Before I had even finallised things with Erin at Vans I had a pretty well formed image in my head of how I wanted these shoes to look. Although the final design is much different from my initial drawings I had a pretty solid idea of what I wanted to achieve throughout.
Things have gone really quiet on Kyozokicks these past couple of months, Too quiet I say. But don’t let this be any indication of the things that are going on behind the scenes! In my personal life my girlfriend and myself uprooted ourselves and can currently be found in Luang Numtha, Northern Laos. We travelling South East Asia before landing in New Zealand this summer (well their Winter actually, summer to us Northern hemisphere folks) Where we have working holiday visas to work for the next year and decide if we want to be New Zealanders full time or not.
So I have been busy with personal stuff, does that mean I have forgotten about my hobby here? Of course not! If anything whilst things have been quiet here KyozoKicks my shoes have gotten the biggest boost I could ever imagine – I will have upto 5 pairs displayed in Vans stores across the US to promote custom culture. That means Vans got in contact with me to paint some shoes – Mind Blown.
We got Hatapon, Yaripon, Tatepon and even a Kabipon! In fact I got the chance to do a small army of Patapon. This was not a private commission but a gift for my Girlfriends birthday, she’s seen plenty of shoes come and go in this home so I thought it was time for a pair of her very own. Continue reading…
And now for something a little different. I was lucky enough to be given the opportunity to both design and create the Oddworld shoes for a guy called Mike in Canada. I really enjoyed the whole process because I was able to work with Mike to come up with something he wanted, two minds coming together to create something completely new and fresh.
I use video games as my inspiration, is there a finer more deserving game than Okami? Continue reading…
A little treat this time around, not one but two pairs of shoes! (hence a slight delay between pairs) I have been hesitant to base shoes around what I consider quite mainstream/well known games until now. Ive seen poor Links little face plastered on everything from socks to lunch boxes. I saw an oppurtunity to do something I personally had not seen before, yet is quite (albeit it in a terriblely geeky way) iconic – the shields of Zelda. Why more than 1 pair? I couldn’t decide one design!
Thought I would let you know how the Grim Fandango shoes are coming along. I would say I’m about 6-7 Hours in at the moment? If it all goes to plan I’ll have the finished pair this time next week.
If you would like to discuss or have any questions on any aspect of these shoes please contact me at Tonks@Kyozokicks.com
Thanks Guys.
These shoes took a little longer to arrive then normal due to the long weekend we have had in the UK recently. Ive only had time to unpack the shoes and mess around with some sketches I made up whilst waiting for them to arrive.
This pair will eventually end up as a UK 10, Grim Fandango Purple Converse High-Top. I spent an age looking at Grim Fandango artwork, both official and fan made (DeviantArt seems to be a never ending source of inspiration) There were so many great pictures but I stumbled across a one of Manny Calavera that I kept coming back to, how could I use the picture as an inspiration but not blatantly rip it off?
After a couple hours of work which yielded absolutely nothing it hit me. KyozoKicks is not a website about my work and my work alone. It’s a place for all artists to show and talk about their work, hobby or passion. All these artist Ive been chatting to have served as such an inspiration, so supportive and have helped me out a ton. A high point for me would be to actually create things with these people, so rather than taking parts from the Grim Fandango piece I so admired I just asked the artist how she would feel about me using her design in my work, a collaboration. There was no convincing to be done, like so many others she immediately agreed to help me, May I take this moment to say thank you!
I’ll be posting about the piece and the artist in the next couple of days, And I’ll be starting the shoe this evening with the first update tomorrow (I don’t see the shoe taking longer than a week)
The shoes are for sale, if your interested just send me an email. If I don’t manage to work anything out then they will be on eBay.
For the phoenix wright piece I took a guess at what size shoe to use. Luckily there appears to be some size 9′s out there. But I thought if I was buying another pair of shoes I would let you decide the size this time round. I can let you know that they will be purple hi-top converse. For those across the pond add 0.5 to the UK sizes to get the US size. UK 7.0 becomes US 7.5 and so on.
The poll will run here on KyozoKicks for a couple of days, then I’ll order the shoes in and can start at the beginning of next week. Hopefully I can make almost daily updates on those shoes and you can follow the progression from store bought to custom.
I welcome any questions you have as always.
KyozoKicks is a website concentrating on my work as a customiser. Not only that, it will also serve as a platform to showcase everyones handmade video game inspired artwork.
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