PETERKATO

So while working on my next Mogu-Tank November colorwave today I received a wonderful visit from the folks at Mad Supper & Ideal Glass Gallery. We ate a whole Salt Caramel Apple Pie from BlackBirds Pies in Gowanus , Brooklyn. And so Ayaka, Will & Shinya with me & Dave Cortes enjoyed a bit of shop-talk then gab-talk. It was a nice to be indoor Marathon Sunday~

Working on my Fall & Winter products for my webshop. I realized being back in the studio workshop is where i feel most energized & fufilled. Casting, grinding, painting, it's just what makes my week something to constantly look-forward to & fondly look-back on. Looking Forward & Looking Back. Both have their place in moderation, but in the end it's all about this moment & doing the actual deeds. 

A halloween art/performance smash-up event put together by Ayaka May & Makino Momoko. Live music, alternative art installations and a packed gallery space with creative art-owls and funky trick or treaters. The show featured the sculpting works of Kyurico which made clay sculptures of traditional Japanese lucky charms and turns them into these surreal & wonderful creations. 

Miss Kyurico on the right                                                       Her dazzling works...

So we're right at the foot-steps of another Halloween in New York, as always my costume is still in the "putting it together" phase. I really do love the season, everything turns into a Nightmare before Xmas-like setting. Around the neighborhood here in Brooklyn the houses are decked out with pumpkins & spiderwebs, animatronic ghosts & LED eyed vampire bats. Well, as always NY let's be safe and have some serious fun. Trick and Treat

Be Both!

So the 17th Annual Gowanus Open Studios come to an end. Here at the Cortes Studio didn't know what to expect so we just tried not to think too much and just let things happen. The weekend was packed with visitors ( art enthusiasts , fellow artists and neighborhood friendlies ) . It was really a  lot of fun, on Sunday before it all began me and my studio-mates took time and went to check out the other artists spaces in the building. It was such a surprise to see how diverse everyones areas were...

Its that time~, just in time for Halloween, FrightBite is back and in a huge 66 original painted variety! One of my personal favs of my early hand sculpting pieces, FrightBite makes his return with a first run linocut print as well. Sized 5x7 on vintage newsprint paper limited to11 pcs. Visitors to the Arts Gowanus Open Studios this weekend( Oct 19 & 20 Saturday & Sunday ) will get to hand select & purchase their pieces as well as shop for other in studio only items.

This weekend for the Arts Gowanus Open Studios~, I would love for you to visit my studio. Please check www.artsgowanus.org & find me in the New Artists Directory for location. Many original resin toys & prints will be available!

After 11 months of the grid...we're open~!

Sunday Oct 6th 2013

Hello again~
My goodness its been many many months since I've seen you guys ( actually 11 months to be exact ).
Started this studio rebuild since November 2012 , we completed our new Cortes Studio expansion in June 2013.
It was an incredibly demanding and super rewarding experience, everything was pretty much made from scratch from fine wood!

Artists Eric & Ruth Holswade were the magicians that create all of the beautiful handcrafted interiors such as my Toy series wall display unit, my black finishing drafting table, a floor to ceiling...

Jan 27th 2013

Hello everyone~ happy new year & hope you are all doing well. I haven't been on the grid(IG, Facebook, twitter) or the Indie Toy scene in awhile, have been really busy with my recent studio space-expansion. All is going great, tons of construction and custom interiors being worked on or built. Due to this I won't be able to work on any new items for the webshop for awhile. As the schedule looks for now I feel I will finish construction & be up and running again at some point in March 2013. Thank...

 Nathan Jurevicius Scary Girl show is rescheduled & refocused with a new goal. Beginning tomorrow Nov 9th, 2012 6pm, the show that now has over 130 artists participating (wow!) looks amazing and now will have 10% proceeds of sales go to help those in need from the Hurricane Sandy disaster. So many are still in need of help so any help you can give( whether buying from the show or donating funds, volunteering , everything is appreciated & needed) spread the word!

Here are my contributions to the Scary Girl festivities! Limited edition to 5 pieces, are these "Blister" using...

