Merry Christmas!

Toyarchitects and Cavy the Hamster want to thank you for your endurenced support over 2010! Established in January this year we approached so much love and help.

Originally made for my little son Linus as one of his first playtoys, Cavy met some awesome people this year. First of all Jeremy Brautman who supported the first launch of this little guy and every little step he made. Not to forget fantastic Wondercon 2010 and an exciting travel around the world to San Francisco. Thanks so much to Neon Monster, Jeremy and Kristy!

Thanks go out to Tomopop, Battlegrip, Sina, Scooter&Jinx, Banana Suicida, Twofeetdeep, Vinylpulse Plasticandplush, vinyl-creep, thunderchunky, sweetoy, collect3D and Smallstuff for all your articles! And a big big thank you to John from Spankystokes.com and Andy from toysrevil.blogspot.com for announcing everything new around the Urban Hamsters.

Cavy traveled to San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Texas, Singapore, Moscow, Great Britain , Indonesia, Switzerland, Canada and Czech Republic and even South Africa, … so, last but not least the biggest thanks to all friends, consumers, customers and artists in the world for your support and love!

Merry Christmas, may God be with you all and a happy New Year to all of you!

Thank you so much

Mathias

Charity Hamster for Andy Heng

In October unexpected news reached us. Founder of http://toysrevil.blogspot.com/ Andy Heng, one of the most famous blogger in toy-busyness was taken to hospital in cause of a minor stroke.

The health system in Singapore isn´t the same like in Europe and health insurances only pays part of your treatment. UK based toy-designer Cris rose reacted immediately and relaunched vinylhearts.com.

Together with many artists Toyarchitects take part in the charity work and produced a special "ToysRevil edition" of Cavy the Urban Hamster for http://urbanhamster.bigcartel.com/ . The figure is limited to 10 pieces worldwide and the whole benefit of the first 3 Hamsters and 30% of each additional figure of this style is used directly to support the hospital treatment of Andy Heng. The Recently solds and the more than friendly feedbacks like the one from Vinyl Destination, South Africa http://twitpic.com/389roa let us decide to even spend the whole of 5 sold Ham´s for the man who supported each toy of us since our launch.

If you are interested in donating or getting involved, check out vinylhearts.com where Cris Rose has set up a site for charity to support Andy´s treatment

You can also check out the ToysREvil facebook page for more updates.

If you havn´t got your hand on one of these little guys yet you maybe catch one of the last ones now :) urbanhamster — Cavy the Ham-Ster TOYSREVIL CHARITY EDITION / ToyArchitects . Please keep on donating to support Andy´s healing as good as possible.

The very best wishes to you and your family. Get well soon, Andy!

Cozy Cavy Robots by Cozyrobot

Urban Hamsters go colaborating with Amybean´s Cozy Robots!
The bay area artist also known as cozyrobot via twitter handmade a tag-team of Hamaster and plush-robot by using the same pattern. The result is an awesome set supported by both cozyrobot and toyarchitects. Even noticed by wellknown journalist Jeremy Brautman the team teams up on Neon Monster´s blog at http://blog.neonmonster.com/tag/toy-architects/


"I use my very own Iterative Soft Toy Development Methodology (ISTDM) as well as the newer Frequent Small Releases Methodology (FSRM). The plush doll is made of fleece stuffed with polyfiber and, having no loose parts, is perfect for a newborn or toddler, or collector of hand made softies. The matching Urban Hamster(tm) is your friend, who watches Life from the relative safety of your Collectibles Shelf." is how Amy describes her work.

Amy’s got 6 recruits for the Cozy Cavy Robot Army attired and ready for cozybattle. Each one-of-a-kind matching set is $60 only on etsy. Oh, and if you want to DIY a hamster, you´ll get them here.

Please make sure to visit Amy´s Homepage on http://cozyrampage.com/ and follow her via http://twitter.com/cozyrobot .

Thank you Amy for this outstanding idea and great work!

