hope it was the same for you all.

We've updated the website with a store! Just like the sidebar here, you can purchase our books via PayPal. We're still figuring out/updating the site but it's a start. We're still awaiting official word from the printers about Lucy's ABC book. And as soon as we know anything, we will post it here to let everyone else know. If you look at the sidebar, you'll notice we have a PayPal button for pre-ordering the book. We've been guaranteed that the books will be in before Christmas so that's something.

This week is will host the first Thursday of the month (being December 1st) so that means we'll be set up in our normal space inside the Life Arts Center in Downtown Riverside for the Arts Walk. We'll post a reminder with all the info and details on Wednesday. We always look forward to this monthly event and with the historic Mission Inn all decked out for Christmas, it'll make for a really fun evening. If anyone is in the area, you should swing by and join in the festivities. We'll have some Holiday buttons and prints available too.

This might be the latest post we've ever done. So let's all go to bed and meet back here on Wednesday. G'night!

Thanksgiving!

2011-11-22T09:02:00.001-08:00

Happy Tuesday everyone! We are sorry that there was no post yesterday. We really have no excuse because the day got away from us. We really enjoyed being at CTN-X this weekend. It was great to talk to old friends, meet new people and be inspired. The ABC's of Halloween made an appearance on the floor (as we were unable to exhibit) and we've very grateful for all the kind words from some of the best artists in animation. She seemed to be very well-received! A very special Tiki-thanks to all of you! (You know who you are...) Here's a picture of the spoils of the weekend. Every book here is AMAZING! If you don't have copies, get them. Not only does it support self-publishers and DIY'ers but it'll make your libraries super cool. We urge you to revisit the links we posted last Friday to some of our fantastic friends.

As far as news, we just have a short post. We wanted to wish everyone out there in cyber-space a Happy Thanksgiving!

We're very grateful to all the encouragement and friendship from all those who have supported us over the last year. We are looking forward to all of 2012's projects as well as interacting with all of you. Have a great holiday full of good food and memories. We won't have a post on Friday because of turkey coma but we'll be back on Monday with something.

CTN-X

2011-11-18T09:05:00.001-08:00

Happy Friday All! This weekend (starting today) is the Creative Talent Network Expo in Burbank CA. Lots of our very talented friends in animation are participating and while Tiki Machine won't be exhibiting, several of the contributing artists from both Monster Mythos and Deus Libris will be. Here's a list of the people you should stop by and see. We certainly are!

Muertoons
Brianne Drouhard and Steph Laberis - Table T-81
Beth Slevin
Fleet Street Scandal
Sean "Cheeks" Galloway
Wayne Medina - Table T-62
Mark McDonnell - Table T-54
David Colman
Brittney Lee
Jose Lopez
Megan Brain
Pascal Campion
Stephen Silver
Robert Tsai
Trevor Spencer
Valerio Ventura
Victoria Ying and Michael Yamada -Table T-45
and many, many more!

And Mike will be wandering the aisles on Saturday so Tiki Machine will have a presence. If you are in the area, you should check it out. Have a great weekend, we'll planning on it. See you on Monday!

The State of Things

2011-11-14T22:23:00.001-08:00

Let's start this off with some new art just because it's a new week and we love you all.

We had waited to post until tonight because we spent today discussing what's next for Tiki Machine. We are at a lull right now with our projects, so we are lining up new projects and dusting off some older (but not forgotten) projects to make for a (we hope anyway) successful 2012. We've been able to participate in several conventions and arts walks which have been so much fun. We're marking our calendars for the wheres and whens for next year. And once we have concrete dates, we'll be sure to post them up here so we can see you all wherever we'll be.

The ABC's of Halloween as Imagined by Lucy is still currently being printed in Taiwan. We are trying to get a definitive delivery date and once the printer communicates that to us, we'll be sure to post it here (as well as on Twitter and Facebook.) AND, we've already started writing the next Lucy book! Deb is taking li'l Lucy on a pretty sweet adventure and we're excited to share more about that as it gets closer.

Our fantasy comic, The Destiny Gauntlets has taken a back seat to day jobs and the need to pay bills but we're working very hard to get it back on track for a 2012 debut. (That's a tight pencil page 6 which is at the beginning of the post BTW....) Brooks writing, Rowel's pencils and Sean's ink need to be shared. They are just THAT good...

Burning Gods is (and we believe that we've posted this) going in a different direction than we had originally thought. We thought about doing a monthly title but it would best serve the story (and the Tiki Machine wallet) to combine the first story arc into one graphic novel. So, with that in mind, we're hammering out the details and revising the script so that we can get Brook and Bobby's vision of a post-apocalyptic world into your hands.

We're already planning out the theme for next year's collaborative art book. We've narrowed it down to two thoughts/themes but we're not going to release the details just yet. Be patient with us but we are very confident that it will be well worth the wait.

We're also planning some one-shot comics to tell some fun and simple stories. Some of the ideas are all-ages and some are not. The key-words being thrown about are: particle accelerators, spies, time travel, surf adventures, aspiring astronaut, revenge killings, robots, cowboys and dinosaurs. So stay tuned to see which key-words develop into stories. We have many ideas and once they get to a stage worthy of sharing, we'll do just that.

It's been a year since Tiki Machine debuted and we've learned quite a bit. We've deepened friendships, made new friends and artistic acquaintances, and created some wonderful art. Tiki-thanks to everyone who has supported us, given us advice and journeyed with us. We look forward to many more adventures. See you back here on Friday for some event updates. Have a great week!

11.11.11

2011-11-11T22:17:00.001-08:00

Here's a morning sketch that developed into something more. It's our little Tiki way of saying "Thanks to those who currently serve and those who have served. We Salute You."

Enjoy your weekend! We'll be back on Monday with an informative post.

Awesome Monster Mythos Story!

2011-11-07T09:14:00.000-08:00

This is probably the coolest story we've heard here at Tiki Machine. A friend of Deb's purchased Monster Mythos as a Christmas present for her nephew. To those of you new to the blog, Monster Mythos is an art book filled with legendary beasts, fiends and mystical creatures whose legends were pulled from folklore all over the world. These beasties have been beautifully re-imagined and brought to life by a collective of 18 artists from the animation and illustrative fields. Their hope is to bring the same inspiration and wonder to those who might not have heard of these beasts, as these legends have to generations before. Deb was told that the gift went over like gangbusters! (Which left us with the warm and fuzzies!) However, that's not the story -

Last week, Deb got a text message from her friend. We'll quote the text so no details get lost. "Hey guys...fun lil story about your monster book I gave my nephew last Christmas...my 11-year old nephew had to do a report on 15 different monsters and was so stressed out cause he didn't know anything about monsters...then said, ' oh Mom! I'm the luckiest in my class. I have a book all about monsters.' LOL, he used all of his monsters out of your book!"

He got 350/300 earning an extra 50 points by bringing in the book and sharing it with the class! How awesome is that?! Check out the pic of the grading sheet! We are tickled pink at this and love that not only is the book enjoyed by way of looking at the great art supplied by talented friends and artists but on an educational level as well.

That made our weekend as we received the pictures and further info! And we thought it would be a fun blog post to start off the week. Have a good one and we'll see you again on Friday! Oh - If there are any fans out there with similar stories or pictures, send them in and we'll post them here on the blog. We're also thinking about having a Fan section on the website where we'd post the pics too! Woot!

Pics and Links

2011-11-04T09:06:00.000-07:00

Good morning! It appears that Fall finally caught up with Southern California as it's grey and overcast, with the possibility of rain. (Scratch that, it IS raining right now...) Mother Nature is a week late as this weather would have been perfect for Halloween. (The overcast bit, not the actual rain. No one likes to Trick 'r Treat in the rain...) Ah well!

Last night was the monthly installment of the Riverside Arts Walk and there was a great turn out. We'd like to send out a Tiki-thanks to Van Doren for her continued organization of the Arts Walk. We're also very grateful to the fans who come out and support us. (Nick and Kim among those leading the charge so to speak.) We love to see little Lucy so well-received and loved. We also really enjoy seeing people's reactions to all the beautiful art from Monster Mythos and Deus Libris. As we head in to the weekend, we thought we'd share some of the pictures taken last night as well as links to the new artists/friends we've made due to participating in the Long Beach Comic Con.

Here are some of the pics Deb was able to snap during the event. We were super excited to see James, who we met at LBCC last weekend, come by and say hi. It's fun to see familiar faces!

And here are links to some very talented, not to mention super nice, artists whom with we interacted at LBCC and want to share the love as they have some amazing projects that they are a part of -

Matthew G. Hill - comic book artist/illustrator, writer, and scotch-drinking international man of mystery

Drew Johnson - comic book penciller extraordinaire and lover of all things Thomas Jane

Chris Houghton - the artistic half of the wunder-team responsible for creating the All Ages comic Reed Gunther over at Image Studios

Shane Houghton - the writing half of the wunder-team responsible for creating the All Ages comic Reed Gunther over at Image Studios

Thom Zahler - creator of indie comic Love and Capes, comic strip artist and game-show winner!

Amy Ratcliffe - writer. blogger. geek.

Show them some love and support their projects! Also, have a great weekend. We'll see you here on Monday.

November Arts Walk

2011-11-03T07:24:00.000-07:00

Good morning everyone! We forgot to mention in Monday's post that today is the Downtown Riverside Arts Walk and that we'll once again be inside the Life Arts Building. We're so excited to participate in this every month and to be truthful, November kind of snuck up on us. So if you happen to be near Riverside this evening, swing on by and say hi. We have an advanced copy of "The ABC's of Halloween as Imagined by Lucy" for you all to flip through, read and enjoy! (We are aware that Halloween is over, but the book can be enjoyed year-round. As can monsters and ghost stories...)

Just like at LBCC this past weekend, we'll be offering a promo on the ABC's book. Since the books are still being printed and won't be available until the end of November/beginning of December, if you pre-order the book at the table, we'll give you one free 8x10 Lucy print of your choice AND we'll pay for shipping when the book finally arrives. This promo is only available at the table so take advantage.

For those you who don't know, the Life Arts Building is located at 3485 University Avenue, Riverside, CA. Doors open officially at 6pm and then close at 9pm. Be aware that parking is kind of tricky as several of the lots are being worked on by the city. There are lots of vendors lining the streets as well as inside the building, so make sure you come with plenty of time to look around and see all the cool local artists, photographers, jewelry makers, etc.

See you tonight! And we'll be posting tomorrow as well. Have a great day!

Happy Halloween!

2011-10-31T08:44:00.000-07:00

Today is the day! The ghoulish affair full of ghosts, goblins and the like. It feels fitting to wake up to Halloween right after the Long Beach Horror and Comic Con. Despite it being the start of a new work week, it feels like the weekend won over another day. To us anyway.

The Con was spectacular! We thoroughly enjoyed the vibe of the show, the new friends and fans made, the costumes we got to look at and the time spent in a new venue. We had such a blast in Artist Alley that we'll be returning next year. You can count on it!

We did really well, and wanted to send out a special Tiki-thanks to everyone who dropped by the table. Some very nice things were said and compliments given and we feel very fortunate to have been a part of the show. Here are some pics taken with the iPhone during the course of the weekend. Not enough but a taste....

We were across the aisle from Thom Zahler, creator of the Heroically Super Situation Comedy indie comic, Love and Capes and writer Amy Ratcliffe. We were right next to comic book penciller Drew Johnson, who really helped facilitate our Long Beach adventure. Also in our row were concept designer Ben Risbeck, inker Norm Rapmund, and Horror writer Steve Niles.

(Who we gave a copy of Monster Mythos and Deus Libris to.) Our good friend and Deus Libris contributer, Francois Gomes, dropped by to say hi.

He ended up sketching out a quick dragon for Mike. If you ever want to feel excitement and be humbled at the same time, watch an amazing French artist work! He was with another French friend of ours, Quentin Peyssonneaux.

We met lots of great people. And we'll link all their amazing blogs and websites soon. Just know that we enjoyed ourselves. Thank you Long Beach. Tiki-thanks to all the new friends again! Have a great week and we'll see you here on Friday. Happy Halloween!!

Weekend Event Details

2011-10-28T23:20:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the late post. Today has been a whirlwind of activity! We're still prepping for our participation in the Long Beach Horror and Comic Con which starts Saturday morning and runs thru Sunday evening. Like we had mentioned on Monday, we'll be sharing space with contributing Monster Mythos and Deus Libris artist Mike Morris. Here are the specific details:

Artist Alley Table #1805
Saturday, October 29 10:00 AM - 7:00 PM
Sunday, October 30 10:00 AM - 5:00 PM

We're excited to have at the table an advance copy of "The ABC's of Halloween as Imagined by Lucy" which we were fortunate to get today from our printer. (Don't worry, we'll post pictures here soon enough. Right now we need to finish this post and then make some more Halloween buttons...)

Which means we'll be doing pre-sales! The bulk shipment will probably not arrive before the end of November (which means the book could make a fantastic Christmas present!) but if you pre-order the book at the table, we'll give you one free 8x10 Lucy print of your choice AND we'll pay for shipping when the book finally arrives. This promo is only available at the table, it's not available online. So, c'mon by, say hi, buy a t-shirt or the book and enjoy the con. We're super excited to be a part of it. It's our first time inside the walls of the Convention Center! See you in the morning, just look for the Tiki Table Cloth and the Zombie Lucy tees.....

G'night!

