Feel my mystery

I did manage to get this done in the betweentime.

On a related note– The word’s got to get out, I’ve released several items directly for sale on etsy and in the shop section, so check out those outlets for your Fizz Man Industries needs.

S’wiggitywiggitywiggityWACK

THEN I REMEMBERED: That wasn’t what I forgot to do. ScrewAttack reminded me though, that I said on camera that if you go to my site there would be a Flash Man sculpture ready for viewing. Well, I rushed back downstairs to where my computer used to be, but I forgot that I sold it for a novelty corncob cellphone. So now I’m at the library and feverishly posting this so that I’m not made out to be a liar! So, check it out, ScrewAttackers!

Or are ScrewAttack patrons ScrewVictims?

Anyway, I got this number: 493. I’ve made a lot of copies of bob-ombs and Shy Guys (but I didn’t count resin casts) and each individual chess piece that I hand-sculpted, of which I’ve done seven now. I was amazed when I was counting ‘em up, because the number was getting up there and I still had folders to root through. All I need is 7 more and I get a FREE SUB*!

*free sub with purchase of any sub of equal or lesser value

One of the things I want to do more is write more this year. That last sentence could be rewritten, “I would like to write more more”. This is a good reason for me to be in the practice of writing! I’ll be talking more about what I’m doing in the life of me as well as the obvious art stuff that just bogs this site down, really.

Also you may notice that the pictures have been retaken for Mega Man Chess. This is because Rachel Peterson came and took far better pictures than I ever could with her space camera from the future. I’ll be putting new sculptures up daily from all the pieces that were unveiled at MAGFest– there’s quite a few, so keep up!

I’m gonna participate in the MAGHunt, a sort of Alternate Reality game they’re trying to put together. I’d like to be a person people have to go to for a puzzle, but I’m not sure if I cleared that with the coordinator. I do know that one of the Shy Guys’ll be put up as a prize, so look out for the fabled Black Shy Guy on the MAGHunt prize table. Legend has, it carries a terrible curse. Only seek to win it if your life is otherwise uninteresting and you could do well with some cursey stuff happening to you.

Stay tuned after the show, I always wait to unveil a lot of new sculptures at the convention so they’re a complete surprise! Besides Mega Man chess, there are a BUNCH of new pieces that I’m real excited about.

I said I’d announce this by Friday night, so I gotta dash this off in the next couple minutes or I’m OUT OF BOUNDS. This new set is gonna be shown off for the first time at MAGFest 10, so make sure you get yourself to National Harbor next weekend! I promise this set is the best Mega Man Chess set that you can find. On Google images. Thus far. Here are some more shots:

More shots of individual pieces to come. Also, I’ll eventually get a more dazzling board but for now we’re on the vinyl placemat. LOOK AT THOSE PIECES!!!! (not the board!)

I did, however, get a call from Tim Ekkebus of X-Strike Studios who wanted a Candy Cat from the Dragon Quest Series. Since I can’t say no to Tim (because I’m very, very scared of him) I got down to business on his project straight away! Don’t let the date of this post fool you, though– I did it like three weeks ago but didn’t say anything about it until now because he wanted it to be a Christmas secret. Now I’m pretty sure Christmas is over, but these days you never can tell the way televesion never shuts up about it. Is it over?

I keep saying I’ll unveil the big project before MAG on the site, so I will. Tomorrow night I’ll put up the gallery of my latest invention! Be there!

And go to Candy Cat Land!

Beyond these projects, I’m getting my next big release ready. With the Zelda set behind me (and the press of it being well and truly milked) it’s time to get the next set out. Though I don’t want to be considered a one-trick pony, I don’t much care– the subject matter of this next chess set is something a lot closer to my heart than Zelda, for sure. I won’t say just yet what it is (and some of you already know) but I promise it’ll be 1) better than that other one and 2) playable with standard chess rules. LET THE RUMOR MILL BEGIN!

I’m pretty excited about it. So excited that I won’t think about it from here on in because I gotta keep working on the next thing that’ll find its way into these publications. In the meantime, there are some new pieces in the WIP Lounge, old and new. You’ll can’t wait to see them finished!

Here’s a shot of the table with most of the pieces I’ve turned out. I’m successfully getting resin casts of Haunts made, and now I’m under the thunder trying to get the little twerps painted.

While I’ve been working on these the Proximity Show has been up and torn down, with some tidy sales from that! Amid the fervor to get all these ghosts taken care of I managed to work up a Spyro the Dragon for someone who took a liking to my stuff at the gallery.

Tonight’s Halloween! All year I was ready to get messed up as Beetlejuice (particularly the version where he is dressed as Alec Baldwin in the graveyard) but I’ve been, as previously stated, daunted. Now the plan is to dress up as 1) a burrito for a free chipotle burrito 2) a can of paint for a free can of paint 3) a book for a free library book. Really I’m just going to dress up as the errands I have to do today.

Speaking of things that’ll be there, I’m unveiling a line of figures called HAUNTS at the gallery– they’re limbless floating curiosities. There’s a gallery for each one.