Hamster Custom by Vanessa Ramirez

Today a Hamster customized as a mouse or rat reaches us. This great work is done by Vanessa Ramirez. Vanessa is a Graphic Designer, Artist, and Jack-of-all-trades. She is currently based out of sunny Southern California. She spent the last ten years learning the ins and outs of the screen printing business and has since branched out to the promotional products field.

She currently oversees the Graphic Design Department at SafeHaven Products. For fun she likes to learn new programs, juggle freelance projects, and consume mass quantities of caffeine. She is currently accepting freelance projects and looks forward to hearing from you.

As Vanessa sais her DIY Hamster lost one arm so she decided to
remove both and customze it. A

Thank you very much Vanessa!
A great work!

You can follow Vanessa via twitter on http://twitter.com/vanessa_ramirez and make sure to have had a look at her Homepage on http://www.vanessaramirez.com/

"Sqook" Hamster Custom by Gareth Lancaster

WOW, finally I can show you some pictures of the latest Urban Hamster custom by moopf (Gareth Lancaster) from the United Kingdom.

As he told us this little guy follows the name "Sqook". I really like the colorway and even green and grey seem to be great alternatives to the actual movement of neon colors... :)

Thank you very much Gareth! Looking at this one I´d rather hurry up with exposition plannings of Hamster customs!

Have a look at Gareth´s Homepage at http://www.moopf.com/ and follow moopf via twitter on http://twitter.com/moopf.

Urban Hamster Custom by Daniel Goffin

The last time i met Daniel was about three months ago. So, visiting his last week studio I was suprised to be given the first Urban Hamster made by Daniel Goffin.
Painted in his specific flip-flop-style Daniel added a cyclopse eye in bright orange.
Some of you might have visited Daniel´s solo show at LA’s Toy Art Gallery in june this Year.

If you Want to visit Daniels web pages please have a closer look at: Reduced Figuration. You can also visit the Homepage of Daniel at danielgoffin.com

Thank you very much, Daniel. This piece is simply great!

Urban Hamster custom preview by Gareth Lancaster

I´m very glad for being able to show you a brandnew sneak preview of a custom Urban Hamster made by Gareth Lancaster from Derbyshire, United Kingdom.


















The art of Gareth combines patterns and meanders with shiny colors and metalic accents. Gareth is also known as moopf on twitter.













Following some of his latest customs like the Munny "Alfredo" shown at http://www.cornerhousehayfield.co.uk/ or Custom Dunny – Finkle with bright gold and bronze painting. And don´t forget the fabulous sketchobot custom on the character of Steve Talkowski http://www.sketchbot.blogspot.com/.

You can follow moopf at http://twitter.com/moopf and have a look into his artwork at http://www.moopf.com/. Please also have a look at moopf on http://www.flickr.com/photos/moopf/.

Looking forward for the finish or some inbetweens, thank you very much Gareth for your preview!

If you also want to give it a try please send us your ideas for a customed Urban Hamster or get your hands on your own Cavy at http://www.urbanhamster.bigcartel.com/

Visting Daniel Goffin

Today we want to give you a look into the atelier of Daniel Goffin.
I had the chance to visit Daniel just before his takeoff to San Francisco and Los Angeles.












Daniel lives and works in Kassel, Germany. Born in the northern part of Germany he first studied architecture in Kiel while being fascinated in big cities, technology and its impact on humanity. Daniel studied Manga at Kyoto Seika University, Japan and graduated with a degree in Visual Communication (Illustration and Comic) at the University of Kassel, school of art and design. Still being a Master Student he invited me to his studio in the beautiful Atelier built by former architectural teacher and professor Paul Posenenske.

The work of Daniel focuses on the influence of technology on humanity and it’s immediate surroundings such as design, architecture, urbanization. The background stories are inspired by literature and scientific research on the so called “singularity” – a point in time where human and technological progress fuse into one. The presented characters are from various social backgrounds and all have different problems in their lives. His characters take design cues and citations from varied aspects of pop-culture: Haute-Couture fashion, cartoon character design of the 1930’s, Japanese animation and special effect TV-series.

“Forty years into the future amazing developments in nano-technology have finally given humanity the freedom to choose a body of their own design”.