Weekend Survival

2011-10-24T07:13:00.000-07:00

Good Morning! Thinking about how this weekend went, we can't help but smile. The Zombie Love continues into this week - The Uptown Whittier Zombie Pub Crawl was absolutely outstanding! We had a blast!! A very special Tiki-thanks to Andrew for setting up another great event! As well as Ernie and Lisa for providing space in their beautiful Vinatero Wine Shop for us to set up and sell our Zombie Lucy stuff. We sold lots of shirts and buttons plus a couple of prints and books. If you head over to the Vinatero Wine Shop Facebook page, you can see the album of pics from Saturday night. We look forward to the next Zombie Crawl, which will be in February.

We're going to do a book-signing event at Vinatero once the Lucy books come in, so stay tuned for the official details. We're very grateful to have such great support in Whittier. Thanks everyone!! You're all awesome!

This coming weekend, we'll be at the Long Beach Comic Con. As soon as we have the official details, we'll post them here. But be aware that our own Mike will be sharing a table with contributing Monster Mythos and Deus Libris artist Mike Morris. So have a good week. Try not to get too excited about seeing us at LBCC, we wouldn't want your work to suffer. :)

Weekend Event Details

2011-10-21T07:23:00.000-07:00

It's Friday! October is full-swing and starting this weekend, there is a lot going on around here. Lots! We wanted today's post to be info on two events that are a lot of fun to take part in.

The first event will have our great friends over at Muertoons once again participating and is the annual Dia de los Muertos celebration at the Hollywood Memorial. They were there last year and Rosita y Conchita was a resounding success! This year they will have not only the beautiful children's books but plush dolls, t-shirts and limited edition prints as well as copies of Monster Mythos and Deus Libris. Be sure to check them out this Saturday from 12pm - 12am at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery (6000 Santa Monica Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90038) The above image was done The Gute for Deus Libris and is the Mexican Goddess Santa Muerte. She's the Goddess of Death considered to be a combination of Aztec and Catholic beliefs, who serves as a reminder that all of us will die and that we should reverence death and the dead.

The second event happens every six months or so in Uptown Whittier and we've been privileged to be a part of it. It's the Uptown Whittier Zombie Pub Crawl! We'll be set up inside the Vinatero Wine Shop again selling our Zombie Lucy merchandise. The shirts will be on sale for only $13 in honor of October. Prints still be $10 and everything else is just a buck. What a deal! Here are all the details - Saturday October 22nd starting at 7pm at 6740 Greenleaf Avenue, Whittier CA 90601 this shindig will go until 2am. This Pub Crawl honors the movie that started it all "Night of the Living Dead" with our Black and White Crawl! We request that everybody wear Black and White and no other colors so we look like a Black and White movie! This event is 21 and over. Tell all your friends.

Playing at Firehouse Grill:
The Rhythm Coffin, Piss N Blood and The Blob

Quick details:
21 and over with Valid ID only for access to the stops.
Stops stay open till last call (between 12 and 2am)
Costumes encouraged but not required
Be nice!

Have a great weekend and we'll see you again on Monday!

Celebrate the Zombie

2011-10-17T07:40:00.000-07:00

Good morning everyone! We thought it would be fun to start the week off with some zombie love. Who doesn't love zombies?! That and we have zombies on the brain - The Walking Dead premiered last night AND the Uptown Whittier Pub Crawl is this Saturday.

That's right, the denizens of Uptown Whittier and anyone so inclined will dress up in zombie goodness and take to the streets. So, now you have something to look forward to as you try and "survive" the week. (Hah! Zombie humor!!) It's gonna be a fun time! Here's the info from their official Facebook Group Page (which we also linked above) -

	October 22nd at 7pm - 2am October 23rd Starting Point: 6740 Greenleaf Avenue Whittier CA 90601
	We are back for another crawl and this time we honor the movie that started it all "Night of the Living Dead" with our Black and White Crawl! We request that everybody wear Black and White and no other colors so we look like a Black and White movie! More information soon about the contests and schedule for this crawl, please invite all your 21 and over friends. Playing at Firehouse Grill: The Rhythm Coffin, Piss N Blood and The Blob Quick details: 21 and over with Valid ID only for access to the stops. Stops stay open till last call (between 12 and 2am) Costumes encouraged but not required Be nice!

October 22nd at 7pm - 2am October 23rd

Starting Point: 6740 Greenleaf Avenue Whittier CA 90601

We are back for another crawl and this time we honor the movie that started it all "Night of the Living Dead" with our Black and White Crawl! We request that everybody wear Black and White and no other colors so we look like a Black and White movie! More information soon about the contests and schedule for this crawl, please invite all your 21 and over friends.

Playing at Firehouse Grill:
The Rhythm Coffin, Piss N Blood and The Blob

Quick details:
21 and over with Valid ID only for access to the stops.
Stops stay open till last call (between 12 and 2am)
Costumes encouraged but not required
Be nice!

We'll re-post all the info on Friday as a reminder. Enjoy the Lucy illustration (it's the official letter Z illustration) and remember to have a great week!

Lucy Book Cover Art

2011-10-14T07:22:00.000-07:00

Happy Friday all! It's been a really hot week here in Southern California! It does not feel like Fall has arrived but rather Summer is still in full swing. Regardless of the heat, we hope that this week has been a good one for you all. It has been for us.

Officially, we can announce that The ABC's of Halloween as Imagined by Lucy is at the printer's! We're excited to see the finished book. Unfortunately, as we suspected, we won't be getting the books back in time for Halloween. We apologize for that but will let you all know when said books will be released. It looks like mid-November. (Which means that the book will make for a nice Christmas present - keeping the Halloween spirit VERY much alive thru the year....)

So here's the final book cover design, for your eyes as a pre-weekend treat. As well as a close-up section of the design for the butterfly pages. Those are the pages that hold the cover together before the meat and potatoes of the illustrations; in Monster Mythos and Deus Libris, it's the cool Old World Map image. We sure hope you enjoy! Have a great weekend and we'll see you all back here on Monday!

Check out Monday's New Art!

2011-10-10T08:38:00.000-07:00

Happy Monday! Well, this weekend marked the start of hockey season here in North America and for all you hockey fans out there, we wanted to share with you that little Lucy is also a fan of the sport. (We even included some hockey verbage in the Post Title. Hah!)

This post will be a bit more personal than we normally do here but it all makes sense and is part of the process of the book. As Deb and Mike were figuring out what costume to do for the letter H, they struggled and toyed with many ideas. Some good and some bad. Mike has three younger brothers who are fanatical about hockey and the NHL, so he and Deb decided to give an homage to Jason, TJ and Bryce by putting little Lucy in their favorite sport. But all three are fans of different teams! So to not play favorites in the color scheme, our author and illustrator both thought it would be a great idea to honor the 1980 USA Olympic Hockey team. Why not, right? They also included the Tiki Machine logo on the boards! So there you have it, a peek into the minds/process of one of Lucy's illustrations. Enjoy the glimpse and the new week. We'll see you all back here on Friday!

Arts Walk Photos

2011-10-07T21:02:00.000-07:00

Last night was a very fun and very busy Arts Walk! Tiki-thanks to Van Doren and her crew at the Life Arts Center AND to all the participants. We were fortunate to be right next to some first time participants and aspiring artists that we met at the last Artists on "A" Street. They were fun table neighbors and new friends!

We'd mostly like to send a special Tiki-thanks to everyone who came by and supported us. We love seeing friends we've made in the past as much as we enjoy meeting new people and sharing the Tiki Machine library with them. Several copies of the both books were sold as were some of the new Lucy prints (that we were able to get done before the event!) but the most popular item was the Zombie Lucy t-shirts. We hope people send in pictures of them wearing the shirts so we can post them here on the blog and the website. We look forward to next month's festivities. Enjoy the pics Deb was able to find time to take. And enjoy the weekend! We'll see you back here on Monday.

October Arts Walk

2011-10-06T07:23:00.000-07:00

Good morning all! Today is the first Thursday of the month, which means that tonight is another Arts Walk in downtown Riverside. We love participating in this event every month and tonight is no exception. Plus, it's October!! A month (and upcoming holiday) that Lucy and her artwork were made for.

We have lots of new buttons, including one specifically made for the Arts Walk. We're trying to see if the remaining Lucy ABC's illustrations can be printed in time for tonight...but with all that's been happening personally and professionally this week, we can't promise anything. We WILL have our Monster Mythos and Deus Libris books side-by-side with the popular Zombie Lucy tees (several things that add to the awesomeness of Halloween! In our opinions anyway...) so come celebrate the spook-tacular month of October! We'll be set up inside the Life Arts Building, located at 3485 University Avenue, Riverside, CA. Doors open officially at 6pm and then close at 9pm. Be aware that parking is kind of tricky as several of the lots are being worked on by the city. If you're in the Inland Empire, c'mon by! It'll be a blast!

Again, that's:

Life Arts Center

3485 University Ave

Riverside, CA

6pm-9pm

October!

2011-10-03T06:56:00.000-07:00

Good Morning and Happy Monday all! The weekend was a very nice one especially since it marked the beginning of Lucy's favorite month! It's now October!!

Since it's the first week of the new month, that means that we'll be in downtown Riverside again for the Arts Walk. We'll post all the info on Wednesday and remind everyone before the event starts on Thursday night.

For now, we want to celebrate the spooky holiday month with another final illustration of little Lucy imagining a possible costume for the letter X. Now X really doesn't have a lot of options as far as Halloween goes but we were able to come up with one that feels like a classic 50's era Monster Movie. Lucy IS....the Living X-ray!! Product of a horrible hospital accident (notice the homage to Scrubs hospital Sacred Heart?) and bent on revenge! Revenge has never looked some cute....

Enjoy the new month! Enjoy the new week! We look forward to the Arts Walk and will see you all back here on Wednesday evening.

Friday (Evening!) Post

2011-09-30T20:00:00.000-07:00

It's Friday night here in Southern California. It's been a beautiful evening and we hope that that is a sign of the coming weekend. We hope that all goes well for everyone. As we close out the month of September too, we look forward to the new month. Especially with little Lucy and her imagination adventure through the ABC's of Halloween.

We had previously posted a WIP of Lucy imagining herself in a costume for the letter I (for Inventor) and we wanted to post the finished illustration here for everyone. Enjoy!

For those of you who might be in the Bay Area this weekend we have the APE (Alternative Press Expo). Unfortunately, we won't be in attendance this year but we have several friends and plenty of artists we admire up there. Here's the schedule as well as a partial list of said artists. You should go by, say hi and support Indie Artists and their Projects. It'll be way cool! And a couple of the contributing artists from Deus Libris are there, so if you're looking for the book, go buy it directly from said artists. (Wow, we said "said artists" twice in one post.)

SATURDAY
October 1
11am - 7pm

SUNDAY
October 2
11am - 6pm

The Concourse
635 8th Street
San Francisco

Booth #134 Daisy Church & Damon O'keefe under the moniker The Double D's
Booth #525 Oliver Akuin under his T-shirt Co. Fluent Flyers
Travis Hanson will be there (look for Bean Leaf Press), we're just not sure what his booth # is (He hasn't posted the info). But pick up his Bean comic!

Plus these awesome artists -

Booth #718 Jeannine Schafer
Booth #278 Erwin Haya
Booth #277 Emerson Tung
Booth #289 Cat Maske
Booth #506 Karen Krajenbrink
Booth #420 Rehana Khan
Booth #700 Erin Leong
Booth #713 Liana Hee
Booth #714 Brittney Lee (we think that's the right booth #)
Table #326 - 329 Scott Morse, Ted Mathot, and others
Table #202 - Louie Del Carmen

Also, before we close, we would like to give a shout out to the Autumn Society and their huge new show, THE ICONOCLASTIC DEAD in Gurú Tienda Galería (MEXICO CITY). Go see it! (If you happen to be in Mexico City...)

Have a great weekend! We'll see you back here on Monday!

A (rare) Tuesday Post

2011-09-27T09:48:00.000-07:00

Man, this weekend was BUSY! And it blew over into the start of the new week. First things first, the Artists on "A" Street was, once again, a great and fun event to be a part off. We had the great opportunity to meet some new young artists who were also showcasing their work at the event. Tiki-thanks for the support Drake & Shannon! And again, tiki-thanks for helping at the table Nick! Joe (the organizer) is doing so much to get the word out more and more each time, that you can tell it is an event that is growing. We look forward to being a part of many more to come.

Little Lucy is finishing up her first adventure in imagination, and we wanted to share with you another finished illustration. This one is for (according to Deb) one of the harder of the letters to write. The letter U is for the imagined costume of Underwater Explorer. Lucy's vivd imagination sure does seem to take her to wonderful (and slightly dangerous) places.

We hope your week is off to a good start and continues that way. We'll see you here on Friday with some thing new to share. Thanks for stopping by!

Friday Night Post

2011-09-23T23:49:00.000-07:00

We should probably seriously think about posting on Friday mornings since we have the unfortunate habit of waiting until the day is almost done to post. The day just seems to get away from us....

Well, the week has come and gone and a new, fresh weekend is before us. We're planning on starting it off at the Artists on "A" Street event in Upland CA tomorrow. The Farmer's Market opens at 8am and we plan on setting up around 8:30. We'll be there (2nd Street and "A" Street in front of the Coffee Show BOOMERS) until around 1pm in the afternoon. We're looking forward to participating again (especially as the temperatures are supposed to be mild!) because it is a very fun event. Food Trucks, Live Music, Painters, Artisans and Tiki Machine. That looks like a formula for good times to us!