Bad Jim

Bobo

Spanky & Tooter

Ernst

See you tonight! There’ll be Jolly Ranchers!

The Dr. Mario viruses are “at it again” here with new uglified concept designs. I’ll be showing them at this here gallery. Better believe it! Here are the less exciting digital photo galleries, which are all well and good but not better than being nose-to nose:

Fever

Chill

Weird

The show will feature the works of such Cleveland talents as Seth Bittner, Alex Cantrell, Rick Sans, and Sergio Andujar II. And me. Opening night is just a week away on Friday October 7th. It’s short notice but if you can read this, you can’t back down now! Get to Cleveland and feast your eyes on THIS PRIZE: Mario vs. Bowser in Feudal Japan. I had the idea about a month ago and the translation from my head to reality is pretty exciting.

These pictures are all well and good but I can make one promise: if you see it in person at Proximity next week, the real deal will blow whatever mind you decide to bring with you. Bring a spare.

Look-see at the full gallery by clicking this little guy.

I’ve got some tubular artists with me to fill out the room with pop-culture and video game related art pieces, including Sans Oceana of course, Alex Cantrell and Seth Bittner, who are both 2-D artists with a lot of good pieces to show off. If you’re in the Cleveland area that weekend, definitely come on down on Friday for a kickoff hootenanny. It will be tasteful. In a few days I’ll put up some shots of projects me and the guys are gonna bring with us!

Go over to the Facebook Page to claim your being-going-there. I have it on good authority that Yum-Yum the Clown* will be selling hot balloon-doggies out front!

*Unless it conflicts with his daughter’s wedding that weekend.

I set up the old Zelda Chess WIP Gallery to be the new Works in Progress Lounge. It’s as comfortable as a group of gray/ shiny gray sculptures can feel, all together. I’m going out on a limb if people even want to see half-finished stuff. If they’re anything like me, at this point of the process, they’re sick and tired of looking at them!

I thought I would start off with some of my favorite varmints, the viruses from Super Doctor Mario Bros.! These guys are a real part of me because they were indeed some of the first characters I ever decided to sculpt, way back when all those years back ago. Ten years ago, or so. I “doctored” up their design, as you can see from these early Work in Progress shots– they look like they could use a “doctor”, you may go so far as to say! This first guy looks like he may be suffering from “hypertension”!

I plan on doing all three, but I haven’t decided yet if they should be a group or seperate pieces. I think they work seperately but a unifying piece makes more sense ’cause they’re rarely seen apart. Wellll I guess I gotta keep working. Anyway, tell me what you think and if they’re heinous enough, or NOT heinous enough or they remind you of those parts in Ren and Stimpy when they do close-ups of stuff. I think those bits really influenced my sculpting style.

Further, after Kennywood, we went to Mr. Small’s Theater outside of Pittsburgh for the show. During Tally Hall’s set, Rob Cantor stopped the show to announce Anne and my presence. He had us stand in the middle of the crowd and Anne asked if I wanted to marry her!  Believe it! I said yes in so many words. You can see a video of it on Youtube, which has a vast cache of resources for your Cat Psychology course.

You should celebrate in your own way by checking out the Shop section of the site– there’s now Fizz Man Shirts to buy! Congratulation!

This is an interesting idea for later– I should go around to other webcomic creators who maybe haven’t had this idea on their own– who wouldn’t want a 3D figure of their characters? And who are they to deny me the opportunity to make it for them? Why would they turn that down? I think that’s a little rude, just turn me down like that. Screw them, I got enough on my plate as it is!

Anyway, Jason blogged about this rascal here. And I put up more shots of him here!

I’m gearing up to head to DesignerCon in November, which is held every year in Pasadena. I want to design a couple of Brontosuarezzes and “Haunts”- floating Pac Man-esque ghosts which teeter on horrible but are cute enough to be endearing, like I like to do. Between a show I have coming up of originals and MAGFest, it’s shapin’ up to be a crazy year for old Ben Howard! Look out! For him! Who is me!

Here’s the full gallery of this Creeper.

I got called on to put together another of these boards, identical to the first one, and I guess I really don’t have to bring it onto the site. However, I did make some very negligible changes to the pieces, and there’s a real nice board involved. Also, to chess nerds, I can’t be called out for glaring mistakes in board setup. I can, however, still be called out for mistakes in character placement from different nerds, or other nerds who think I should have made a Battlestar Galactica chess set.

What’s even better about this set is that I got time to play a game or two! WHO’LL TAKE THAT CHALLENGE?

Here’s the full 2nd Zelda Set Gallery!

In other news, there’s a new sculpture on the block– It’s a Poe Collector from Zelda! He comes in right after Dry Bones, another spooky individual. I guess it’s the month of dudes with floating pupils in black spaces. Check out the FULL GALLERY!

Other spots I’ll be showing up in sooner or later– Nintendo Power and N-Europe Online. I’ll notify when my presence has been confirmed in those outlets. BIG TIME.

Check out the full gallery of Dry Jerk here.