To me it´s amazing to see the figures of Daniel as he mixes Names, Styles and prominent characteristics of comic-figures, pretaporter-designs and organic metarmorphoses to very outstanding personalities. The characters all have a story within their own world and the colors that Daniel uses are really awesome at all.

Please imagine that Daniel developed a whole serie of eatable handmade sugarlike pills that he describes as metamorphin. I´d really like to taste one but if you stay in the U.S. during his show you should get your hands on one of them!

Daniel already had exhibited in various galleries around the globe including the coming solo show at LA’s Toy Art Gallery from 28th of May till 12th of June this Year. If you´re in L.A. at this time you might really like to visit the show and see the beautiful artwork and maybe the master himself. Recently his work has also been featured and sold at Philips De Pury’s “NOW” Contemporary Art auction.

Daniel also runs a blog about handmade art toys called Reduced Figuration. You can visit the Homepage of Daniel at danielgoffin.com and follow him on twitter at twitter.com/danielgoffin

Thanks for inviting, Daniel, and the very best wishes for your show!

Spankystokes Contest followup

Do you remember the contest on SpankyStokes.com in March? Claudia NG and Daniel Yu both won with their Ideas to custom an UrbanHamster as "Rusty Robot" and a "Croshatch-Panda". Finally both customs are finished.

While the rusty robot was rather easy to do, the crosshatched Panda took some time. I was trying many pencils and ways to fix the paint on the white priming coat.

Secondly it was new to me to create even two characters to a toy which didn´t have eyes till now.

Both Hamsters will be sent to the winners in addition of one DIY-style figure. I hope Daniel and Claudia would also enjoy coloring their own customs which i can hopefully show you very soon.

Thanks go out to JeremyBrautman and John Stokes for supporting and managing the contest.









You can have a look at the original Contest in march 2010 at: http://www.spankystokes.com/2010/03/toy-architects-presents-resin-hamster.htmles.com/2010/03/toy-architects-presents-resin-hamster.html

and at the contest followup in May at:
http://www.spankystokes.com/2010/05/mathias-baxs-resin-hamster-contest.html

Please leave your comments on either my blog or spankystokes.com.









If you also want to try some Hamster-customs please have a look at: http://urbanhamster.bigcartel.com/ or contact me directly.

Custom by Rob Losito (smack6102) Part II

I was wondering how much potential sticks within a small figure. The more I´m wondering how much potential sticks in this gentle guy who says not to ba a customer but trying..



Hamster with light and wheels as we get in our second post about Rob looks great and idividual. Please keep in mind we´re posting these pictures as a sneak peak not as finished customs, to give you a look into the designer´s laboratory.



In late April Rob sent us some photos of the already colored HAMBOT. Rusty and metallic paintings have been added.

















I´m really appreciated by the emails and photos been sent already and I´m curious about what´s coming next.


If you also wanna give it a try with an Urban Hamster please contact us at www.urbanhamster.bigcartel.com.

Thank you for the photos Rob, hope to see some more soon :)

Urban Hamsters at Wondercon 2010

As a special Custom within the Neon-Monster Resin Show-Case 24 Hamsters in special color ways have been traveled to San Francisco. Toyarchitects Germany is proud to have been shown together with some of the biggest independent toy-artists around the world like Arbito USA, Tan-Ki France, Cris Rose UK, Spencer Hibert USA, Bwana Spoons USA, Hello Brute USA, Sergey Safonov Russia, 2PetalRose UK, Monstrehero USA and finally in society with Mitch the Neon-Monster itself, designed by Reuben Rude.


Also have a look at the fantastic articles by Vinyl Pulse at http://tinyurl.com/37j2t8s and Neon Monster at http://tinyurl.com/36264ojm/36264oj. Big thanks to all the participants, artists and indeed to awesome Jeremy Brautman for gathering together and curating the international Show!
You can still get some of these worldwide exclusive and unique artist´s toys at Neon Monster at http://tinyurl.com/y8m4rbe.