We'll have new buttons from the ABC's book. The new Lucy illustrations that have been shared via Twitter (we're @TikiMachine) as the book nears it final and finished glory. Today we'll share little Lucy in her imagined costume for the letter R which is for Robot. There are lots of subtle and some not-so-subtle homages to famous robots of Science Fiction fame. The laying out of the book continues and we have plans to finish it this weekend. Hopefully we'll get the files off to the printer so we can get little Lucy made. We're not sure if we can still make our desired Halloween release but we'll keep everyone posted here with the details as we get them.

For now, enjoy the start of the new weekend. Come by and see us tomorrow if you're in the area. If not, we'll see you back here Monday morning with some art and photos to cheer you up as you start the new week. Have fun!

Sneak Peek of Lucy Page

2011-09-19T16:10:00.000-07:00

Happy Monday everyone! We promised on Friday that today we would unveil a never-before-seen full page from the upcoming children's book, The ABC's of Halloween as Imagined by Lucy. We have previously posted the finished background for the Letter A but we've never shown even a sketch of what little Lucy might imagine herself as in Alien form.

So, here is the sample layout for the first letter in the alphabet. A finalized and completed illustration with the stanzas of the poem/writing. As this project nears completion, we're excited to loose Lucy and her imagination on the world. We've enjoyed sharing the process thus far and hope that you all have enjoyed it as well. See what you think and feel free to drop us a line or leave a comment. Thanks! And we'll see you back here on Friday with another post plus info on another event we'll be at this Saturday. Until then, have a terrific week.P.S. - Lucy's "look" was inspired by a plethora of science fiction goodness. And we'll share the nerdy goodness but only if someone asks us. Take a guess and see how close you are...

Ogre Weekend

2011-09-16T23:32:00.000-07:00

Happy Friday all! We're once again cutting it close with our Friday posts. And to show you some Tiki-Love before the weekend officially kicks off, we have the final and finished letter O illustration. Which had been tweeted about earlier in the week, for those of you following us. The letter proved itself to be a little difficult in figuring out what to do that was Halloween related and it turns out that the best idea for a costume was Ogre. And with her crazy imagination, little Lucy thinks herself to be quite the cute little Ogre as a possible Halloween costume.

(With apologies to DreamWorks and the Shrek crew, as we hope you find our little homage more flattering and less infuriating) So enjoy the final piece, a short but sweet post and most of all, enjoy the weekend! We'll see you here on Monday with some more Lucy illustrations side-by-side with some of the written stanzas. And they won't be the pages we showed as sneak peeks to the SDCC panel attendees. They will be new and never-before-seen. We promise.

New Art Monday

2011-09-12T14:40:00.000-07:00

Good afternoon Tiki-friends. Due to the break-neck speed of today's schedule, we have a quick and easy post. A simple "Yes, we're still alive. And yes, we have new stuff." Mike and Deb continue to push to finish the ABC's of Halloween book so that we can get it off to the printers and back into our hands in time for All Hallow's Eve. Our fingers are crossed that this will be the case. According to out Twitter sources, 15 of the 26 letters of the Alphabet are finished. The remaining 9 letters are all drawn out and cleaned up and awaiting colorizing. We'll keep you all posted on the status. Please enjoy toady's illustration which (in true homage to Sesame Street) is brought to you by the letter I. Enjoy your new week in addition to little Lucy as a crazy mad Inventor. See you all on Friday!

Ninja, Please!

2011-09-09T23:16:00.000-07:00

Better late than never, right? We spent the evening with friends/loved ones looking over the layout and writing of the ABC's of Halloween as Imagined by Lucy and JUST got home. We hope everyone had a productive week and we wish to send you into the weekend with little Lucy in her imagined costume for the letter N. (Which if you read the title, you'd already know where we're going with this...)

Here's the finished clean up and the start of the coloring process. We joked about just having a blank page in the actual book since ninjas aren't ever seen but Mike wanted really bad to draw our little Lucy all decked-out in ninja attire with some subtle (and some not-so-subtle) nods to ninja influences. Please enjoy this WIP illustration and enjoy your weekends. We'll see you back here on Monday. G'night!

Labor Day Post

2011-09-05T10:25:00.000-07:00

It's Monday but it's also a holiday Monday, so Happy Labor Day! Sorry about the lack of posts on Friday. We were distracted by all the holiday weekend talk and it got away from us. We forgot to take the camera with us to the Arts Walk last Thursday and the pics taken with the iPhone did not turn out so we have nothing to show there. (But we do have a set-up pic from the last Artists on "A" Street.)

We feel really bad for that. Especially since the Arts Walk was a lot of fun. The day was very nice and although the event started out really slow, it picked up speed much like a freight train. We're grateful for all the great folks who came by and showed such support for Tiki Machine. It seemed to be little Lucy's night and we're excited to see all the love she gets.

Speaking of little Lucy, and to apologize we're posting a completely finished Lucy illustration previously unposted in any form. Enjoy the letter W - which is for the classic Halloween costume, the Were-wolf. And enjoy the holiday! We'll see you on Friday!

September Arts Walk Details

2011-08-31T22:14:00.000-07:00

As we promised on Monday, here are the details for tomorrow nights Arts Walk in downtown Riverside, CA. Since tomorrow will be a mad-dash to finish up some of the new stuff we'll have available, we probably won't be updating here tomorrow. But here's all the pertinent information and if you follow us on Facebook or Twitter, we'll be updating via mobile devices so....We'll be set up inside the Life Arts Building (there should be A/C running so you can beat the leftover heat) located at 3485 University Avenue, Riverside, CA. Doors open officially at 6pm and then close at 9pm. Be aware that parking is kind of tricky as several of the lots are being worked on by the city.

C'mon by and pick up your copy of Deus Libris and Monster Mythos, see some of the finished Lucy ABC's illustrations, get fitted for a Zombie Lucy tee, get a button or just say hi. It's always a fun time and we like to talk and laugh. There are lots of other talented artists, photographers, etc. There are supposed to be belly-dancers performing this month so that should be fun and interesting.We look forward to seeing everyone! We'll post pics on Friday. See you tomorrow!

Monday = New Art and News

2011-08-29T07:43:00.000-07:00

Good Morning and Happy Monday to you all! We survived the heat-filled weekend here in Southern California and we hope that wherever you all found yourselves, you survived as well (whether it was heat or hurricanes etc). It's only Monday morning but it appears that this week will be a whirlwind of a week! This week also marks the end of the month of August and the beginning of September. Meaning that this Thursday is another installment of the Riverside Arts Walk. Mike and Deb will be representing Tiki Machine once again and we'll post all the sweet details on Wednesday.

For now, we just wanted to thank Joe for organizing another wonderful Artists on "A" Street event! The turnout was very good considering the heat. It was great to see and talk with friends made at past events as well as meet new friends. It's always fun talking and laughing with good folks! We look forward to the September event and once we have all the details, feel confident that we'll post them here.

As per our Monday tradition, we have new art to post. Since the Lucy book is in full-steam, she's been the star of the past several weeks. The ABC's book is really taking shape and we can't wait to send her off to the printers and get her back in time for Halloween. So please enjoy Lucy in yet another costume as she tries to figure out what she wants to be for All Hallow's Eve. This week's reigning letter is Q which gets little Lucy thinking all sorts of royal thoughts.

Enjoy the illustration and your week. See you back here on Wednesday.

Weekend Goodness

2011-08-26T14:08:00.000-07:00

It's Friday and the weekend is upon us. This week has been even hotter than previous weeks, or so it feels. It's definitely summer in Southern California. In honor of the heat, Mike sent over the file for a final Lucy illustration. An illustration for the letter E of the ABC's book that had been previously posted only as a WIP. So, enjoy little Lucy in the desert walking like an Egyptian!

We also have an event announcement - Tomorrow, Mike and Deb will be representing Tiki Machine and setting up once again in Upland CA for the Artists on "A" Street event. They will be setting up the Tiki-table around the same time the Farmer's Market opens up, which is at 8am and plan on staying until about 2pm. The cross-street of "A" Street and 2nd Avenue in historic downtown Upland California. Them's the details of the event for those of you who are in the area and would be interested in dropping by. There will be new Lucy prints and buttons (and maybe some special edition canvas prints to be used in some upcoming events) as well as the normal spread of Monsters, Deities and Zombies. C'mon by and say hi.

Have a great weekend! Stay safe and cool and we'll see you all back here on Monday with some pics, more new art and event announcements.

Monster Monday

2011-08-22T08:14:00.000-07:00

Good Morning all! First off, we hope that the weekend was good to everyone. There was a lot going on this past weekend and it sounds like a lot of our friends and those we here at Tiki Machine admire were up to a lot a great things (what with the Baltimore Comic Con, D23, some Gallery Openings, etc) and we hope all endeavors were successful!

For those of you following our Twitter feed, we apologized for failing to post on Friday. It was due to being really focused on working through a creative wall. The great WB animator Chuck Jones once said that for every good drawing, there is 100,000 bad ones. And as artists, we find that to be true as did Mike, who has being working hard at finishing the Lucy ABC's book on time but struggled with a certain illustration on Thursday of last week and who hit a wall, so to speak. But he kept at it and broke through said wall and was able to finish up the illustration. Unfortunately that break-through happened in the wee hours of the night and an exhausted Mike went to bed sans a Friday post. And then the weekend was upon us and we weren't able to sit down in front of a computer. So, again, we apologize.

But this morning, Mike sent over another WIP Lucy illustration and we wanted to share it with you. This one happens to have our little Lucy as a Classic Movie Monster - The Mummy! Can you guess which letter this costume is representing? The clean up is done and it looks like the coloring/painting process has just started. Hopefully soon, this illustration will see completion. So, at the start of this new week, please enjoy the new Lucy cuteness. And we'll see you here on Friday with some news and event announcements. We promise! Have a great week.

Background Monday

2011-08-15T10:03:00.000-07:00

Good morning everyone! Here's to a new week, new challenges, and new art. We thought we'd shake things up a little bit. As the Lucy book gets closer and closer to completion, we continue to show her WIP illustrations. We thought it would be fun to show you a completed background from a new illustration without Lucy on it. Crazy, right? So the illustration is (according to Deb) at about 95% completion. The remaining or lacking 5% being Lucy herself. Can you guess what A is for? Little Lucy imagines herself as an Alien and the great weird alien world background is done. Hence the reason for posting it. :)

Beyond the ABC's children's book, we're currently in various stages of planning events as well as projects. We're trying to get The Destiny Gauntlets back on track and get Burning Gods out of the pre-production stage and into production mode, plus other fun mini-comic and web-comic ideas. We'll keep everyone up to date as the details and goals solidify into reality. Thanks for the support and encouragement! Come on back on Friday and we'll have something new for you to look at/read as we all head into the weekend. Have a productive week!

Friday

2011-08-12T22:53:00.000-07:00

Boy, the week sure did get away from us here. Between trying to tie down book-signings, arts walk details and finishing up the ABC's of Halloween as Imagined by Lucy, it seems like only yesterday was our Monday post. Sheesh! So much so, that it feels like we're out of the loop with other events this week. Sorry about that everyone. Please enjoy another sneak peek WIP illustration of Lucy in another Halloween costume.

Enjoy the costume for the letter D, which is for the classic costume Devil. Also, enjoy the weekend and we'll see you back here on Monday.

Monday = New Art and Photos

2011-08-08T10:23:00.000-07:00

Happy Monday! We had a very enjoyable weekend and hope that you all did as well. With summer in full swing, Mike sent over the WIP Lucy illustration of her costume for the letter E, since her imagination has taken her to the desert. And we thought it would be fun to share. So here is little Lucy dressed as an Egyptian Pharoah/Princess. Hopefully sooner rather than later, we'll be able to post the finished piece.

Mike and Deb spent most of Saturday in Upland CA at the Artists on "A" Street event and they have nothing but fun memories of the event. A special Tiki-thanks to Joe for organizing such a great event. It looks like it's getting bigger and we look forward to being a continuing part of it. Unfortunately, the camera was forgotten so all the photos taken were from the iPhone. But at least you can see what we saw from inside our little booth.

The crowd was nice, the musician was fun and the food trucks were fantastic! We really enjoyed meeting new fans and artists. One group of boys kept coming back with change they had scrounged up in order to buy more buttons. They loved talking about the monsters in Monster Mythos and Lucy's Halloween costumes. We even tweeted about Alex and Dylan! We tried to get a photo but they came out as shadows. We have yet to master iPhone photography...

We'll be back there in a couple of weeks and we'll be sure to keep you posted. Have a great week! We'll see you back here on Friday for sure with some new art or event announcements or whatnot. See ya!

Photos and Weekend Events

2011-08-05T18:41:00.000-07:00

Happy Friday everyone! We have some pics taken last night at the Riverside Arts Walk that we wanted to share along with some events going on around the SoCal area.

The Arts Walk proved once again to have a great atmosphere with a lot of people showing up once the temperature dropped a little. It is always fun to see familiar faces on both sides of the tables as well as meet and talk to new families and friends! A special tiki-thanks to all those who came out and supported us and the event - you know who you are. :) We look forward to next month, especially since we've heard that there will be Belly Dancers!