NY Comicon is here again~( Oct 11th~14th) & for the last few months I have been preparing for it.

Here's a look at brand new sculpted items as well as classic figure new variants, hope you enjoy~

TAKO-CUBEs : sized at 1.5 inches in height these guys are the grunts of the Space Army series I am beginning to flesh out starting this month. They are small and tough but not too bright they are commonly used as cannon fodder in battles. They are more dangerous in numbers and as a...

 So my daytime job is at this artists studio in NY called John Derian Co. where we focus on producing handmade decoupage plates, platters, paperweights, coasters and bowls . His designs are sold at upscale home stores, in catalogs, and gift shops worldwide. It's a wonderful place to work where the people are very good to me. I get to assist in design & production and have learned many unique skills that I otherwise would not have gotten to learn had I not worked here. Artist HealeyMade actually worked here first( as one of the skilled artisans in production) & got...

 Here are some pics sent to me from SDCC 2012(GiantRobot booth #1729). Wish I were there this year but had to focus everything for some future Productions.

Along with the GiantRobot Turtle Tetsujin exclusive , there are also Tasty Rainbow editions of my other figures & free pins with purchase available at the booth.

Tasty Rainbows~

And free with purchase peterkato x giantrobot pins~

Also I was asked by Toysrevil to give a top-ten toys from SDCC wishlist. Checkout...

Now , I haven't tried to do a haiku in like, a million years but I recently saw one of my favorite instagram accounts(mohojung) post an amazingly cute picture. Which inspired me. She titled her photo "philosophers' soba"

あつい　なつ

ひやし　そば　たべ

カワコ　すき

hot summer

hiyashi soba eat

kawako loves

Let's have a great summer everyone!

 For SDCC 2012 I will be teaming up with Giant Robot for an exclusive Turtle Tetsujin release.

Cast in sea-foam green( chosen by Eric Nakamura of GR) and have accents of goldleaf & clear green paint. The torso this time around will have the Giant Robot Logo: Big Boss Robot imbedded inside it. I have long wanted to work with Giant Robot and am very excited about this collaboration.

They will be $20 each limited to 20 pieces. SDCC booth #1729

http://www.giantrobot.com

Here's a discovery I found on instagram. It's called the little red door & the artist here makes these cute ceramic mini houses in a variety of choices. Whether its a gnome-like house, cherry bushed house, or customizable alphabet houses ( like the ones I had ordered) they are all hand-made, all beautiful. They reminded me of the Valentine Day Turtle Tetsujins I had done earlier in the year. Toni the artist of the little red door had included some wonderful gifts, candies, postcards and to my surprise extra houses! I got a great red house with a little black...

To my surprise earlier in the week I had received a tweet from the Design Toy Awards group. I found out that my Japan Charity figures , the Hinomaru Turtle Tetsujins had been entered into two catagories for this years awards: Best Self-Produced & Best Toy of the Year.

To be included on the list with so many veterans in this industry is really amazing. I honestly thought it was a mistake of some kind( like some twitter-hacking prank or something), but as I checked the link to the DTA 2012 pages I saw that my figure was up there...

 Today I had gotten a tweet by the University of Muscle, a site dedicated to all things inspired by Kinnikuman Muscle figures and such. I had seen the site many times before ( especially when I was buying up those mini muscle figures to increase my personal collection).

The site had done an article about my Man-Nie figure. It was such a thoughtful , well written article covering so many aspects of the figure. The only other time I had experienced such interest in that particular figure was when I first got contacted by Niall of what was at the...

 Here are two wonderful instagrammers that were nice enough to make fan art of my characters:

First up is Bodz Zaman ( IG handle: bodzilla ) who loves to draw( like me). Here is his drawing of FrightBite floating through a forest scene:

Next up is an amazing IG collage-weaver mo LaPastequeBleue( IG handle: mohojung ), I had never scene anything like her work on IG before & I'm so lucky that she likes my characters enough to incorporate them into these great little fantasy scenes. Her themes vary from comical to...