My Original Painting Titled "Torn"
Torn is a digital painting that I created back in 2007 around the time that I was doing design work for Varner Studios (@steve.varner) and creating paint masters for the Bleeding Edge Goth doll series.
Torn is available in NFT form here
Bleeding Edge
I met @steve.varner, the owner of Bleeding Edge back in 2004 while at the Javitz Center for New York Toy Fair. Steve is a highly accomplished sculptor and fine artist who is very well known and respected in the toy and entertainment industry. @nuthman has just helped him create an account here and is working on getting him involved in the Hive community.
I began working with Varner Studios all those years ago and continue to do so up to this day. We are also great friends!
Paint Masters
The dolls you see in the above image are called paint masters. Companies who make dolls, such as Mattel, Hasbro and MGAE, have a very particular process for doll development. Generally there are designers in house who come up with an idea for a new doll. They will then work with a designer such as myself who will do the actual paint work. The painter will go back and forth with the company making changes to the design until they are satisfied. Once the doll looks how the company wants, it is my job to make several exact copies. As you can imagine, this is a very precision, specialized job. There are very few people who do this, and I know most of them!
Generally speaking, a paint master serves several purposes. One will be sent off to a factory, mostly in China, to be meticulously copied and reproduced. Another may be thrown into a vault somewhere in the company forever for copyright purposes. Yet another will end up on display in a show such as Toy Fair so that potential customers can see them before the dolls are ever even manufactured. This way they can put in their orders for when the factories open back up after Chinese New Year.
So essentially I have given you a small peak into one aspect of what I do in my day job. I hope that some of you will find it interesting!
I am still work on getting enough votes to publish my work on foundation, so if you have a moment I'd appreciate your vote! https://foundation.app/afturner