Tomorrow morning, we'll be out in Upland, CA again for another Artists on "A" Street event. We enjoyed ourselves last weekend and tomorrow's event is supposed to be even bigger. The Farmer's Market opens up at 8am and that's when we'll try and get there. There are several artisans and artists as well as musician's and a couple of Food Trucks. We'll be there from about 8am through until 2pm. If you need to know what to look for, this should help.

Our friend Chogrin (President of the Autumn Society and Monster Mythos contributer) is heading up an event that sounds like it will be a LOT of fun. CHOGRIN PRESENTS: MONSTER CREEPS, an art show & tribute to the films by Fred Dekker (Night of the Creeps / Monster Squad), featuring art from members of the Autumn Society & other special guests! One of the sponsors is Dead of Night Radio, whose creator Dick Grunert wrote the intro of Monster Mythos. If you're a fan of horror and good times, be sure to check it out!

FEATURING: An appearance & signing by writer & director Fred Dekker

WHEN: Saturday, August 6th from 8pm-10pm

WHERE: Dark Delicacies 3512 W. Magnolia, Burbank, CA 91505

SPECIAL SCREENING: A special screening of Monster Squad will be held at The Banshee Theater 3435 W. Magnolia Blvd., Burbank 91505 with a Q&A moderated by Germain Lussier of Slashfilm.com. The screening stars at 11 p.m. and will be first come, first served.

ART: View the art featured in the show on the blog

Our great friend and art contributer Brianne Drouhard will be signing and reading her awesome Billie the Unicorn on August 7th at 12pm at Kidspace in Pasadena for Friendship Day! So, if you have little ones, please stop by!

Elizabeth Ito will be speaking in Little Tokyo in an event headed up by Visual Communications and being their first Animation Mini-Film Fest, POW! WHIZ! BAM! is a crackpot bubbling with the colorful characters and fantastical universes only the world of animation could create. Each screening has been hand picked to present a gourmet set-menu: an intimate showcase with local animators plus lots of other cool stuff! She will be a part of the 2:00pm Saturday panel called THE ART OF MOVEMENT: Local Animators Showcase, located at Tateuchi Democracy Forum, National Center for the Preservation of Democracy 111 North Central Avenue, Los Angeles Little Tokyo. If you're around, you should check it out!

Quite the great weekend, right? Have a fun one, check out the events and we'll see you here on Monday. See ya!

Riverside Arts Walk - August

2011-08-04T15:05:00.000-07:00

Tonight is the monthly Arts Walk in downtown Riverside and we'll be happy participants once again. We have tons of new buttons as well as this being the first event with Deus Libris readily available to the public. If you happen to be in the Inland Empire, please come on by and enjoy the evening with us. We'll be set up in the Life Arts Building located at 3485 University Avenue, Riverside, CA. The Arts Walk starts at 6pm and lasts until 9pm.

We thought it would be fun to post another WIP Lucy illustration from the upcoming ABC's book. Here's the costume she imagines herself in for the letter F. Which stands for Fairy.

Be aware that parking is kind of tricky as several of the lots are being worked on by the city. We look forward to seeing everyone! We'll post pics on Friday as well as some other weekend events and the details. See you soon!

Oops!

2011-08-03T23:16:00.000-07:00

The day totally got away from us. Sorry about that. Enjoy the WIP illustration of Lucy as Li'l Red Ridin' Hood. Can you guess what the letter L is gonna be....?

We'll post Arts Walk details in the morning. We promise. Good night everyone!

New Lucy Art

2011-08-01T16:49:00.001-07:00

Good Monday Afternoon to everyone!

The weekend was a blur of activity and we're still trying to get everything back in order. We heard that Unique LA was a great show and that our buddies did well. Thanks out there to anybody who participated. The Artists on "A" Street was a different experience and we enjoyed ourselves. We're going to be there twice in August including this coming weekend so stay tuned for the details. Also, today starts us off on a new month which means this Thursday will be another Riverside Arts Walk. We'll post more details on Wednesday. And we're going to wait to post pics since we have two events this week....

Now, Mike has been teasing people via Twitter about having some finished Lucy illustrations for the upcoming ABC's book but hasn't shown them off yet. We now have some of them to help Monday be a little more cool and less of a weekend killer. We hope you enjoy! We'll show you a WIP illustration. (The final and approved illustrations will be seen in the book - we got to have a hook of some kind, right?)

This piece went over well with the crowd during the Comic-Con panel. The letter V is for Vampire and we have our little Lucy all decked out in Bela Lugosi goodness. Note: Our Lucy doesn't sparkle!

Come back on Wednesday for another sneak peek of Lucy in another costume from the book as well as details concerning the Arts Walk. Have a great week!

Artists on "A" Street

2011-07-29T09:47:00.000-07:00

For those of you on the other end of the metropolitan area, and looking for something fun to do on Saturday, Mike will be representing Tiki Machine in downtown Upland, CA at their Artists on "A" Street event. This is an event similar to the Downtown Riverside Arts Walk except it's going to be outside. That's right, all the exhibitors will be lining "A" Street! Lots of local artists, artisans as well as a Farmer's Market are just a taste of what will make this event a lot of fun.

This is Tiki Machine's first appearance so we're not entirely sure what to expect but we're looking forward to participating. We'll have our normal set-up of buttons, shirts and prints along with Monster Mythos and Deus Libris. (The bulk shipment was delivered this morning so it's now officially released. We have several events lined up so stay tuned to see what we're up to and where we'll be and when. It's all very exciting!!) And they will all be laid out on the beautiful table cover we had especially made. Tiki-thanks for Felicia over at Totally Couture for making such a great cover! So look for the Kona head logo on the Hawaiian Tapa cloth.

The event starts at 11am and runs until 4pm so there will be plenty of time to come by and see us, purchase the new book and maybe even pick up a Zombie Lucy tee. The cross-street at "A" Street is 2nd Avenue in historic downtown Upland.

Unique LA Show

2011-07-29T09:15:00.001-07:00

Friday is here and we have a couple of events to tell you all about. The first being the Unique LA show starting tomorrow and running through Sunday. What is Unique LA? According to their website, it is "The largest independent design show in the country, attendees get the rare chance to meet and shop directly from over 250 hand-selected designers and artists. The exciting two-day shopping event makes it easy for you to buy local and support LA’s economy, discover great design and deals, join in community, and have a blast! Over 95% of the products at the show are proudly made right here in the USA!"

Two of our real great friends will be set up and selling their awesome art and t-shirts and we want anybody reading this that doesn't have weekend plans and lives in LA to go to it.

Oliver Akuin will be there alongside his brother at Booth #121 representing his t-shirt company Fluent Flyers. Not only is he is a very versatile and talented illustrator/animator plus one of the nicest guys around, he also contributed to the Deus Libris book with a great piece. We posted the info and sketches previously so if you need a recap, click HERE.

Matt Q. Spangler will be there representing his company LUNARC, which started in San Diego with one goal in mind, to put the best art on the most eco-friendly clothing as possible. Each item is hand screened then a vintage fabric label is sewn onto the garment. Each item is a unique piece of art that is meant to be passed down from generation to generation. Matt is also a robot enthusiast (His Take Care Japan shirt is one of the sweetest and most awesome designs we've seen!) and will have some pretty sweet original paintings available for purchase along with the great clothing.

Here are all the details - go check out the show and say hi to our pals!

The 1st Annual Summer Show, July 30 & 31, 2011 (11am – 6pm both days)
Where: The Barker Hangar (3021 Airport Avenue, Santa Monica, California 90405)
Cost: $10 at the door (kids 12 and under are free)

Comic-Con Aftermath

2011-07-25T10:42:00.000-07:00

Well, Comic-Con is over and we start a new week trying to get back to normal. (As normal as we can be all things considered.) Ok, SDCC was a blast! It was exciting to see Monster Mythos and Deus Libris around the convention center floor. We are extremely grateful for the contributing artists and all that they have done. A very special Tiki-thanks to all of you for being awesome! We also gave away several copies of both books to those we admire including Jeff Smith, Mike Maihack and Sean "Cheeks" Galloway and we hope they enjoy them as much as we enjoyed making them.

With 150,000 nerds (including ourselves) all using their smart phones, our post updates and tweets were spotty at best and we apologize for that. But we feel that this was a great con to have attended AND participated in.

Our dear friend and Eisner-nominated artist Travis Hanson needed some help manning his table on Thursday & Friday and he asked Mike if he'd be willing to help out. Which was cool because Mike was able to see how working behind a table at the biggest convention in North America is as well as pick Travis's brain RE self-publishing, the in's and out's and all that coolness.

Saturday's panel was a ton of fun! Everyone had such wonderful things to say and the turnout was quite intimidating. One friend texted that he wasn't going to be able to make it because the line was too long! The room was filled to capacity and it went off well. There were some technical difficulties but everything worked out. The crowd was great and we appreciate them coming out and showing such support and love for not only the Tiki Machine books but all the panelists books and projects. We count ourselves lucky to have been with such a talented group of artists/writers/entrepreneurs. Some great new friendships were formed and we cannot wait to work with and alongside them in the future. Here are links to the other panelists and their greatness. Go check them out.

Brianne Drouhard
Eric "The Gute" Gonzalez
Erich Haeger
Beth Sleven
Steph Laberis

For those of you who missed it, Deb was able to record the whole panel so we'll try and get that uploaded to the website in the near future. The camera is not the best but you can hear everything and get a feel of the experience. A special Tiki-thanks to Brianne for inviting us to participate and to Comic-Con for being so great to work with! We hope to do so again in future Cons.

After the panel, the wonderful friends at the Muertoons/Hard Eight booth were kind and gracious enough to let all of us panelists have a signing. The support was overwhelming! We enjoyed seeing everyone's books being so well received because we love seeing our friends and their great projects being successful.

If you wanna see some more of Mike's pics from the con, click on the link HERE.

We've got several events on the horizons so stay tuned to see all the details as well as events that our friends will be participating in. See you all on Friday! Have a great week! Thanks again to everybody who helped make this one fantastic special weekend!!

More Friends at San Diego Comic Con!

2011-07-20T08:18:00.001-07:00

Happening simultaneously as SDCC, there is an exciting twist on the Comic Con scene this year. Spearheaded by Scott Morse, and featuring some of our friends including Deus Libris contributor Justin Ridge, TR!CKSTER is a free venue, open to the public. They offer a retail space specializing in creator-owned work, a gallery, and a Symposia area. While the Symposia are ticketed events, the TR!CKSTER shop itself is open for business at no charge and will feature a fair-trade coffee station, a full bar, animation and live-action short film screenings, gallery receptions, artist signings, drawing events, DJs, and live music. Check out the website for all the details and list of artists, featuring uber-talent from comics, film and animation.

Kazu Kibuishi, Monster Mythos and Deus Libris contributor Dik Pose and all the other contributing artists from the amazing Flight Comics anthology series will be at Table #2235

Doug TenNapel will be at Booth #1714

A cluster of very talented folks including Becky Cloonan, Jill Thompson, Rafael Albuquerque, Gustavo Duarte, Marcelo Braga Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá will be at Table #1320

Bobby Rubio will be at Booth #1943

Katie Cook will be in Artist's Alley at Table GG-01

Eric Canete will also be in Artist's Alley at Table DD-10

Skottie Young will be at Booth #4601

Mike Maihack will be at Small Press Booth O-02

Brittney Lee will be at Small Press Booth O-15

Thomas Zahler will be at Booth #2000

Martin Hsu will be at Small Press Booth G-02

We admire all these talented artists for their contributions to everything we're trying to do with Tiki Machine, comics/graphic novels, art books, illustrations, t-shirt designs, animation, film and all that kind of cool stuff. Check out their tables, talk them up and enjoy the con!

Friends at the San Diego Comic Con

2011-07-19T15:27:00.000-07:00

As promised yesterday, here is a partial list of friends of Tiki Machine that are going to be behind the tables at SDCC. Visit them, purchase what they offer, talk to them and all that because they deserve it of you. It's going to be a fun week!

Sean "Cheeks" Galloway and Ryan Benjamin will be at Booth #2544

Fleet Street Scandal consisting of Kevin Dart and Chris Turnham will be at Booth #5507

Stephen Silver will be at Table #H-06

Jose Lopez and John Nevarez will be at Table #H-09

Mark McDonnell will be at Table J-06

Peter Wonsowski is the artist for two projects for and available at the APE Entertainment Booth #1804

More to come later. Enjoy!

San Diego Comic Con!

2011-07-18T10:30:00.000-07:00

Well, this week marks the start of the famed San Diego Comic Con. We look forward to seeing old friends and all the great new projects/art they've been creating as well as the opportunity to make new friends. There is a lot going on! We wanted to share all the details so that all of you attending can score some sweet swag and contribute to the success of our friends. So, here goes -

First off, Tiki Machine will not be exhibiting, however, we will have a presence at the show. Because our first two books, Monster Mythos and Deus Libris, have been collaborative art books with 20+ artists these books will be at the tables/booths of the respective artists. They are as follows -

Eric "The Gute" Gonzalez and Erich Haeger, collectively known as Muertoons will be at Booth #1802. Not only have they contributed to both books, but they have the wonderful self-published bi-lingual children's book Rosita Y Conchita and lots of other goodies. Swing by this booth, it's awesome!

Sara Jerzykowski also contributed to both books (and took the pic above of the two) and will be sharing booth #1945 with another great friend of ours, Greg Rankin. They have a lot of super-cool steampunk hand-crafted goodness that you need to buy! Also get the great comic Codename Hart they both worked on from last year!

