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Category: Mr. Roboto

… better together…

… better together…

I realize that I’ve been using a lot of swears lately to acknowledge the elephant in the room. I can’t help it, I have an Italian mother, and sometimes a good old fashioned expletive is the only way to truly convey the frustration I feel every time I turn on the news. Over the past couple of months it has been quite challenging to watch/listen without a deep sense of dread while exclaiming “are you fucking kidding me?” It seems like, everyday, there is a new offense to [fill in the blank: logic, civility, science, compassion, respect, civil rights… I could go on].

I’m generally a positive person, which is why its been so hard to “check-in” and stay informed about these daily events. Hypocrisy is something that I have great difficulty with, I find it to be a tell-tale indicator of a charlatan or manipulator. Unfortunately, there is a lot of snake oil being sold. With that being said, it is completely reckless and irresponsible to “check-out” right now, because there are entirely too many shenanigans going on.

I’ve been mulling on all of this over the past weeks, trying to figure out what I can do as a artist. How can I use my voice to incite an intellectual renaissance. Okay okay, yeah, that’s a little grandiose for some little cog with a blog. But I feel the need to add something to the collective consciousness.

Protest-Bots

So I’ve sent Protest-Bots out into the world, carrying a simple message of unity. A message to remind everyone that we all work better together. If we are going to truly change the world and make EVERYWHERE great, we need to do it together.

Protest-Bot Better Together
Protest-Bot Better Together
Protest-Bot Better Together

Wake up…
Stay Informed…
Cite your sources…
Call out the lies… and most importantly…
Get Better.

3… 2… 1… Blastoff!

3… 2… 1… Blastoff!

Picture it, Long Beach, 2011. I had decided that I was going to design a papercraft rocket ship to accompany my new Mr. Roboto papercraft. It was much more challenging to create than the Mr. Roboto, as I wanted it to have that classic bulb shape at the top and angular landing gear. After a bit of trial and error, I was able to pull it together pretty well, if I don’t say so myself.


Now it’s been a few years since I put one together, and I was riding high after my successful Kickstarter campaign, so I thought I’d cut out a new rocket using the same material that I used for my Mr. Roboto pledges [they were made with photo paper rather than just plain old cardstock]. I popped the computer on to pull the file up, but much to my surprise, the file was gone!

I proceeded to dig through all of my back up disks and archives. Anywhere I would have put the file, but much to my chagrin, I couldn’t find it. I was a little heartbroken at the thought of having to start the process over from scratch, but then I remembered that I had uploaded a JPG layout to the Costco Photo site [initially I was unhappy with how it printed because I didn’t like the color and was going to go back and adjust it, but never got around to it… it takes about 3 hours to cut one of these suckers out, so I really had to be in the mood to do it]. I logged in, and thankfully it was still there [bless you Costco! #Costco4eva].

I still needed a proper source file [Adobe Illustrator] so that I could make color adjustments as needed, and maybe play with the design a bit [à la Graffiti Pride-bot]. And thus began the process of redrawing the pieces in Illustrator. Granted, being able to scan the print [I couldn’t save the JPG back from Costco Photo, lame, so I had to print it to scan it] was a much more desirable process to having to break apart my first model [which I still have, remarkably] and scan the individual pieces, especially since I had made modifications since then.

So, long story short… I made a rocket… again!

A photo posted by Happi Devil (@happidevil) on If anyone is interested in a FREE PDF template so they can build their own, just shoot me a note [on the instamagrams, twitterzone, facespace]. Or if you don’t have the time, or are just plain lazy, and would like one made for you, we can haggle a price… ;D