Custom by smack6102

Today another awesome Pre-Custom reaches us from Rob Losito, New Jersey , for twitter Fans known as smack6102.
As Rob says He´s no custom-artist jet.. but, these pictures might convince you to becoming an awesome custom.

Rob tried to reverse the Urban Hamster thus looking like a rolling robot. He´ll also add some batteries and light..

Does the robo moves finally? Keep in touch to see
the following progress. I´m trying to get out how the clear screen on the backside is made.

Custom by smallstuffpepe

Here´re some new Custom Urban Hamster IN-PROGRESS-photos done by Pepe from smallstuffstudios (www.smallstuff.ch).

This sems to be a mixture between a nautic skate or ray and a figure you might know from the priced contest of PVC-Skully boom by deliciousdrips.com in which Pepe took home to switzerland the 3rd international price (http://tinyurl.com/yavjsbjsbj). WOW.. Please send us the 2nd step.

Happy Easter!!!

Me and ToyArchitects wish you all Happy Easter,
復活節快樂 , Veselé Velikonoce, 復活祭おめでとう ,
Христос воскресе and Frohe Ostern!

Thank you to all our supporters, customers, fans and friends.

Yours Mathias

Ancient Critter and Squimonk arrive in Hamsterland. Thanks to Pepe from Smallstuffstudio in Switzerland (http://smallstuff.ch/).

The Ancient Critter is a Designer Toy casted in Resin, beeing combined with cress-seeds to plant on its top.

No doubt you will love it just like these guys welcome the little fellas. Keep your eyes on a release to be in April this year.

Best regards back to you :)

Hamsters arrive in San Francisco

Hamsters arrive in San Francisco! As part of Neon Monster´s Resin Show Case 12 grey and 12 pink Toyarchitect´s Urban Hamsters are customized for Wondercon 2010.

Jeremy Brautman (formerly Editor-n-Chief of Toycite) took this beautiful picture as editor and curator for Neon Monster.

The Hamsters will be sold in acrylic capsules with bast-material as a nest for these little guys.

Visit Wondercon and get them!

DIY Custom by Phil Porte

Today one of the first custom photos reaches us from US-artist Phil Porte as part of a work-in-progress. This might get into something very good! We´ll keep in touch and show you more pics soon! Thank You very much Phil, we are excited about what comes next.

Toyarchitects will proudly present Cavy the UrbanHamster as an art-toy special for Neon Monster at Wondercon 2010 together with:

Arbito, Swana Spoons, Cris Rose, Hello Brute, Mars-1, Minstrehero, Reuben Rude, Spencer Hibert, Tan-Ki and 2Petalrose!

Be there and share.

Spanky Stokes Contest

Please don´t forget to sign in at our Hamster-Custom Contest @ http://www.spankystokes.com/
http://tinyurl.com/yfwzvbh

Leave a comment on this site suggesting a customization or colorway. For instance: "green stripes" or "Vancouver Olympics" or "blood-spattered." We will choose our favorite response (from anyone, anywhere in the world) and create it.

We will send the winner the custom hamster AND a DIY hamster, too. The contest ends Sunday, March 7th 2010.

Want to increase your chances of winning? Welcome me to Twitter with a follow and the hashtag #resinhamsters. At the end of the week, 2 random winners who follow me will each receive a DIY hamster. http://twitter.com/Toyarchitects

Ham-Ster Launch

Time for some action! Cavy the Ham-Ster officially launches on monday, 1st of march. Get your hand on these little guys and send us a photo of your custom Ham-Ster! see more at www.urbanhamster.bigcartel.com

DIY-Platform

The Hamster comes in two styles. With or without movable arms. It´s handmade and -casted in white resin. Just send us your ideas and custom-designs. We will post the best on our site. You can get the Ham-Ster NOW at http://www.urbanhamster.bigcartel.com/

Easter-Eggs

Cavy the Ham-Ster is a platform for everything you want to do with it. Custom, collect or redesign. Here´s a shot of an easter-nest with blue ones.. It´s a perfect present for Easter anyway! The Ham-Ster comes limited in colorways or in white resin as a DIY-toy.

Visit our Shop at http://www.urbanhamster.bigcartel.com/