Travis Hanson, Eisner-nominated artist of the comic The Bean, will be at booth E11 selling Bean merch as well as his inspiring prints. If you've never read The Bean, you need to . It's a fantastic fantasy tale in the same vein as Lord of the Rings and Bone. Trav will do a free sketch for anyone who drops by his table as well as share a smile and some inspiration.

On Saturday, Mike has been invited by Tiki-contributer and self-publishing artist extraordinaire Brianne Drouhard to participate in a panel. Here are the details (don't worry, we'll repost the details again on Friday)

4:00pm-5:00pm How to Create a Children's Book— Brianne Drouhard (Billie the Unicorn), Mike Collins (Monster Mythos), Erich Haeger (Rosita Y Conchita), Beth Sleven (Cryptid Case Files), and Steph Laberis (Ghost Chef) discuss the process of creating a children's book from scratch. Topics include designing a character and its world, choosing illustration materials, and creating a story. The panel participants have backgrounds in animation and gaming and will discuss how this influences their art. Development art will be presented, followed by Q&A. Room 30CDE

We'll be posting more details about other friends and where they will be and what great stuff they will have tomorrow. No need to explode everyone's head in one day. We have all week......

Events and Announcements

2011-07-15T11:39:00.001-07:00

Happy Friday all! There is lots going on especially leading up to the San Diego Comic Con, which we find very exciting! For those of you who will be attending, we'll be shamelessly promoting our friends and all the cool stuff they're have and where they'll be, so stay tuned next week for all the gory details!

Artist Peter Wonsowski, designer of the Destiny Gauntlets logo plus the wicked Ghavin pin-up and all-around great guy has just released the great news about a project he is a part of. And we wanted to share it with you guys. PLUS, it will have a SDCC presence so you'll need to swing by the table and pick it up in support. (Peter won't be at SDCC but that shouldn't matter. Support the project regardless.)

Here's a copy of the release, in their own words...
"TAKE A BITE OUT OF VIPER COMICS LATEST BOOK, PERFECT TEETH!
Fly, shuffle, walk or lurk on over to the Viper Comics booth (#1903) at San Diego Comic Con and learn more about the music industry’s latest, greatest hits, PERFECT TEETH.
Viper has teamed up with VINNIE FIORELLO, of the awesome ska punk band LESS THAN JAKE, writer Matt Anderson (WHITE PICKET FENCES and PAPER+PLASTICK’S 50 STATES and THE EXIT INTERVIEW) and artist Peter Wonsowski to bring you a book that will lift the coffin lid off the music biz." Click the LINK to see all the details.

The Kevin Dart illustrated and Elizabeth Ito written Yuki 7 book, Looks That Kill is having a launch party on Saturday in LA.

(If you would like to read an excerpt from the book, go ahead and click the link HERE.)

The party will start at 7pm and will be at Q Pop - 128 Astronaut E S Onizuka St. Los Angeles, CA

There's plenty of links to follow and read plus lots of info for you heading into the weekend. Enjoy! Come back on Monday for more stuff, including new art. Whoo-hoo!!

Monday = New Art and News

2011-07-11T10:07:00.000-07:00

Good Morning! We'd like to start off our Monday post with some new art from the Deus Libris book. Here is the South African Rain Goddess Modjadji as interpreted by our own Mike Collins. Known as the Rain Queen, this Goddess was so loved by her people and feared by her enemies, that the succession of mortal hereditary queens were named in her honor. The last Rain Queen died in 2005. There is a legend about the great Shaka Zulu sending Modjaji gifts to appease her as he crossed through her lands on his conquest of southern Africa. Wow! How cool is that?! The image above is just a glimpse of part of the final illustration from the book.

Well, our weekend was quite the whirlwind of activity, starting with Thursday night's Arts Walk which we posted about on Friday. At the Arts Walk, we were introduced to another Arts Walk type event being held in Upland in a couple of weeks. Friday was spent talking to the organizer of the event (Joe) as well as recovering from Thursday night's heat. A lot happened on Saturday, starting with the San Diego Comic Con officially announcing its Saturday schedule. Now, this is exciting because our great friend Brianne Drouhard organized a panel and asked Mike and several other friends to participate in it. Here's the blurb from the website.

It will be a lot of fun! You should set aside that hour on Saturday to go see them talk about making books. And here are the links to the other panelists blogs/websites. Go check them out.

Eric "The Gute" Gonzalez
Erich Haeger
Beth Sleven
Steph Laberis

Then, we met up with the aforementioned Joe to purchase a space for the upcoming Artists on "A" Street event in Upland. We'll announce the details of that as the event gets closer. It should be a very fun event with lots of artists, a farmer's market and the like. We're happy to be a part of it. And all of this prior to our little appearance at the Uptown Whittier Zombie Pub Crawl. We had our Zombie Lucy merch set up in Vinatero Wine Shop and had a blast! Special Tiki-Thanks to Andrew, Ernie and Lisa for helping us set that up last minute.

As you can see, lots went on and there is lots going on in the near future. We'll post the info on all events here and even tell you about special events our friends are doing. See you back here on Friday for new stuff. Have a terrific week!

Arts Walk Pics

2011-07-08T14:49:00.001-07:00

Last night's Arts Walk was a scorcher! Summer has definitely come to Southern California. It stayed hot even after the sun went down but regardless of the heat, the Arts Walk was a lot of fun. We really enjoy meeting other artists and entrepreneurs. The advice and contacts made and given is invaluable. In fact, we're looking into other like-minded events and will keep you all up-to-date.

We feel very grateful for the fans who showed up to sneak a peek at Deus Libris as well as see the new Lucy stuff. We enjoy the young fans the most. They make our night - we're talking about you CJ! A Tiki-thanks to all who came out and braved the heat. We look forward to the next one.

Have a good weekend everybody. Enjoy the sun. And come back on Monday to see some new art work. And maybe an announcement. That's all we're saying right now....

Riverside Arts Walk - July

2011-07-07T15:27:00.000-07:00

See? We told you there were lots of going's on at tonight's Arts Walk. We have new prints and new T-shirts as well as our normal buttons, magnets and Monster Mythos books. We'll also be offering special promos on pre-orders of Deus Libris with the proof copy available to be flipped through and looked at.

To remind you, we'll be inside the Life Arts building located at 3485 University Avenue, Riverside, CA. The Arts Walk starts at 6pm and lasts until 9pm.

Rumor has it that Bobby Hernandez might make an appearance. Maybe even some other contributors of Tiki Machine projects....
C'mon by and say hi, check out the new wares and get away from the heat all while participating in a great local event. We look forward to seeing everyone tonight.

T-shirts!

2011-07-07T15:05:00.000-07:00

A generous family friend and Tiki Machine supporter took it upon himself to make T-shirts of our popular Zombie Lucy design! So, we now have T-shirts available for purchase. Yay!! The T-shirts are screen printed on a quality Hanes Unisex black tee, with the sizes S - XL for the time being. We are currently updating our website store so the shirts will be available for on-line purchase soon. As it stands, the only way to get one is to visit our table in person.

A very special Tiki-Thanks to Kraig for doing that and to Deb for being a model!

So...

Special Annoucement

2011-07-07T10:45:00.000-07:00

Today is exciting! We will have a couple of posts today because we've got some sweet news to share with everyone. First off, we realized that we haven't revealed the cover design, so here it is. Why? Well, we wanted to show you all pictures of the proof copy of Deus Libris that showed up as a surprise on the doorstep from Taiwan. And it was a very welcome surprise indeed! Tiki-thanks to Karl at Given Creative for all his hard work in helping us put this book together and get it printed.

Deus Libris is another compilation art book that features 30 artists, and their interpretation of Deities from cultures all over the world. They include -

Adam Scarpitta
Alison Donato
Bill Alger
Bob Harper
Bobby Hernandez
Brad Sutton
Brett C Nance
Brianne Drouhard
Chris Borges
Dave Warner
David Church
Dik Pose
Eric "The Gute" Gonzalez
Erich Haeger
François Gomes
Justin Ridge
Kenya Marshall
Kyle Smith
Le Tang
Mike Collins
Mike Morris
Nate Funaro
Oliver Akuin
Phil Stooksbury
Rowel Roque
Sara Jerzykowski
Sencia Kim
TJ Collins
Thomas Perkins
Travis Hanson

The book looks outstanding! And we wanted to share some pics of it. Enjoy! And stay tuned for more posts about another special announcement as well as the details of tonight's Arts Walk.

Another Arts Walk Week

2011-07-05T09:14:00.000-07:00

Happy Tuesday all! As those of us in the U.S. celebrated the 4th with BBQ, fireworks and friends, we hope that the Independence Weekend went well for everyone. With the new month just starting (as well as the new week), that means a new Arts Walk is upon us. So we find ourselves readying up for Thursday night's Arts Walk in downtown Riverside. Once again, we'll be located inside the Life Arts Center from 6pm - 9pm. For those of you who need an address for Mapquest, it's 3485 University Avenue
Riverside, CA.

We always enjoy the Arts Walk and look forward to this Thursday night. In honor of the month of July, Mike made some special Felix the Cat as Captain America buttons from a piece he did for the Autumn Society as few years back. We also have some new Lucy buttons and prints (we shared one of them with you on Friday.... remember the cowgirl?) as well as our usual Monster Mythos fare.

So for those of you in the Riverside area this Thursday night, swing on by. It'll be a fun event. We'll try and get a reminder post put up on Thursday and hopefully we'll have photos to share on Friday. See you all later!

Some More Friendly News

2011-07-01T17:58:00.000-07:00

Happy Friday everyone! Today's post will be short and sweet.

Here's the final and finished Cowgirl Lucy for the ABC's book due out in the Fall. We'll have prints of this available at next weeks Arts Walk as well as buttons for those who would like this little sheriff on their walls or backpacks. Expect more info next week prior to the event starting.

Here's some info about some of our friends -

For those of you in LA this weekend, the Anime Expo is happening at the Convention Center. Once again our good friend Brianne Drouhard will be signing her Billie the Unicorn books to those who have yet to buy the awesomeness. She'll be at the Animebooks table at 1pm tomorrow. She's also part of a panel called "Getting Into the Animation Industry." All the details can been seen at this LINK. It's from 5pm - 7pm so if you're gonna be at the Expo, go ahead and spend all day there and listen to her and several other peeps give the low-down. Rumor has it that she's making gifts for attendees of the panel....so if you needed more reason to attend, there you go.

Kevin Dart's new Yuki 7 book is still available for pre-order on his website. Beautifully illustrated by Kevin and written by Elizabeth Ito, it's a must-have for everyone. Or it should be. And the pre-order has more than just the book. There are all kinds of goodies included.

Sean "Cheeks" Galloway's new book is also available for pre-order. For every pre-ordered book, you'll get an awesome Kuta bag. Be sure to get yours now because he normally sells out pretty quickly.

Boy, this post sure has lot of free swag info in it. Consider it a weekend present from us to you. Have a safe one. If we forgot anyone, we'll remedy that at a later date. Let's get our fireworks and BBQ on!

New Art Monday

2011-06-27T09:44:00.000-07:00

Good Morning Blog-o-sphere! Well, one more weekend has come and gone and we start a new week. We hope all the events that we blogged about on Friday went fantastic. From all the tweets and FB posts, it seems like everything was fun and successful. So a hearty congrats and job well done to all parties involved!

We promised you new art on Friday and as per our Monday tradition, we have just that.

Oliver Akuin is a fantastic artist that we have the good fortune of calling a great friend. Oliver currently works at Cartoon Network Studios on Adventure Time with Finn and Jake. (Since working in animation is our day job and helps to fund our Tiki Machine projects, we've worked with Oliver on a couple of animated shows.) He is a very versatile illustrator/animator and a great guy to boot, who with his brother, has recently started their own T-shirt company called Fluent Flyers. You should check it out, it's awesome!

Here's a Post-it sketch from Oliver, who chose to illustrate the Incan God of Death, Supay. This Demon God loves the taste of babies and hangs out in the Underworld. He is attributed with inspiring all the evil that men do, which he does to harvest their souls. So basically, if you murder people or start wars for the wrong reasons, you've given him your soul. And according to the legends, he does this so that he can increase his army and overthrow the world.

After the rough Post-it sketch, Oliver did a tighter sketch before scanning in the drawing to finish up digitally, which is the final piece in the book. Deus Libris ended up with 30 contributing artists. All of which have such different styles and influences as well as a great diverse choice of cultural Deities. We look forward to the coming weeks as the book gets closer and closer to completion. We hope you enjoy seeing all the rough artwork as much as we like showcasing it. The talent of these artists and friends is amazing. The book is going to knock your socks off!

Come back on Friday and we'll have some event announcements and maybe some new Lucy artwork. But only if you're good...
Have a great week everyone!

Weekend Plans

2011-06-24T10:17:00.000-07:00

Good Morning and Happy Friday all! We normally would post this evening but there is an event that starts today and we wanted everyone who might be in the neighborhood to check it out.

Starting today (June 24th) and going through Sunday (June 26th) is Albuquerque's first Comics Expo. So if you happen to be in the Land of Enchantment, swing by downtown Albuquerque and check in to the Convention Center. Several of the Special Guests are friends of Tiki Machine and we want to share the love. So be sure to go see our good buddies Travis Hanson, Shannon Denton , other great comic book artists, writers and creators plus lots more! We here at Tiki Machine are hoping to be a part of next year's festivities, so we wish the best of luck to all involved.

