When I’m not writing fiction, bitching about the world, or messing around with my XO laptop, one of my hobbies is doing custom DIY blank vinyls. These start off life as a blank, white toy made of vinyl. The idea is that you buy one and apply your own character to them. Think of it like working as a painter, only instead of canvas, your medium is pre-formed vinyl. :)

Another thing I like about custom vinyls is that they are mega-brand-free. While many of the companies that make blanks are corporations (who isn’t these days?), none (that I know of) are owned by mega-corporations like Time-Warner or Viacom. A few have done deals with bigger companies for franchise licenses, but the blanks I use are just that–blank.

No brands.

You just use your imagination and create the toy you want. Sometimes it doesn’t even have to be a character. I’m a little too control-freakish to turn a blank into abstract art, but I’ve seen it done. In this post I’m calling attention to a piece I finished a while back which I call Stripe-R based on the most prominent design motif on him–the thick, red stripe down the middle of his face. He’s about as abstract as I think I can get ^_^

I’ve got more custom toys and a section on my website dedicated to just toys that you can check out at: http://toys.thepete.com/ It’s pretty sparse right now as I just recently created it. But I’ll be posting more of my own creations as well as non-custom toys in my own collection.

Hey, I can’t write about politics and movie reviews ALL the time, can I?

Stripe-R started out life as a Baby Qee Toyer, which is a model of blank toy from a company called Toy2R, which you can check out at their website: http://toy2r.com/

Check out my Flickr photo set for Stripe-R here: http://flickr.com/…492854661/

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