Brianne Drouhard will be doing a Bille the Unicorn signing here in Southern California at Stuart Ng Books!

Saturday, June 25th, 3-5pm.
20655 S. WESTERN AVENUE, SUITE NUMBER 104, TORRANCE, CA 90501
There will be a small exclusive print for anyone who orders or buys the book from their store.

Several other friends of ours will be participating in an art show that celebrate the Hamburger lifestyle with art, food and music!

Opening reception June 25, 2011 7PM-11 PM

Q POP
128 Astronaut E S Onizuka St
Los Angeles CA 90012

Group art show featuring new work from over 30 artists, including

Kevin Dart
Elizabeth Ito
Dan Krall
Tara Whitaker
Martin Hsu
Clio Chiang
Sean Galloway

They will have the Pie n’ Burger truck to provide tasty pie and..burgers, of course. It should be a treat for the eyes AND the belly!

There are lots going on with lots of very talented and creative peoples. Check them out, say hi and enjoy the inspiring works. Have a great weekend and we'll see you back here on Monday with new art!

News and Stuff

2011-06-20T09:29:00.000-07:00

Good morning all! We hope the weekend was a good one for everyone out there, especially to all the dads. As we start this new week, we've got a couple of exciting announcements. First off, Deus Libris is, right now as you read this, being printed. We still look to be on track for a San Diego Comic-Con release so stay tuned for updates and revealing details. We are super-excited about this book!

Here's another new rough by way of illustrator David Church. This Goddess of the Forest hails from India and is named the Buddhi Pallien. She's not too well-known but some legends say she can shift between woman and tigress form as she wanders her territory. David talks more in-depth about his process and why he chose to illustrate her on his blog, so click on his name for the link. He also has a post about his other piece, the Navajo Black Yei god that made an appearance here a while back.

Two of our great friends (and Deus Libris contributers) have some exciting personal news that we wanted to share. Thomas Perkins has an iPad app out featuring his crazy artwork. Click here for the official iTunes preview write-up. It can be purchased through iTunes. It's only a couple of bucks. Cheaper than a cup of Starbucks and unlike the Starbucks, you can revisit this purchase again and again without additional charges. We think that's a good thing.

Brianne Drouhard also has one if you feel so inclined to look at her beautiful artwork over and over on your iPhone or iPad. We are big fans of her Billie the Unicorn children's book and this app is the next best thing. Here's the link to her app's official iTunes preview write-up. It too can be purchased via iTunes.

And we also have some news on the Lucy front. We are excited to announce that her ABC's book is continuing on schedule for a release in September/October of this year. Since both the writing and the illustrating are finishing up, Mike sent over a WIP version of the Cowgirl, who made an appearance in rough form several months back.

You can see that she's almost finished (she just needs her arms!) as far as the clean up goes and should be a finished piece sometime this week. Well, that's all we have today. Come back on Friday and we'll continue to have some more stuff to showcase. Have a wonderful week!

A Taste of Ink

2011-06-17T21:41:00.000-07:00

Happy Friday. We're showcasing some snippets of inked goodness from the upcoming (and currently being printed) Deus Libris. We had previously posted the rough pencils of comic book artist Rowel Roque, whose art style you might recognize as he is the current penciller of our own Destiny Gauntlets graphic novel. (A graphic novel BTW that is still being worked on. It might not have graced us with an appearance but it IS still in our queue. Rest assured.)

He is illustrated the Greek God Poseidon, riding in his chariot upon a tidal wave as well as the Roman God Mors whose terrifying visage was the direct inspiration of the Grim Reaper.

Rowel approached his two pieces very much in the vein of a comic book pin-up and since his style is very reminiscent of 1960's Marvel (Romita Sr and Kirby), we wanted to show off some of the great details in the illustrations. Enjoy! Come back on Monday and we'll have new art to show, both from Deus Libris and our ABC's book.

New Art Monday

2011-06-13T11:00:00.000-07:00

Happy Monday All! Why not start out the new week with some new art? Here are some more snippets of Deity Artwork from our up-coming Deus Libris book on cultural Gods and Goddesses. Follow the links to the artists personal blogs to see more of their personal and professional works.

Kyle Smith, illustrator of the great Yggdrasil sketch, is contributing another graffiti-inspired piece. This one happens to be of the Greek God of Old Age, Geras. Not much is written about this guy. He shows up on one pot standing next to Herakles but he and Death are the only Gods that Man cannot escape. Which is a sobering thought....

We had previously posted TJ's Athena clean up. But he had sent over the rough marker comp of his page layout and we wanted to show it off. It's really well-done and gives a great glimpse into his thought process behind not only the Goddess of Wisdom but what he wanted to do with the background elements and giving homage to the ancient Greek artistic aesthetic. TJ has pieces of his finished illustrations up on his blog if you want to take a peek. We highly recommend it.

Thomas Perkins is illustrating the Green Man, the Celtic God of the Woodlands. This God shows up quite a bit in church architecture throughout Great Britain, even with his considered Pagan roots. JRR Tolkien based his Ents on the legends of the Green Man and we're excited to have him join the throng of Deities in the book.

We feel very fortunate to be working with a talented group of artists and friends on this new book. As much as we love the Monster Mythos book, this Deus Libris book is going to be even better. Which we feel is a big thing to say but can't help ourselves. Enjoy the sketches and the new week! See you on Friday.

Friday Post

2011-06-10T18:31:00.000-07:00

It's the start of a new weekend and we wanted to get everybody off to a start with some Deities goodness. Starting with the official name of the book. Since we consider it a companion book to our Monster Mythos, the title design reflects as much. (As does the cover design that we'll post in the near future.)

Along with the title, we wanted to showcase two WIP illustrations that show some of the process of finalizing a piece. Both Mike Collins and Sara Jerzykowski sent us some of their WIP files as they finish up the pieces for the Gods and Goddesses book.

Continuing off the rough sketch we posted on Monday, Mike's Izuna Gongen sketch has progressed to a cleaned up Illustrator file and moved into Photoshop for coloring.

He also sent over the rough sketch of the background that this fearsome Tengu will end up on.

Sara had given us a real rough sketch that we first posted when we made the announcement about the book. It's this rough sketch of the fierce Norse Valkyrie warrior-maiden.

She gave us more fleshed out or "tightened" rough sketch that was done digitally and it's finalized cleaned up sibling.

Neat, huh?! We hope you all enjoy looking as these as much as we do, especially as the book gets closer and closer to being in your hands. Have a great weekend all! Enjoy the weekend and we'll see you back here on Monday. Happy Weekend!

New Art Monday

2011-06-06T11:15:00.000-07:00

Since it IS Monday and we want to start the week off right, here are some new sketches from several artists from the new art book we're working on. Without further adieu, enjoy the visual treat.

Our Mike Collins has decided to illustrate two Japanese Deities. His first is Ebisu, one of the Seven Gods of Fortune. You might recognize the rough sketch, as we used the final Chibi-inspired illustration to announce all the info for last weeks Arts Walk post.

The second deity, whose name is Izuna Gongen was a tengu or demon spirit that attacked prideful priests traveling on mountain paths but over time became a Shinto God who rides a white fox and protects forests and mountains. It's another fascinating Deity to read about.

Rowel Roque is doing another illustration and sent over (from the Philippines) his rough pencils of Mors, the Roman God of Death. He is less known as a Roman Deity but famous the world over as his visage became the Grim Reaper icon.

François Gomes is a fantastic comic-book illustrator based out of Paris, France who we're lucky to have on board, thanks to Erich Haeger. He's contributing illustration is Hades, the God of the Underworld. He's posted the final image over on his blog but we're only going to give you a taste of the awesomeness here.

Chris Borges is a brillant Brazilian illustrator and animator from São Pedro who is contributing an illustration of Erlik, the Mongolian God of Death. The legends about his deity are sparse but they all agree that he is one bad dude. It's a fascinating read to anyone who loves myth. This is just a piece of the illustration to visually whet your whistle.

Dave Warner is a multi-media artist we met doing the Art Walk. He does some great 3D prints that just blew our minds! He has joined our collaborative effort and is contributing an illustration depicting the Greek Goddess Nemesis, the personification of Divine Retribution and Revenge.

The book is coming along nicely and like the Monster Mythos book, will have a nice spread of styles and talented artists. We'll continue to post progression artwork while the book is being printed, as well as announcements of events once the book comes back. Have a great week, and we'll see you all on Friday.

Arts Walk Pics

2011-06-06T10:51:00.000-07:00

Well, it's Monday and we forgot to do a Friday post. Oops!! The day seemed to get away from us. So today, we'll have two posts. The first will be a couple of pics snapped from last Thursday's Arts Walk. As it was Graduation Day here in California, the evening started off really slow and unfortunately, the resulting traffic made it impossible for Bobby to join us. But the evening picked up.

We were joined by friends and fans, which is always a treat. It was great talking to fellow Deity contributors Dave and Brad. We're working with David on a Riverside book-signing event for September, which we'll reveal more details at a later date. And we made some new friends both young and young at heart.

The RCC Art students were a lot of fun to talk to. Tiki-thanks to you guys for coming out and bringing your sketchbooks. Another newly made friend was the table next to ours, Function As One. As an entrepreneur, she had a lot of great things to say. Especially concerning events around SoCal that she does and encouraged us to do. And once we know more, we'll announce them here.

We, once again, had a blast and are thankful for those who dropped by. And we like to send our a great Tiki-thanks to those who organize this event. It seems to grow every month and it's fun to meet new people and exhibitors. Great job!!

Riverside Arts Walk - June

2011-06-02T14:45:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone! It's the first Thursday of the month which means it's time for another downtown Riverside Arts Walk. Once again, we extend the invitation to all of you who might find themselves in the Riverside, CA area to swing on by and say hi. The event starts at 6:00pm and goes until 9:00pm and is located inside the Life Arts Center, whose address is:

3485 University Avenue
Riverside, CA

Mike and Deb will be there with Monster Mythos on hand, plus Lucy prints and buttons. We have some new Zombie-based buttons made, based on suggestions made by attendees of past Arts Walks. As well as some just plain new buttons. Mike also is sneak-peeking some of his finished illustrations (in print form) from the Gods and Goddesses book, which is very exciting!

Rumor has it that The Gute and Bobby Hernandez might make an appearance which could only add to the night's awesomeness. C'mon down and enjoy the evening. We always do! See ya'll then!

Late Monday Memorial Sketchery

2011-05-30T22:43:00.000-07:00

Well, it's still Monday here in California. Happy Memorial Day everyone! Sorry for the late post but we're sure that everyone was enjoying the holiday, eating BBQ and whatnot. The day sure did get away from us.

But we promised on Friday to have some new sketches and we have them. Please enjoy!

Bill Alger is a New York-based illustrator and was gracious enough to contribute a wonderful Egyptian piece to the book. His sketch here is of the God Set, who has a whole list of things that he is God of: desert, storms, foreigners, darkness, and chaos. He was associated with storms and eclipses and was a friend of the dead. He was said to swallow the moon too. Some very cool stuff and a very cool sketch!

TJ Collins is working away on the famous Goddess Athena, the Greek Goddess known mostly as the Goddess of Wisdom and War although she has many other hats she wears. Wikipedia has a well-worded description that says, "...she disliked fighting without purpose and preferred to use wisdom to settle predicaments. The goddess only encouraged fighting for a reasonable cause or to resolve conflict." She represented the disciplined, strategic side of war, which is completely the opposite of her brother Ares, who was the patron of violence, bloodlust and slaughter. Speaking of...

Mike Morris sent over another rough sketch of the Roman version of Ares whose name is Mars, the God of War.

How's that for a Memorial Day post?! We hope the day was spent in good company and good food. And we'd like to send out a very special Tiki-thanks to the servicemen and woman. We honor you and your sacrifices. Thanks!

Come back on Thursday for info about the upcoming Arts Walk. G'night everyone.

Extended Weekend Goodness

2011-05-27T12:50:00.000-07:00

Happy Friday All -

As we head into the final weekend (plus a three-day weekend to boot!) of May, we wanted to share with you all a fun event going on that involve several friends of us here at Tiki Machine.

If you happen to be in the Phoenix, Arizona area, you need to swing by the Phoenix Comicon. It's one of the nicer (and smaller) cons around. Our good friend, Eisner-nominee, and contributor to our Gods and Goddesses book, Travis Hanson is there with limited edition prints. It's the above image and should be a must-buy if you enjoy beautiful art. Travis is at table #117 & #119 as well as participating in several panels and Sketch-Offs. If you drop by his booth and say hi, he'll give you a sketch for free. Woot!!

Another friend of ours you should stop by and say hi to is Shannon Denton in Artist Alley #431. He is one of the hardest working dudes in comics and animation with a ton of experience and stories. Plus the Con will have lot's of other special guests and artists. Go check out the list at the official website.

We also wanted to post some more WIP sketches of the Deities making an appearance in our new book.

Kyle Smith sent over the WIP sketch of the Norse Universe Tree Yggdrasil, which is coming along nicely. A very graffiti-inspired design that we hope you enjoy as much as we do.

Sara Jerzykowski had a rough sketch in Monday's post which is progressing very rapidly. Here's the color study for the Inuit Goddess of the Sea, The Sedna.

Hopefully these will fill you up before you all embark on a weekend of BBQ and good times. Have a fun weekend! See you all back here on Monday. Yup, even with the holiday, we'll be posted new art. See ya!

Myth Monday - New Sketches of Deities

2011-05-23T10:37:00.000-07:00

Happy Monday everyone! We are excited to post some more rough WIP sketches from our upcoming Gods and Goddess Art Book. There are a lot of very talented artists involved in the process, which is one of the reasons we want to share the sketches with you. Enough gibber-gabber, on to the visual goodness -

David Church is a graduate of Art Center and currently works as an art director in the advertising arena. He had purchased one of the Monster Mythos books and expressed an interest in working with us on our next collaborative effort. We're excited to be working with him, as he brings a great energy to the project. He is illustrating a couple of deities. Here we have his WIP sketch of Black Yei, the Navajo God of Fire and Constellations. Black Yei is one of the Holy People who are associated with the forces of nature.

Le Tang is a storyboard artist at Nickelodeon Studios by day. By night, he draws and creates some superb personal art - you need to click on the link and check out his work. He has chosen to illustrate the Roman God Janus. Janus is the God of Beginnings and Transitions and has two faces, one looking at the beginning or the past and the other looking at the end or the future.

Sara Jerzykowski is currently a prop designer on T.U.F.F. Puppy over at Nick and she has been working away not only on the Norse Valkyries - which we previously posted, but she is also illustrating the Sedna, the Inuit Goddess of the Sea. Her story is pretty fun to read too, as she attacks her parents, is taken out to sea but fights being thrown overboard and when she is cast into the sea, she holds on to the boat refusing to go quietly. So they cut off her fingers to get her to fall off! Like we said, fun stuff!

TJ Collins is a regular artist here at Tiki Machine but he also lends his talent as a designer on Cartoon Network's Ben 10: Ultimate Alien. He sent over his WIP sketches of the Hawaiian Goddess Hina. Hina shows up in varying Polynesian myths from all the different islands. TJ really liked the Hawaiian version that has this Goddess of the Moon and Clouds, where she get tired/bored of being on Earth and flies up to the moon, where she weaves clouds for the sky.

Erich Haeger is the other half of Muertoons and along with being our table-mate at WonderCon, is a talented artist working at OddBot, Inc. He sent over a version of his illustration of the Haitian Vodou God, Papa Guédé. This cigar-smoking, rum-swilling God waits at the Crossroads to take souls into the Afterlife. He is the Patron of Little Children and is called upon to protect them, especially if they are dying.

As we get updated artwork, you can be assured that we'll post it up here on the blog. And once again, as we have announcements, events and whatnot, we'll put the details up here too. See you all on Friday. Have a marvelous week!

Happy Weekend!

2011-05-20T20:54:00.001-07:00

Here's comes the weekend and we here at Tiki Machine wanted to start off this Rapture Weekend with some progression artwork, as well as an event.

We'll start with the event:

The amazingly talented Brianne Drouhard will be signing copies of her Billie the Unicorn book Sunday, March 22 at the Costco in Burbank, CA. 11am-2pm. Here's the address for those of you who might be in the neighborhood and need GPS: 1051 Burbank Blvd. Burbank, California 91506-1421

Swing on by and say hi and buy a book if you don't already have one. It will totally be worth it. It's a cute story with beautiful artwork. A treat for the senses. And if you have a copy of Monster Mythos, she'd be more than happy to sign it too...
She has more events lined up and we'll be posting those up here too as the event gets closer to the actual date.

And speaking of Brianne and her beautiful artwork, here's a progression sketch of the Hawaiian Goddess Pele that she's working on for our upcoming Deities book.

TJ Collins has a progression sketch of his Korean Sun and Moon Sibling Gods. It's not a final illustration but it's real close as he's cleaned up and started laying in color. Purdy, ain't it?!

Finally, Mike Collins has an updated/progression sketch of his Guaraní God, Abaangui. Looks like Mike is starting to lay down some color here too.

It's exciting to see the progression of all the illustrations! Come back on Monday for some new sketches. Happy weekend everyone!

Myth Monday - New Book Sketches

2011-05-16T12:30:00.000-07:00

Well, the weekend is over and we head into a new week. We promised on Friday to have some new and never-before-seen sketches from some of the contributing artists on our new art book. So here are some rough WIP sketches of some more of the mythological gods and goddesses making an appearance. Enjoy the sketches here and be sure to follow the links to the webistes/blogs of the artists to see their personal works.

Alison Donato is a recent graduate of Ringling College of Art and Design. She currently works for ReelFX in Texas and has chosen to illustrate the Celtic/Welsh Goddess of Fertility and Beauty, Arianrhod. The stories told about her are pretty great, full of lust and betrayal, magic and reincarnation. It's said that the Caer Arianrhod star in the Corona Borealis, is hers and that it is believed to be the place where dead souls go to await reincarnation.

Mike Morris is still working away on his powerfully cool Zeus illustration. But he is also working on a West African God named Anansi, who is the Trickster God of the Ashanti people. He has conflicting stories, describing him as a giant spider, or a man, or an amalgamation of spider and man. Regardless of which description, he gets into all kinds of troubles. But is also considered the creator and caretaker of the sun, the moon and the stars.

Sencia Kim is a current student at Art Center College of Design. She's applying her talented fingers to the Aztec Grandmother Goddess, Toci. According to the legends, not only is she the most honored of Aztec Goddesses, but because of her magical and curative ablilities, is the Patron of Midwives & Healers.

We are so excited to see this new project coming together and feel VERY fortunate to be working with such talented and classy individuals. Stay tuned as we update with more process drawings as well as WIP sketches of the other Deities included in the book. Have a spectacular week!

Updated Deities Sketches

2011-05-13T20:33:00.001-07:00

As we head into the new weekend, we thought it would be a good idea to post up some of the continuation WIP sketches from the upcoming Gods and Goddesses art book. So, without further adieu.....

Mike Morris (to remind you) is illustrating the all-mighty Zeus, Greek God of Lightning and the Sky. We're pretty sure this would be the last thing you'd see if you pissed off the Father of the Gods. Just one brief glimpse of him all angry like and then a lightning bolt down your throat and then you'd be in line at the River Styx. This is such a dynamic illustration! We can hardly wait to see the final finished piece. If you wanna see the original sketch, Click Here.

Mike Collins last posted an ink WIP piece of a volcano, that was serving as the backdrop to his illustration of the Maori God of Volcanos and Earthquakes, Ruaumoko. Here's an almost finished sketch of the actual god. It seems like this little guy never grew up (or out, since he never left Momma's womb) but he sure does seem to to be enjoying himself. It's intriguing to think how the volcano and the kid are going to come together into one finished illustration...

That's it for today. We'll be posting some new WIP sketches for Monday's post. Which is exciting because these sketches have not graced our blog yet. So it'll be a new experience for all. Whee!! Have a great weekend and we'll see you back here soon enough. Mahalo!

New Deity Art

2011-05-09T09:23:00.001-07:00

Good Morning and Happy Monday to all!

Tiki Machine hopes that this weekend was good to all, especially the mother's out there. We're excited to post up some never-before-seen rough WIP sketches from several of the contributing artists of our Mythological Gods and Goddesses Book. They are a super talented group of artists and we're honored to work with such great people. Check out the sketches (and the links to their personal sites)!

Rowel Roque, the penciller for our Destiny Gauntlet comics, is illustrating the Greek God Poseidon in that same great old-school comic book style he does so well. The mythos behind the God of the Sea is really a fun read. (Poseidon is also considered the God of Earthquakes and in Athens, Greece was worshipped second only to Athena.) Rowel included his feared Earth-Shaker trident as well as the hippocampus, which made an appearance in the Monster Mythos book.

TJ Collins sent over his rough sketch of the Korean Sibling Gods, Dalsoon-Nim and Haesik-Nim. Their mother was devoured by a hungry tiger who then put on her clothes and tricked the siblings into opening the door. They run up a tree to safety where Dalsoon prayed to the heavens, asking that a rope be sent down if they should be saved. A strong rope was sent down, and both siblings climbed up until they reached the heavens, where they became the sun and the moon.

Brianne Drouhard is illustrating the Hawaiian Goddess Pele, the Goddess of Fire, Volcanos, Lightning and Dancing. Brianne sent over a beautiful marker WIP sketch of this popular Deity, who lives in a fire pit on the summit caldera of the most famous of active volcanos, Kīlauea. Whenever volcanic activity happens on the big island, it is said that Pele is expressing her longing to be with her true love, but the legends also say that she is a fickle and dangerous lover who sometimes kills her husbands.

This new art book has such a diverse list of Deities being illustrated. We can't wait to finish this book up and get it to the printer so we can get it into your hands. It's gonna be quite epic.

Pics from the Arts Walk

2011-05-06T18:46:00.001-07:00

Happy Weekend to you all! We're currently lining up our ducks once again according to the various projects going on here at Tiki Machine. Once we get those little quackers all lined up, we'll start posting more of Brooks writing and musings about said projects and the worlds that they take place in.

To help tide you over, we do have some more development artwork from the upcoming graphic novel The Burning Gods as well as some pics from last night's event. If you are curious about how the Gallery 1988 show went, check out the link to see pics from the 3B Show. They had some Deloreans show up! How sweet is that?!

We forgot to mention yesterday that we were scheduled to make an appearance at a Kid's Day event held at the Norco Public Library. Their theme for the event was Reading Can Take You Around the World, or something to that effect. Mike showed up and talked about the legends and creatures in Monster Mythos and the various cultures of the world they come from. He also talked about the ABC's book and showed off some of the Lucy illustrations. The kids seemed to enjoy the book and we really enjoyed our brief time with them. We had to leave early to make it to the Arts Walk and set up on time.

It was a beautiful evening and we think that due to the great southern California weather and the Cinco de Mayo festivities that were happening at the Mission Inn in downtown Riverside, the streets had much more foot traffic than at previous Arts Walks. And that made the night a lot of fun! Several familiar faces and lots of new ones to befriend. We'd like to send out a Tiki-thanks to Ryan for helping out at the table.

Have a great weekend, do fun stuff and make sure to come back on Monday and see some new artwork. See ya!

Events

2011-05-04T13:30:00.000-07:00

Happy Mid-week Everybody -

Well, there is a lot going on this week event-wise that we wanted to tell you all about. First off, since tomorrow is not only Cinco de Mayo but the first Thursday of the new month, we'll once again be in downtown Riverside at the Arts Walk. We'll be inside the Life Arts Center from 6pm - 9pm. Here's the address: 3485 University Avenue, Riverside, CA. If you're in the area, swing on by! It's always a good time.

If you happen to be in the LA area, The Autumn Society and Gallery 1988 have teamed up for a sequel to their 3G Show from last year. This show is entitled The 3B Show and will pay tribute to three 80's films starting with the letter B!

It's going to be awesome! Lots of great art and artists, including several whose work is in the Monster Mythos book. The show will premiere on Thursday, May 5th from 7pm - 10pm @ Gallery 1988's NEW Venice location!

Lots to do and it's not even the weekend yet. See you all on Friday!!

Deities Art Work

2011-05-02T12:32:00.000-07:00

It's Monday and we've got new stuff to showcase. Once again, we have a couple of rough WIP sketches from the upcoming Deities Art Book. As they trickle in, like always, we'll post them here for you to look at and wonder what they will look like finished.

Mike Collins has chosen to do a Maori God named Ruaumoko who is the god of volcanos and earthquakes. It is said that he never left his mother's womb (She's the Earth) and every time he moves, he causes an earthquake or a volcano to erupt. His earthquakes are said to be able to change the weather from warm to cool or vice versa. Pretty neat, huh? Here's the ink sketch.

And Bobby Hernandez sent us his rough studies of Camulus - the Celtic God of War, similar to the Roman God Mars. It'll be great to see how this Deity ends up in his final form. Nice work as always from Bobby.

We'll have a special post on Wednesday so you should come back and see it. Have a wonderful week!

Mike Collins Interview

2011-04-30T23:18:00.000-07:00

There's a great new website up for those whose are passionate about animation and what goes on behind the curtain. Mike Milo (fabled veteran of the animated arts) set up AnimationInsider.com and its mission statement -

"The goal of this website is to focus on the blue collared worker of animation; the back bone of the industry. We want to focus on the real artists in the trenches who make the award winning stuff we love. Interviews and art from prop artists, the bg artists, board artists, painters,timers, directors, layout artists, producers composers, sound effect people, editors, post production people, game animators and visual effects artists etc… the blue collar workers of animation. Who they are, what they do, how they got into the biz and why! That plus what else they’re doing… their other talents, be it music, cooking, sculpture, karate, acting or sports. And of course we want to hear from the creators too, because they have a unique point of view. We think everybody has stories to tell from the trenches of animation!"

And our Mike Collins was interviewed about his work as a digital clean up artist. Wowza! Here's the link if you're interested in reading.

Friends at Anaheim Comic Con and The Book Fair

2011-04-29T13:41:00.000-07:00

Big weekend for nerds in Los Angeles - we have the Anaheim Comic Con, the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, and the Ren Faire all at the same time. Friends of Tiki Machine will be at all 3!!

Anaheim Comic Con:
Brianne Drouhard and Thomas Perkins will be at table 1900 - Brianne has a new book out that's super cool. Everyone's favorite uncle, "Uncle Phil" Rydna will be holding down fort at table 1201.

LA Times Festival of Books / Book Fair:
Eric "The Gute" Gonzalez will be at booth (574) signing his beautiful Muertoons' Rosita & Conchita books. He'll be at the booth Saturday from 12:00pm - 2:00pm and on Sunday from 2:00pm - 4:00pm.

Renaissance Pleasure Faire:
One of our friends will be there this weekend dressed up as Prince, complete with purple shirt, sporting a David Bowie wig, but also wearing a Burger King mask. If you can find him and guess who he is, then you win a prize.

All of these people are super talented artists that put me to shame; please drop by, say hi and support them by buying some merch. They will totally appreciate it and probably give you some swankzy sketches.

The Problem Solverz
Lastly, a shameless plug for the show I produce over at Cartoon Network - "The Problem Solverz"! This coming Monday is a new episode featuring Mark Hamil and Paul Scheer. It's got taco trucks, crime fighting, stand up funny face comics, and the usual shenanigans from the boys.

Monday, May 2nd @ 8:45pm on Cartoon Network

Some More New Art Book Stuff

2011-04-25T10:45:00.000-07:00

Good Morning All!

In the week following our post containing some of the rough WIP sketches from our up-coming Gods and Goddesses Art Book, a couple of the artists have fleshed out some of the posted pieces AND given us some more of their roughs of other deities being done. We'll do the newer sketches first -

Bobby Hernandez has chosen to also illustrate the Irish God of the Sea and Weather Barinthus or Manannán mac Lir. A powerfully magic God with ties to not only the our world's sea and the weather but to the Otherworld and the mists between the two.

Travis Hanson completed his illustration of Long Mu, the Mother of All Dragons according to Chinese myth. She raised five dragons who were so devoted to her that they took human form after she died. She is a very popular deity in China and is the patron goddess of parents and children. Travis has actually finished his pieces and has the finals posted on his website. Check it out if you're curious, you won't be disappointed.

And here's some fleshing out of illustrations posted last week.

Adam Scarpitta is playing around with color in this WIP sketch (done in Flash) of the Mayan Water Goddess I or Ix Chel.

And Mike Collins added some background elements and readjusted the pose and placement of his Guaraní God named Abaangui.

Be sure to come back and see other rough sketches and the continuing progress of the deities posted. We enjoy seeing the progression of illustrations and hope you all do too. Have a wonderful week!

Sneak Peek

2011-04-22T23:09:00.000-07:00

Happy Friday All -

As we head into the weekend, and while some of us await the arrival of the Easter Bunny, we wanted to give you a treat for your eyes. Consider this our Tiki-basket of goodies. As Brook continues to work away on writing our post-apocalyptic world of the Burning Gods, Bobby continues to create the imagery of this imposing and dangerous world.

Please enjoy some more of the development art of our graphic novel. As we get closer and closer to completion, you can be sure that we'll keep you all posted with all words and artwork. Be sure to come back on Monday and see more stuff. We're not sure what exactly will be posted, but there will be something. Have a great weekend!

New Art Book!

2011-04-18T10:46:00.000-07:00

Good Morning everyone!

Well, on Friday we had said that we were hoping to be able to announce the new project we were working on. And we can! Yay!

We are working on another art book in the same vein as Monster Mythos, although the subject of this book, while still mythological, is not going to be monsters. It is going to be Mythological Deities or Gods and Goddesses. We've been working on it for awhile now. Some of the artists from the Monster Mythos book are returning to contribute and there are several new artists who expressed an interest in contributing after seeing Monster Mythos. Which is very exciting and very humbling at the same time.

We are working very hard to get this art book out in time for the San Diego Comic Con. The list of Deities being illustrated in the book is pretty impressive. Several of the artists have already given us their Work-In-Progress rough designs and we'd like to share them. Here are a couple of them.

Our own Mike Collins is one of the returning artists and he has a Guaraní God named Abaangui who cut off his nose and threw it into the sky where it became the moon.

Another returning artist is Sara Jerzykowski and she is doing the minor Norse Goddesses the Valkyries, fierce and feared warrior maidens who not only serve Odin but would decide who would fall in battle and who was worthy to enter Valhalla.

Mike Morris is another returning artist and he is illustrating the great Greek God Zeus in all his glory. And by glory, we mean thunder-and-lightning-throwing-angry glory.

Bobby Hernandez is also one of the returning artists who has chosen to take a stab at illustrating the Aztec God of the Dead, Mictlantecuhtli.

Some of the new artists who are contributing to the book include, Adam Scarpitta, an animator responsible for creating the short That's My Boys for WB's Cartoon Monsoon. He is contributing a couple of Deities, one of which is the Mayan Water Goddess I or Ix Chel, who is depicted as an old woman with claw feet and wearing a snake tied around her head.

As well as artist Kyle Smith, who will be drawing the great Norse Tree Yggdrasil which, we know is not a Deity per se but it does hold up the Universe including Asgard, where all the Norse Gods live so it shall make an appearance.

And finally, we've been hinting at this for a long while now. Our great friend and Eisner-nominated comic book creator/artist Travis Hanson will be contributing two pieces to the book, which he has actually finished already. We're not going to post the finished pieces here but if you want to see them, head over to his website and feast your eyes on his gorgeous work. Here's one of the pieces, based on the Chinese legend of the Monkey King, Sun Hou-tzu who in one legend waged war the hosts of Heaven as he wanted to assume the role of Governor.

Please be aware that, with the exception of the Monkey King by Travis, these are rough Works-In-Process. Which is exciting because it also means that as these pieces finish up, we can post more stuff for you to look at. And as more of the contributing artists get us their sketches, we'll post them as well. We'll see you on Friday. Have a great week!

Friday Post

2011-04-15T20:43:00.000-07:00

Happy Friday everybody! Hooray for the approaching weekend! Here's a pin-up of Eva'lona from The Destiny Gauntlets as imagined by director extraordinaire Lauren Montgomery. We know, we know! We've posted it already but that was months ago and it's really slick-looking.

As you all know, we are currently working on several projects which we post about on a pretty regular basis. The Lucy ABC's book is continuing along. Our graphic novel The Burning Gods is being fleshed out into a juicy piece of comic goodness. We're ironing out the final designs of our hero, Jack Patton and the world of the burning gods. The Destiny Gauntlets is still in the process of being inked by Sean Parsons and Bill Nichols as well as getting the pencils for the 2nd issue past the roughing out stage.

And we hope to be able to announce a new project that is due out in the summer of this year soon. It may look like we've stalled out, but rest assured, that is not the case. We're just lining all of our Tiki-ducks in a row....We're keeping our fingers crossed that the new project will be announced on Monday. Go ahead and cross your fingers with us! We'll see what the weekend has in store for us.

Have a great weekend! Come back on Monday and we'll have something new posted. Consider that a Tiki-promise! Thanks!!

Arts Walk Pics

2011-04-11T09:53:00.001-07:00

Good Morning All -

Well, last Thursday's Arts Walk in Riverside was, once again, a blast! We would have posted pics for Friday's post but Mike came down with a nasty cold. It appears that all the traveling, late nights and chilly weather finally wore down his immune system. He spent all weekend in bed recuperating. He's all better now and has given us a couple of pictures that Deb snapped at the Arts Walk.

It seems like the Arts Walk gets more and more people each month. Exciting! It was so good to see familiar faces and make new friends. We look forward to the next one!

Our friend Travis Hanson was at the Arts Walk again and he while setting up, he told us some fantastic news - the digital version of his comic The Bean has been nominated for an Eisner award. If you are unaware of what that is, it's the Oscar of comics. Now Travis has been an indie comic book writer/artist for several years now and if you are a fan of fantasy and good times, then check out The Bean. He just made it available in digital form - CLICK HERE.

And we have lots going on. We've been teasing about a big announcement and we're still getting together everything to make the press release of sorts. But we are working away on lots of stuff, we promise. In fact, we Tiki-promise.

Please come back often and see the new stuff - art and announcements and whatnot. Have a good week!

Riverside Arts Walk - April

2011-04-05T17:02:00.000-07:00

This Thursday, we'll be at the Downtown Riverside Arts Walk again. We always enjoy our time at the Walk and hope you'll join us.

The Arts Walk is once again in the Life Arts Center located at 3485 University Avenue in Riverside, CA. It runs from 6:00pm until 9:00pm. We'll have the promo cards about Lucy's ABC's of Halloween book - coming in September 2011

We'll also have leftover WonderCon Lucy prints and buttons available plus maybe even some secret stuff too. You'll just have to come out and see. Our Muertoons friends should be in attendance too as will Travis Hanson from Bean Leaf Press. It'll be fun!

WonderCon pics

2011-04-05T16:18:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the delay everybody. Mike was unable to get anything posted yesterday as he was traveling home from San Francisco. WonderCon was a terrific experience! Considering it was Tiki Machine's first convention, it went very well. The attendees were great to talk to. Books, magnets, prints and whatnot were sold and a fantastic time was had. Once again, we would like to thank the Muertoons crew for sharing their table with us. As well as the ride up. Here are some pics from the weekend. Enjoy!

Here's the Program Guide and Schedule...

....which if you were to have opened and looked up Muertoons, would read like this. Exciting!
(Thanks Erich for the cool write-up!)

We arrived at the Moscone Center South on Friday morning. You can't see it here because the second I pressed the button to snap the picture, that shuttle blocked the view. There was a line of Stormtroopers guarding the entrance!

Here is the Gute unloading the car

Here is everybody setting up the table display on Friday morning. A table full of great stuff!

Resulting in our first group shot as the doors opened. Tiki Machine's Mike Collins, Hard 8's Erich Haeger and Muertoons Eric "The Gute" Gonzalez.

We shared the same row in the Small Press area with such talented artists as Stephen Silver and Brittney Lee among others. Stephen was one of a special few that helped Monster Mythos see the light of day. He was very helpful so we wanted him to have a copy of the book. He was gracious enough to pose with me.

Us and Brianne Drouhard (who contributed the great Griffin piece in Monster Mythos) kept directing attendees to each others tables. She has her own children's book out now. It is so cute! You should get your hands on a copy of Billie the Unicorn. Which can be purchased here. It was fun telling people about her book and sending them to her to sign their Monster Mythos book.

Here are some attendees with their Superhero Lucy print. I wanted to take more pics but it was hard enough taking care of all the business, interacting with the attendees and all that, that taking pictures just didn't work out. But as soon as I can get my hands on copies of the pics taken by the Muertoons crew, I'll post them here. Promise!

And we even had a celebrity siting from our spot behind the table. He was very entertaining.

We look forward to future conventions. Thanks everybody!

Poopy Saturday

2011-04-02T18:46:00.000-07:00

Another missed Friday post. Blah! Here I sit, banging away on the ol keyboard, whilst our good chum Mike is living it up in San Fran at WonderCon. Hopefully he brings us all down some tasty chocolate souvenirs and some sourdough. Hope you are having fun up there, and I and the rest of the followers here can't wait to see some photo updates of the show. El Brooko was here!

WonderCon Time!

2011-03-31T07:21:00.000-07:00

Well, today marks the first step into the Convention arena. Our Mike Collins joins forces with our great friends from Muertoons (Eric & Yoly Gonzalez and Erich Haeger) to travel up to San Francisco for WonderCon 2011! It's exciting!

Our Monster Mythos will be there of coarse but Mike has been busy putting together swag to help promote Lucy's first book (coming September 2011) - The ABC's of Halloween. Here are some sneak peek pics of said swag.

Some nice high quality prints of 3 of the illustrations from the actual book. (Well, 2 of them - the Zombie Lucy BG needs to be tweaked for the book.) Plus a fan piece Mike did way back at the finale of the TV show LOST of little Lucy in LOST attire, with her stuffed rabbit Sami as the Smoke Monster.

Mike's wife Deb had a great idea for what the display and pricing guide should look like. Her idea was made real with a frame, some cork board and the placement of the Tiki Machine merch. Here's a special Tiki thanks for her help!

Here are the bags of buttons. The new ones were made with the help of Travis Hanson, who will also be at WonderCon. He's a very talented artist as well as a fellow self-publisher. His help in this arena has been crucial to our stepping up to the challenge. Here's a Tiki thanks to you Trav!

And here's all the postcards and little things we'll have at the table too. If you are in the Bay Area this weekend, you should swing by the Moscone Center South. We'll be in the Small Press area at Table 25.

See you there! And if you can't make it, we'll be posting pics and whatnot from our experience there. Stay tuned here or on our Twitter account. Wish us luck!

WonderCon

2011-03-28T09:23:00.000-07:00

Good morning everybody. Sorry to not have posted anything on Friday; the day came and went and the post slipped through the cracks. How about a sneak peek to lessen the disappointment? Here's the final clean up and color version of little Lucy in Ghost form.

(The whole illustration is done but we're going to wait to show all of it.) But we've got some more cool stuff to show you too....keep reading.

WonderCon is being held this week at the Moscone Center South in San Francisco, CA. It starts on Friday (April 1st) and goes until Sunday (April 3rd). We've heard lots of great things about the Con and we look forward to being able to participate. This will mark our first Tiki appearance at a Convention and we are so excited about it!

We're also excited to be sharing a table with our good friends Eric, Yoly and Erich from Muertoons. We'll all be at Small Press Table S25. Here's a map to help -

We look forward to meeting new people and showing off the Monster Mythos book in a larger arena. We have some promo postcards to hand out for the ABC's of Halloween Lucy book. Which is exciting because it features the finished illustration of Lucy as a Superhero!

(We thought that would be fun since it IS a comic book convention.) We have 2 more button designs to add to our Kona and Zombie Lucy ones, as well as prints of Lucy. So c'mon by this weekend. It's gonna be a Tiki-riffic time!!